attempt serious thought I'm dazed. I don't think. I don't care
any more. I don't pray!...Think of that, my friend! But in spite

of my numb feeling I believe I'll rise out of all this dark agony
a better woman, with greater love of man and God. I'm on the rack

now; I'm senseless to all but pain, and growing dead to that.
Sooner or later I shall rise out of this stupor. I'm waiting the

hour."
"It'll soon come, Jane," replied Lassiter, soberly. "Then I'm

afraid for you. Years are terrible things, an' for years you've
been bound. Habit of years is strong as life itself. Somehow,

though, I believe as you--that you'll come out of it all a finer
woman. I'm waitin', too. An' I'm wonderin'--I reckon, Jane, that

marriage between us is out of all human reason?"
"Lassiter!...My dear friend!...It's impossible for us to marry!"

"Why--as Fay says?" inquired Lassiter, with gentle persistence.
"Why! I never thought why. But it's not possible. I am Jane,

daughter of Withersteen. My father would rise out of his grave.
I'm of Mormon birth. I'm being broken. But I'm still a Mormon

woman. And you--you are Lassiter!"
"Mebbe I'm not so much Lassiter as I used to be."

"What was it you said? Habit of years is strong as life itself!
You can't change the one habit--the purpose of your life. For you

still pack those black guns! You still nurse your passion for
blood."

A smile, like a shadow, flickered across his face.
"No."

"Lassiter, I lied to you. But I beg of you--don't you lie to me.
I've great respect for you. I believe you're softened toward

most, perhaps all, my people except--But when I speak of your
purpose, your hate, your guns, I have only him in mind. I don't

believe you've changed."
For answer he unbuckled the heavy cartridge-belt, and laid it

with the heavy, swing gun-sheaths in her lap.
"Lassiter!" Jane whispered, as she gazed from him to the black,

cold guns. Without them he appeared shorn of strength,
defenseless, a smaller man. Was she Delilah? Swiftly, conscious

of only one motive--refusal to see this man called craven by his
enemies--she rose, and with blundering fingers buckled the belt

round his waist where it belonged.
"Lassiter, I am a coward."

"Come with me out of Utah--where I can put away my guns an' be a
man," he said. "I reckon I'll prove it to you then! Come! You've

got Black Star back, an' Night an' Bells. Let's take the racers
an' little Fay, en' race out of Utah. The hosses an' the child

are all you have left. Come!"
"No, no, Lassiter. I'll never leave Utah. What would I do in the

world with my broken fortunes and my broken heart? Ill never
leave these purple slopes I love so well."

"I reckon I ought to've knowed that. Presently you'll be livin'
down here in a hovel, en' presently Jane Withersteen will be a

memory. I only wanted to have a chance to show you how a man--any
man--can be better 'n he was. If we left Utah I could prove--I

reckon I could prove this thing you call love. It's strange, an'
hell an' heaven at once, Jane Withersteen. 'Pears to me that

you've thrown away your big heart on love--love of religion an'
duty an' churchmen, an' riders an' poor families an' poor

children! Yet you can't see what love is--how it changes a
person!...Listen, an' in tellin' you Milly Erne's story I'll show

you how love changed her.
"Milly an' me was children when our family moved from Missouri to

Texas, an' we growed up in Texas ways same as if we'd been born
there. We had been poor, an' there we prospered. In time the

little village where we went became a town, an' strangers an' new
families kept movin' in. Milly was the belle them days. I can see

her now, a little girl no bigger 'n a bird, an' as pretty. She
had the finest eyes, dark blue-black when she was excited, an'

beautiful all the time. You remember Milly's eyes! An' she had
light-brown hair with streaks of gold, an' a mouth that every

feller wanted to kiss.
"An' about the time Milly was the prettiest an' the sweetest,

along came a young minister who began to ride some of a race with
the other fellers for Milly. An' he won. Milly had always been

strong on religion, an' when she met Frank Erne she went in heart
an' soul for the salvation of souls. Fact was, Milly, through

study of the Bible an' attendin' church an' revivals, went a
little out of her head. It didn't worry the old folks none, an'

the only worry to me was Milly's everlastin' prayin' an' workin'
to save my soul. She never converted me, but we was the best of

comrades, an' I reckon no brother an' sister ever loved each
other better. Well, Frank Erne an me hit up a great friendship.

