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The man slowly drew up his tall, shambling figure before the fire, and then facing them, with his hands behind him, as slowly lowered himself again as if to bring his speech to the level of his hearers and give a lazier and more deliberate effect to his long-drawn utterance.

“Well–no!” he said slowly. “I–didn’t–go–with–no–Bill–to–help–clear–the road! I–don’t–reckon–TO go–with–no–Bill–to–clear–ANY road! I’ve just whittled this thing down to a pint, and it’s this–I ain’t no stage kempany’s nigger! So far as turnin’ out and warnin’ ’em agin goin’ to smash over a fallen tree, and slap down into the canyon with a passel of innercent passengers, I’m that much a white man, but I ain’t no NIGGER to work clearing things away for ’em, nor I ain’t no scrub to work beside ’em.” He slowly straightened himself up again, and, with his former apathetic air, looking down upon one of the women who was setting a coffee-pot on the coals, added, “But I reckon my old woman here kin give you some coffee and whiskey–of you keer for it.”

Unfortunately the young expressman was more loyal to Bill than diplomatic. “If Bill’s a little rough,” he said, with a heightened color, “perhaps he has some excuse for it. You forget it’s only six months ago that this coach was ‘held up’ not a hundred yards from this spot.”

The woman with the coffee-pot here faced about, stood up, and, either from design or some odd coincidence, fell into the same dogged attitude that her husband had previously taken, except that she rested her hands on her hips. She was prematurely aged, like many of her class, and her black, snake-like locks, twisting loose from her comb as she lifted her head, showed threads of white against the firelight. Then with slow and implacable deliberation she said:

“We ‘forget’! Well! not much, sonny! We ain’t forgot it, and we ain’t goin’ to forget it, neither! We ain’t bin likely to forget it for any time the last six months. What with visitations from the county constables, snoopin’s round from ‘Frisco detectives, droppin’s-in from newspaper men, and yawpin’s and starin’s from tramps and strangers on the road–we haven’t had a chance to disremember MUCH! And when at last Hiram tackled the head stage agent at Marysville, and allowed that this yer pesterin’ and persecutin’ had got ter stop–what did that yer head agent tell him? Told him to ‘shet his head,’ and be thankful that his ‘thievin’ old shanty wasn’t burnt down around his ears!’ Forget that six months ago the coach was held up near here? Not much, sonny–not much!”

The situation was embarrassing to the guests, as ordinary politeness called for some expression of sympathy with their gloomy hostess, and yet a selfish instinct of humanity warned them that there must be some foundation for this general distrust of the public. The journalist was troubled in his conscience; the expressman took refuge in an official reticence; the lady coughed slightly, and drew nearer to the fire with a vague but safe compliment to its brightness and comfort. It devolved upon Mr. Heckshill, who felt the responsibility of his late airy introduction of the party, to boldly keep up his role, with an equally non-committal, light-hearted philosophy.

“Well, ma’am,” he said, addressing his hostess, “it’s a queer world, and no man’s got sabe enough to say what’s the rights and wrongs o’ anything. Some folks believe one thing and act upon it, and other folks think differently and act upon THAT! The only thing ye kin safely say is that THINGS IS EZ THEY BE! My rule here and at the mill is jest to take things ez I find ’em!”

It occurred to the journalist that Mr. Heckshill had the reputation, in his earlier career, of “taking” such things as unoccupied lands and timber “as he found them,” without much reference to their actual owners. Apparently he was acting upon the same principle now, as he reached for the demijohn of whiskey with the ingenuous pleasantry, “Did somebody say whiskey, or did I dream it?”