came for him, with a censor's mark
on it. Often after reading the letter, Billy would say: "That girl has
more horse sense than the rest of the whole female race--she don't slop
over worth a cent." He invariably spoke of her as "my Mexican girl," and
often asked my opinion about white men intermarrying with that mongrel
race. Sometimes he said that his mother would go crazy if he married a
Mexican, his father would disown him, and his brother Henry--well, Billy
did not like to think just what revenge Henry would take. Billy's father
was manager of an Eastern road, and his brother was assistant to the
first vice-president, and Billy looked up to the latter as a great man
and a sage. He himself was in the West for practical experience in the
machinery department, and to get rid of a slight tendency to asthma. He
could have gone East any time and "been somebody" on the road under his
father.

Finally, Billy missed a week in writing. At once there was a cog gone
from the answering wheel to match. Billy shortened his letters; the
answers were shortened. Then he quit writing, and his Thursday letter
ceased to come. He had thought the matter all over, and decided, no
doubt, that he was doing what was best--both for himself and the girl;
that his family's high ideas should not be outraged by a Mexican
marriage. He had put a piece of flesh-colored court-plaster over his
wound, not healed it.

Early in the winter the old Don wrote, urging us to come down and hunt
antelope, but Billy declined to go--said that the road needed him, and
that Josephine might come home from school and this would make them both
uncomfortable. But Henry, his older brother, was visiting him, and he
suggested that I take Henry; he would enjoy the hunt, and it would help
him drown his sorrow over the loss of his aristocratic young wife, who
had died a year or two before. So Henry went with me, and we hunted
antelope until we tired of the slaughter. Then the old Don planned a
deer-hunting trip in the mountains, but I had to go back to work, and
left Henry and the old Don to take the trip without me. While they were
in the mountains, Josephine came home, and Henry Howell's stay
lengthened out to a month. But I did not know until long afterward that
the two had met.

Billy was pretty quiet all winter, worked hard and went out but
little--he was thinking about something. One day I came home and found
him writing a letter. "What now, Billy?" I asked.

"Wri