“Yes, sir-ee,” said the homesteader, “western Kansas is a hell of a place. It ain't worth the powder it would take to blow it to blazes. I wish I'd never seen it. When I made up my mind to come West, my wife sort of persuaded me to stop there. She didn't want to go any farther. Sort of wanted to keep somewhere near the folks in old Vermont. Then she was taken sick; she was ailing before we started West. Then our two boys up and died, and now the young un's down. It's mighty hard on her ma. I got a brother in Sunken River Valley, and some of the folks from back East moved out there while we were in Kansas. My wife will be mighty well satisfied when she gets among her own sort again. Women get lonely so darn easy.” They could hear the mother singing softly to the sick child. The Bad Man jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “What's the matter?” “Fever,” said the other laconically. “So you are from Vermont?” “Yes. Wish I was there now, you bet. It's God's own country.” “What part of the state do you come from?” “Central part. Barrettsville.” The Bad Man started violently, but recovered himself on the instant. “I suppose you are pretty well acquainted there?” he asked, with studied indifference. “I ought to be. Lived there most of my life.” “That's singular. I met a fellow from Vermont just the other day, from Barrettsville, too.” “Lots of our folks have come West. They're scattered all over out here. Some of 'em are doing mighty well, too.” “You didn't happen to know the Thomases, did you?”—with elaborate carelessness. “Which?” “I guess the man I am asking about had something to do with the mills. There are mills there, ain't there?” “Well, I declare! That's funny!” and the homesteader laughed a mirthless cackle. “Should say I did know the Thomases. My wife was a Thomas—old French Thomas' daughter. But”—lowering his voice—“the old man's been dead five years come next May.” The Bad Man turned his face away. So that was the woman he had loved! There was silence again, undisturbed save for the clatter of the horses' hoofs and the rattle of the wagon. The child was asleep, and its mother no longer sang to it. The homesteader thrust aside the flaps and glanced in. The woman, with the child in her arms, was seated on a mattress at the back of the wagon, looking out at the long dusty streak that wound over the range and lost itself in the gray distance of the plain. Craning his neck the Bad Man saw her, and then as her husband dropped the flaps, he pulled up his horse and drew in behind the wagon. The woman raised her eyes. “Is the little one asleep?” he asked, his voice shaking with an awkward tenderness. “Yes. She's just pining away for green fields and trees.”