She withdrew, hastening again, sleek haired, round figured, modest in her shabby gown. I proceeded to the outfit with a new sense of disease. If she--if Mrs. Montoyo really had yielded, if she were out of the game--but she never had been in it; not to me. And still I conned the matter over and over, vainly convincing myself that the situation had cleared. Notwithstanding all my effort, I somehow felt that an incentive had vanished, leaving a gap. The affair now had simmered down to plain temper and tit for tat. I championed nothing, except myself. Why, with her submissive, in a fracas I might be working hurt to her, beyond the harm to him. But she be hanged, as to that phase of it. I had been led on so far that there was no solution save as Daniel turned aside. Heaven knows that the matter would have been sordid enough had it focused upon a gambler's wife; and here it looked only prosaic. Thus viewing it I fought an odd disappointment in myself, coupled with a keener disappointment in her. "You talked to Hyrum, I see," Jenks commented. "I did." "'Bout Dan'l, mebbe?" "I wanted to make plain that the business is none of my seeking. Hyrum is wagon master." "Didn't get any satisfaction, I'll bet." "No. On the contrary." "I could have told you you'd be wastin' powder." "At any rate," I informed, "Mrs. Montoyo is entirely out of the matter. She never was in it except as she was entitled to protection, but now she requires no further notice." "How so?" "That is her wish. She sent me word by Rachael." "She did? Wall?" He eyed me. "You swaller that?" "Willingly." And I swallowed my bitterness also. "Means to marry him, does she?" "Rachael did not say as to that. Rather, she gave me to understand that a way would be found to release Mrs. Montoyo from Benton connections, but that no woman in Utah is obliged to marry. Is that true?" "Um-m." Jenks rubbed his beard. "Wall, they do say Brigham Young is ag'in promisc'yus swappin', and things got to be done straight, 'cordin' to the faith. But an unjined female in the church is a powerful lonely critter. Sticks out like a sore thumb. They read the Bible at her plenty. Um-m," mused he. "I don't put much stock in that yarn you bring me. There's a nigger in the wood-pile, but he ain't black. What you goin' to do about it?" "Nothing. It's not my concern. Now if Daniel will mind his affairs I'll continue to mind mine." "Wall, Zion's a long way off yet," quoth friend Jenks. "I don't look to see you or she get there--nor Dan'l either." He being stubborn, I let him have the last word; did not seek to develop his views. But his contentious harping shadowed like an omen. CHAPTER XVI I DO THE DEED