Terror seized her, keen and clarifying terror. She screamed, again and again, called aloud the only name that came to her mind. "_Sim_!" she cried aloud again and again--"_Sim_! _Sim_!" [1] Wheat clocks: Phosphorus bombs left in wheat or haystacks and fired by the sun. [2] Clothes: Argot terms for phosphorus, cyanide and other chemicals used in destruction of property or life. CHAPTER XIV THE MAN TRAIL "What do you think of him, Wid?" asked Sim Gage after a time, when they were well on their way homeward in the late afternoon. "Looks like a good doctor, all right," replied Wid. "Clean-cut and strictly on to his game. I reckon he got plenty practice in the war. I'm sorry neither of us was young enough to git into that war. Your leg hurt much now?" "Say yes!" replied Sim. "You know, I reckon we didn't get there any too soon with that leg. Fine lot of us, up to my house, huh? Me laid up, and her can't see a wink on earth." "And yet you said I couldn't come over and see her. So there you are, both alone." "Well, it's this way, Wid, and you know it," insisted his friend. "The girl is right strange there yet--it's a plumb hard thing to figure out. We got to get her gentled down some. There's been a hell of a misunderstanding all around, Wid, we got to admit that. And we're all to blame for it." "Well, she's to blame too, ain't she?" "No, she _ain't_! I won't let no man say that. She's just done the best she knew how. Women sometimes don't know which way to jump." "She didn't make none too good a jump out here," commented his friend. "Has she ever told you anything about herself yet?" "Not to speak of none, no. She sets and cries a good deal. Says she's broke and blind and all alone. She's got one friend back home--girl she used to room with, but she's going to get married, and so she, this lady, Miss Warren, comes out here plumb desperate, not knowing what kind of a feller I am, or what kind of a place this is--which is both a damn shame, Wid, and you know it. I say I'm up against it right now." "The real question, Sim, is what are folks going to say? There's people in this valley that ain't a-going to stand it for you and that girl to live there unless you're married. You know that." "Of course I know that. But do you suppose I'd marry that girl even if she was willing? No, sir, I wouldn't--not a-tall. It wouldn't be right." "Now listen, Sim. Leave it to me. I'd say that if you ever do want to get married, Sim--and you got to if she stays here--why, here's the one and only chancet of your whole life. Of course, if the girl wasn't blind, she wouldn't never marry you. I don't believe any woman would, real. The way she is, and can't see, maybe she will, after a while, like, when she's gentled down, as you say. It looks like a act of Providence to me." "Well," said Sim, pondering, "I hadn't just thought of it that way. Do you believe in them things--acts of Providence?"