Texas was a big country and far away. The paper man from Beebee had said that. But he had said, too, that he sent his paper to Jed. If so, he must know where he was living. In the midst of the desert of her despair there began to rise a tiny wellspring of hope. She would write to Jed. As it happened, Buck Drumley was going to Beebee next day. Buck rented on shares the west bottom from Mrs. Chunn and worked it in cotton. No faintest accent of intelligence disturbed the blur of his vacant features, and he got along very comfortably without a chin. But Mellie could depend upon the loyalty of this lank, tow-headed product of the bayous even if she could not upon his wisdom. Her letter to the editor made verbal explanations unnecessary. Buck was delighted to oblige her, and he swore himself to secrecy with an air of conspiracy so patent that the contorted winks he attempted just before setting out threatened to disclose everything to Mrs. Chunn. “What in time’s ailin’ with yo’, Buck Drumley?” demanded the widow. Buck’s jaw fell. It was Mellie who suggested neuralgia. “Tha’s hit, Miz Chunn, this yere neuralgatism. Hit keeps a-devilin’ around me wuss’n toothache.” He had to take half a cup full of vile tasting “yarb” medicine, but he got away at last with his secret still undivulged. Fifty yards away he slewed round in his seat to call back with a fatuous smile, “I’ll sho’ly be back by evenin’, Miss Mellie—three o’clock at the furdest.” Fortunately Mrs. Chunn had returned to her soapmaking at the back door. Mellie took the precaution to meet her messenger down the road lest he should blow up prematurely with his information in the presence of her stepmother. Buck fished, with much difficulty, a slip of paper and a quarter from the pocket of his jeans. The girl selected them from a promiscuous collection of buttons, strings, peppermints and chewing tobacco. “This yere’s the place where Jed lives, leastways he useter,” pointing to the address on the slip—“’n it didn’t cost but six bits to put the piece in the paper. Hit’s done fixed to go ever week for a month.” When Buck next went to town he carried with him a letter addressed to Jed Wilson, 99 Ranch, What Cheer, Texas. A copy of the _Beebee Bee_ came back in his pocket. Mellie hid the paper hurriedly, and waited to look at it till she could get away to the shadows of the hickory lead at the edge of the bayou. Among the advertisements she found what she was seeking. A chance copy of a New York paper, flung from a train window by a traveling man, had given her a model for her first appearance in type. “If this should meet the eye of Jed he will know that the girl who hunted ’possums with him six years ago is in great need.”