"And all the time I thought I was stronger than you was and abler to get on and here you are married and happy and me back in the old room! But don't worry none about me--I'll get another job. The most is I miss you so much and you haven't wrote me a word I suppose. When a girl gets married all the girls is crazy to hear all about her and her husband and I haven't heard a word from you. "Respectfully your friend, "Annie Squires." The two men sat for a time. Wid reached in his pocket for his pipe. "By God! she come out here maybe to get married, on the level and honest, after a while!" said he. "She'll have to, now!" "That's what I was thinking, Wid," said Sim Gage. "It's--it's chivalerous. We got to find her, now." CHAPTER XV THE SPECIES "Well, pretty one, you got lonesome here all by yourself? So you holler for 'Sim! Sim!'" Big Aleck's voice was close to her as she sat in the tent. Mary Warren felt about her, back of her on the blankets, stealthily seeking some weapon of defense. She paused. Under her fingers was something which felt like leather. She made no sudden movement, but temporized. "How could I help it?" she asked. Always her hand was feeling behind her on the blankets. Yes, there was a holster. It felt familiar--it might be Sim Gage's gun, taken from her at the house. She waited. "Well, that's too bad you can't see," said Aleck. "You can't see what a fine feller I'd make for you! I'm chief. I'm a big man." "You're a big coward," said Mary Warren calmly. "What's a blind woman to you? Why don't you let me go?" "Well, even a blind woman can tell what she's heard," said he thoughtfully. "And then," his coarse voice undertaking a softness foreign to it, "I'm just as tired as Sim Gage was of keeping house alone. I'm a better man than Sim Gage. I'm making plenty of money." She made no reply, leaned back upon the blanket roll. "Now, then, gal, listen. I like you. You're handsome--the handsomest gal ever come in this valley. A pretty girl as you shouldn't stay single, and as good a man as me neither. I work on my ranch, but I'm a big man, miss. I'm a thinker, you can see that. I'm a leader of the laboring men. I begun with nothing; and look at me!" "Well, look at you!" She taunted him. "What would you have been if you hadn't come to America? You'd be shoveling dirt over there at half a dollar a day, or else you'd be dead. You think this is Russia? You call this Germany?" Pretending to rest her weight on her arm back of her, she felt the touch of leather, felt the stock of the pistol in the holster. Her tormentor went on. "We don't need no army--we free men can fight the way we are. We'll spoil ten million feet of timber in here before we're through."