But there fell a shadow on his face then. I asked him if Miss Pinkerton was still in Baker City. I declare, he blushed at the very mention of her name. I could see the red tinge the brown of his cheeks. I often wondered, when Apache Kid spoke, just what he was really thinking. He did not always say what he thought, or believe what he said. He had a way, too, of giving turns to his phrases that might have given him a name for a hardness that was not really his. "O," he said, "she heard that you were ill and wanted to come and look after you, but you were babbling not just of green fields, exactly—you were babbling of Hell—and I can never get over a foolish idea that early in youth was pumped into me that women do not know about Hell and should not know. I thought it advisable to prevent her coming to see you—and hear you." I felt my own cheeks tingle to think that I had been raving such ravings as he hinted at. "And did Mrs. Laughlin——" I began. But Mrs. Laughlin herself replied, coming quietly into the room. "Yes, yes," she said, and laughed. "Mrs. Laughlin heerd it all," and then she turned on Apache Kid. "And Mrs. Laughlin was none the worse o’ hearing it, Apache Kid," she said, "not because she ’s old, but because in gettin’ up in years she ’s learnt how to weigh things and know the good from the bad, even though the good does look bad. Oh! I know what you are thinking right now," she interrupted herself. "You ’re thinkin’ you might remark I don’t have no call to talk ’cause I heerd you talkin’ just now without you knowin’——" "Madam——" began Apache Kid, in a courteous voice, but she would not permit him to speak. "I was coming along in my stocking soles, in case the lad was sleeping," and she plucked up her dress to disclose her stockinged feet, "and I heerd by accident what you was talkin’. And I ’m going to tell you, Mr. Apache Kid, that you ’re a deal better a man than you pretend." It was, to me, an unlooked-for comment, for her manner was almost belligerent. "You had it pumped into you, you says! O! An old woman like me understands men well. It’s you sarcastic fellows, you would-be sarcastic fellows, that have the kind, good hearts. And you talk that way to kind of protect them." I saw Apache Kid knitting his brows; but, as for me, I do not know enough of human nature to profess to understand all that this wise woman spoke. "Take you care, Apache Kid," she said, and shook her finger at him, and even on her finger, as I noticed, there were freckles, and on the back of her hand. "Take you care that you don’t get to delude yourself into hardness, same as you delude men into thinking you a dangerous sort o’ fellow—a kind of enigma man." "I am afraid I don’t follow you," said Apache Kid. "But you do follow me," she said. "All you want to do is to let yourself go—let that bit of yourself go and have its way—that bit that you always make the other half of you sit and jeer at!"