“He calk’lates,” said Fletcher, “to mount his wife--the peaked one--on the horse and take her along till one or other of ’em drops.” “Take your wife on that horse?” exclaimed Moreau. “Why, it can’t go two miles.” “Well, maybe it can’t,” returned the man with an immovable face. There was a pause. Moreau was conscious that the woman was standing behind him in the doorway. He could hear her breathing. “Come on, Lucy,” said the husband. “We got to move on sometime.” Here the second wife spoke up: “I don’t see how the horse is goin’ to get Lucy twelve miles, and this man says the first place we can stop is twelve miles farther along.” “Don’t you begin with your everlasting objections,” said the husband, furiously. “Get the horse.” The woman evidently knew the time had passed for trifling and turned away toward the brush shed. Fletcher followed her with a grin. The situation appealed to his sense of humor, and he was curious as to the outcome. Moreau and the emigrant were left facing each other, with the first wife in the doorway. “Your wife’s not able to go on,” said the miner--his manner becoming suddenly authoritative; “no more than your horse is.” “Maybe not,” said the other, “but they’re both goin’ to try.” “But can’t you see the horse can’t carry her? She certainly can’t walk into Hangtown, or even to Porter’s Ranch.” “No, I can’t see. And how’s it come to be your business--what they can do or what they can’t?” [Illustration: “YOUR WIFE’S NOT ABLE TO GO ON, NO MORE THAN YOUR HORSE IS”] “It’s any one’s business to prevent a woman from being half killed.” “Since you seem to think so much about her, why don’t you keep her here yourself?” The man spoke with a savage sneer, his eyes full of steely defiance. Before he had realized the full import of his words, burning with rage against the brutal tyrant to whom the wife was of no more moment than the horse, Moreau answered: “I will--let her stay!” There was a moment’s pause. The emigrant’s face, dark with rage, was suddenly lightened by a curiously alert expression of intelligence. He looked at the woman in the background and then at the miner. “I’m not giving anything away just now,” he answered. “When she’s well she’s of use. But I’ll swap her for your two horses.” In the heat of his indignation and disgust Moreau turned and looked at the woman. She was leaning against the door frame, chalk-white, and staring at him. She made no sound, but her dog-like eyes seemed to speak for his mercy more eloquently than her tongue ever could. “All right,” he said quietly. “It’s a bargain.” “Done,” said the emigrant. “You’ll find her a good worker when she pulls herself together. You stay on here, Lucy. Bessie,” he sang out, “bring around them horses.”