The twilight had deepened. Below the camp ran a deep ravine, at the base of which a little brook sang merrily. Clumps of cottonwood, badly crippled by wayfarers’ axes, struggled for existence here and there. In her haste to reach the covert of the bushes unobserved, Jean ran diagonally over a settlement of prairie dogs, near which the campers had inadvertently pitched their tents. The Lilliputian municipality was evidently well disciplined, for at the sound of approaching footsteps the same sharp, staccato bark, of mingled warning and authority, that had for an instant startled the foremost team at camping-time, was heard, and every little rodent dropped instantly out of sight. Profound silence fell at once upon the little city, which had before been a bedlam of voices. Jean reached the foot of the ravine and stopped to listen, her heart beating hard. “I am sure Sally made an appointment to meet somebody in this ravine to-night,” she said to herself, “and I’m just as sure she’ll need a friend. Women are such fools where men are concerned.” She heard the sound of human voices, and pressed her hand hard over her heart. “I know you think you’re safe from arrest,” said a voice she knew to be Sally O’Dowd’s. “As your wife, I may not be able to give legal testimony that will send you to the gallows; but you’re not beyond the pale of lynch law.” A mocking laugh was the only audible response. “I haven’t even told the Squire,” resumed the woman’s voice. “Nobody knows about it but you and me and the unseen messengers of God.” Again that mocking, brutal laugh, followed by oaths, with words of commingled anger and exultation. Jean held her breath. “S’posing you could testify,—which you can’t, for that divorce is tied up on appeal,— my oath would be as binding as yours, Mrs. O’Dowd. And I would swear to God that it was you did the deed. It would be easy enough to make any court believe my story, for it was common talk that you rebelled all the time against such a litter of babies.” “O God, have mercy!” “Nobody saw me kill the brat but you, Sally. It would have been bad enough if the young ones had come one at a time, being only a year apart; but when it came to two pairs of twins inside o’ thirteen months, it was time to call a halt.” “Are you never to have any mercy on me, Sam?” “Come back to me as my lawful wife, and you’ll see. I’ll be easy enough to get along with if you’ll treat me right.” The wife was struck dumb with astonishment. “Come back to me, darling!” The mocking tone gave way to one of cooing tenderness. Jean saw his dusky figure through the shadows. “You see you’re in my power, Sally. Better make a virtue of necessity. You can coax the Squire to let me join his train. I will even be a teamster, if necessary, for your sake and the children’s.”