He was a strappin' feller, good to look at, an' had the most
pleasin' ways. His religion never bothered me, for he could hunt

an' fish an' ride an' be a good feller. After buffalo once, he
come pretty near to savin' my life. We got to be thick as

brothers, an' he was the only man I ever seen who I thought was
good enough for Milly. An' the day they were married I got drunk

for the only time in my life.
"Soon after that I left home--it seems Milly was the only one who

could keep me home--an' I went to the bad, as to prosperin' I saw
some pretty hard life in the Pan Handle, an' then I went North.

In them days Kansas an' Nebraska was as bad, come to think of it,
as these days right here on the border of Utah. I got to be

pretty handy with guns. An' there wasn't many riders as could
beat me ridin'. An' I can say all modest-like that I never seen

the white man who could track a hoss or a steer or a man with me.
Afore I knowed it two years slipped by, an' all at once I got

homesick, en' purled a bridle south.
"Things at home had changed. I never got over that homecomin'.

Mother was dead an' in her grave. Father was a silent, broken
man, killed already on his feet. Frank Erne was a ghost of his

old self, through with workin', through with preachin', almost
through with livin', an' Milly was gone!...It was a long time

before I got the story. Father had no mind left, an' Frank Erne
was afraid to talk. So I had to pick up whet 'd happened from

different people.
"It 'pears that soon after I left home another preacher come to

the little town. An' he an' Frank become rivals. This feller was
different from Frank. He preached some other kind of religion,

and he was quick an' passionate, where Frank was slow an' mild.
He went after people, women specially. In looks he couldn't

compare to Frank Erne, but he had power over women. He had a
voice, an' he talked an' talked an' preached an' preached. Milly

fell under his influence.. She became mightily interested in his
religion. Frank had patience with her, as was his way, an' let

her be as interested as she liked. All religions were devoted to
one God, he said, an' it wouldn't hurt Milly none to study a

different point of view. So the new preacher often called on
Milly, an' sometimes in Frank's absence. Frank was a cattle-man

between Sundays.
"Along about this time an incident come off that I couldn't get

much light on. A stranger come to town, an' was seen with the
preacher. This stranger was a big man with an eye like blue ice,

an' a beard of gold. He had money, an' he 'peered a man of
mystery, an' the town went to buzzin' when he disappeared about

the same time as a young woman known to be mightily interested in
the new preacher's religion. Then, presently, along comes a man

from somewheres in Illinois, en' he up an' spots this preacher as
a famous Mormon proselyter. That riled Frank Erne as nothin' ever

before, an' from rivals they come to be bitter enemies. An' it
ended in Frank goin' to the meetin'-house where Milly was

listenin', en' before her en' everybody else he called that
preacher--called him, well, almost as hard as Venters called Tull

here sometime back. An' Frank followed up that call with a
hosswhippin', en' he drove the proselyter out of town.

"People noticed, so 'twas said, that Milly's sweet disposition
changed. Some said it was because she would soon become a mother,

en' others said she was pinin' after the new religion. An' there
was women who said right out that she was pinin' after the

Mormon. Anyway, one mornin' Frank rode in from one of his trips,
to find Milly gone. He had no real near neighbors--livin' a

little out of town--but those who was nearest said a wagon had
gone by in the night, an' they though it stopped at her door.

Well, tracks always tell, an' there was the wagon tracks an' hoss
tracks an' man tracks. The news spread like wildfire that Milly

had run off from her husband. Everybody but Frank believed it an'
wasn't slow in tellin' why she run off. Mother had always hated

that strange streak of Milly's, takin' up with the new religion
as she had, an' she believed Milly ran off with the Mormon. That

hastened mother's death, an' she died unforgivin'. Father wasn't
the kind to bow down under disgrace or misfortune but he had

surpassin' love for Milly, an' the loss of her broke him.
"From the minute I heard of Milly's disappearance I never

believed she went off of her own free will. I knew Milly, an' I
knew she couldn't have done that. I stayed at home awhile, tryin'

to make Frank Erne talk. But if he knowed anythin' then he
wouldn't tell it. So I set out to find Milly. An' I tried to get

on the trail of that proselyter. I knew if I ever struck a town
he'd visited that I'd get a trail. I knew, too, that nothin'

short of hell would stop his proselytin'. An' I rode from town to
town. I had a blind faith that somethin' was guidin' me. An' as

the weeks an' months went by I growed into a strange sort of a
man, I guess. Anyway, people were afraid of me. Two years after

that, way over in a corner of Texas, I struck a town where my man
had been. He'd jest left. People said he came to that town

without a woman. I back-trailed my man through Arkansas an'
Mississippi, an' the old trail got hot again in Texas. I found

the town where he first went after leavin' home. An' here I got
track of Milly. I found a cabin where she had given birth to her

baby. There was no way to tell whether she'd been kept a prisoner
or not. The feller who owned the place was a mean, silent sort of

a skunk, an' as I was leavin' I jest took a chance an' left my
mark on him. Then I went home again.

