“Stop! You are a fool--you are a damned hotheaded simpleton, Nelson Floyd. Listen to me.” Pole caught the revolver and held on to the barrel of it while the young merchant clutched the butt. “Listen to me, I say. Are you goin' back on a helpless little woman? After you have had yore fun, an' the pore little trick gets married to a man who believes in her, an' goes away off an' is on a fair road to happiness, are you, I say, a-goin' to publicly advertise her shame, an', no doubt, bust up a contented home?” “Great God, Pole!” exclaimed Floyd, as he sank onto the edge of Peters's bed, “do you think, if I give Wade satisfaction it will--” “Will it? It will be in every paper from Maine to Californy. Meddlesome devils will mark the articles an' mail 'em to the gal's husband. A lot o' folks did the'r level best to bust up the match, anyway, by talkin' to him about you an' others.” Nelson Floyd stared at the floor and slowly nodded his head. “I'm caught in a more degrading trap than the one Wade set for me,” he declared, bitterly. “My acts have branded me as a coward and left me without power to vindicate myself. That's one of the ways Providence has of punishing a poor devil. A man may have a good impulse, but can't act upon it owing to the restrictions laid on him by his very sins.” Pole looked down into the store. “Nevermind,” he said, gloomily. “Wade's gone.” Floyd dropped the revolver into the drawer of the bureau, and went back to his desk. “It's only a question of time, Pole,” he said. “He suspects me now, but is not sure. It won't be long before the full story will reach him, and then we'll have to meet. As far as I am concerned, I'd rather have had it over with. I've swallowed a bitter pill this mornin', Pole.” “Well, it wasn't a lead one.” Baker's habitual sense of humor was rising to the surface. “Most any sort o' physic's better'n cold metal shoved into the system through its own hole.” There was a step in the store. Pole looked down again. “It's old Mayhew,” he said. “I'm powerful glad he was late this mornin', Nelson. The old codger would have seed through that talk.” “Yes, he would have seen through it,” answered Floyd, despondently, as he opened a big ledger and bent over it. Mayhew trudged towards them, his heavy cane knocking against the long dry-goods counter. “I'll have the law on that fellow,” he growled, as he hung his stick on its accustomed nail behind the stove. “No rampageous dare-devil like that can stand right in my front-door and shoot for mere amusement at the county court-house. This isn't a fort yet, and the war is over, thank the Lord.” Pole glanced at Floyd. “Oh, he's jest a little hilarious this mornin', Mr. Mayhew,” he said. “He must 'a' met a mountain whiskey wagon on his way to town. Anyways, you needn't complain; he come in here jest now an' paid off his account in full.” “What? paid off--Is that so, Nelson?” Floyd nodded, and then bent more closely over the ledger. “Yes, he paid up to date.”