“What did you come riding over here for, then? What did you take all this risk for? Why did you rush over here to share my disgrace--for YOU are as much mixed up with this now as I am--if you didn't calculate to share EVERYTHING ELSE with me? What did you come here for, then, if not for ME?” “What did I come here for?” said Mrs. Baker, with every drop of red blood gone from her cheek and trembling lip. “What--did--I--come here for? Well!--I came here for JOHN BAKER'S sake! John Baker, who stood between you and death at Burnt Ridge, as I stand between you and damnation at Laurel Run, Mr. Green! Yes, John Baker, lying under half of Burnt Ridge, but more to me this day than any living man crawling over it--in--in”--oh, fatal climax!--“in a month o' Sundays! What did I come here for? I came here as John Baker's livin' wife to carry on dead John Baker's work. Yes, dirty work this time, may be, Mr. Green! but his work and for HIM only--precious! That's what I came here for; that's what I LIVE for; that's what I'm waiting for--to be up to HIM and his work always! That's me--Betsy Baker!” She walked up and down rapidly, tying her chip hat under her chin again. Then she stopped, and taking her chamois purse from her pocket, laid it sharply on the desk. “Stanton Green, don't be a fool! Rise up out of this, and be a man again. Take enough out o' that bag to pay what you owe Gov'ment, send in your resignation, and keep the rest to start you in an honest life elsewhere. But light out o' Hickory Hill afore this time to-morrow.” She pulled her mantle from the wall and opened the door. “You are going?” he said bitterly. “Yes.” Either she could not hold seriousness long in her capricious little fancy, or, with feminine tact, she sought to make the parting less difficult for him, for she broke into a dazzling smile. “Yes, I'm goin' to run Blue Lightning agin Charley and that way bag back to Laurel Run, and break the record.” ***** It is said that she did! Perhaps owing to the fact that the grade of the return journey to Laurel Run was in her favor, and that she could avoid the long, circuitous ascent to the summit taken by the stage, or that, owing to the extraordinary difficulties in the carriage of the way bag,--which had to be twice rescued from under the wheels of the stage,--she entered the Laurel Run post-office as the coach leaders came trotting up the hill. Mr. Home was already on the platform. “You'll have to ballast your next way bag, boss,” said Charley, gravely, as it escaped his clutches once more in the dust of the road, “or you'll have to make a new contract with the company. We've lost ten minutes in five miles over that bucking thing.”