"It was to find I hadn't any home, no more. Father had been dead
a year. Frank Erne still lived in the house where Milly had left

him. I stayed with him awhile, an' I grew old watchin' him. His
farm had gone to weed, his cattle had strayed or been rustled,

his house weathered till it wouldn't keep out rain nor wind. An'
Frank set on the porch and whittled sticks, an' day by day wasted

away. There was times when he ranted about like a crazy man, but
mostly he was always sittin' an' starin' with eyes that made a

man curse. I figured Frank had a secret fear that I needed to
know. An' when I told him I'd trailed Milly for near three years

an' had got trace of her, an' saw where she'd had her baby, I
thought he would drop dead at my feet. An' when he'd come round

more natural-like he begged me to give up the trail. But he
wouldn't explain. So I let him alone, an' watched him day en'

night.
"An' I found there was one thing still precious to him, an' it

was a little drawer where he kept his papers. This was in the
room where he slept. An' it 'peered he seldom slept. But after

bein' patient I got the contents of that drawer an' found two
letters from Milly. One was a long letter written a few months

after her disappearance. She had been bound an' gagged an'
dragged away from her home by three men, an' she named

them--Hurd, Metzger, Slack. They was strangers to her. She was
taken to the little town where I found trace of her two years

after. But she didn't send the letter from that town. There she
was penned in. 'Peared that the proselytes, who had, of course,

come on the scene, was not runnin' any risks of losin' her. She
went on to say that for a time she was out of her head, an' when

she got right again all that kept her alive was the baby. It was

• waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
• reckon [´rekən] v.计算；认为；估计 (初中英语单词)
• passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
• swiftly [´swiftli] ad.迅速地，敏捷地 (初中英语单词)
• purple [´pə:pl] n.紫色 a.紫(红)的 (初中英语单词)
• presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
• minister [´ministə] n.部长；大臣 v.伺候 (初中英语单词)
• patience [´peiʃəns] n.忍耐(力)；耐心；坚韧 (初中英语单词)
• absence [´æbsəns] n.不在，缺席；缺乏 (初中英语单词)
• incident [´insidənt] n.小事件；事变 (初中英语单词)
• illinois [,ili´nɔi] n.伊利诺斯 (初中英语单词)
• sometime [´sʌmtaim] ad.曾经 a.从前的 (初中英语单词)
• disgrace [dis´greis] n.耻辱 vt.玷辱；贬黜 (初中英语单词)
• awhile [ə´wail] ad.少顷；片刻 (初中英语单词)
• drawer [drɔ:ə] n.抽屉 (初中英语单词)
• contents [´kɔ:ntents] n.容纳物；要旨 (初中英语单词)
• salvation [sæl´veiʃən] n.救助；拯救 (高中英语单词)
• buffalo [´bʌfələu] n.水牛；野牛 (高中英语单词)
• kansas [´kænzəs] n.堪萨斯(州) (高中英语单词)
• bridle [´braidl] n.(马)笼头；束缚 (高中英语单词)
• preacher [´pri:tʃə] n.讲道者，传教士 (高中英语单词)
• passionate [´pæʃənit] a.易动情的；易怒的 (高中英语单词)
• specially [´speʃəli] ad.专门地；特别地 (高中英语单词)
• streak [stri:k] n.纹理 v.用线条(条纹) (高中英语单词)
• misfortune [mis´fɔ:tʃən] n.不幸；灾祸 (高中英语单词)
• senseless [´sensləs] a.无知觉的；愚蠢的 (英语四级单词)
• soberly [´səubəli] ad.严肃地；清醒地 (英语四级单词)
• devoted [di´vəutid] a.献身...的，忠实的 (英语四级单词)
• arkansas [´a:kənsɔ:] n.阿肯色(州) (英语四级单词)
• disappearance [,disə´piərəns] n.消失；失踪 (英语六级单词)