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“I hoped you were going to tell me what your poor wife said in her letter,” said Mrs. Kimbal.

“Oh, Ma’am,” he said, hesitated, cleared his throat, and became routed and confused.

“If you’d rather not–” said Mrs. Kimbal.

“It isn’t that,” he said. “It would seem like bragging.”

“Surely not,” she said.

Saterlee, with his eyes on the broad, brown flood which they were approaching, repeated like a lesson:

“‘Mark–I’m dying. I want it to do good, not harm. Jenny always thought the world of you. You’ll be lonely when I’m gone. I don’t want you to be lonely. You gave me peace on earth. And you can’t be happy unless you’ve got a woman to pet and pamper. That’s your nature–‘”

He paused.

“That was all,” he said, and wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “It just stopped there.”

“I’m glad you told me,” said Mrs. Kimbal gently. “It will be a lesson to me not to spring to conclusions, and not to make up my mind about things I’m not familiar with.”

When they came to where the road disappeared under the swift unbroken brown of Gila River, the old horse paused of her own accord, and, turning her bony and scarred head a half revolution, stared almost rudely at the occupants of the buggy.

“It all depends,” said Saterlee, “how deep the water runs over the road, and whether we can keep to the road. You see, it comes out higher up than it goes in. Can you swim, Ma’am?”

Mrs. Kimbal admitted that, in clothes made to the purpose, and in very shallow water, she was not without proficiency.

“Would you rather we turned back?” he asked.

“I feel sure you’ll get me over,” said she.

“Then,” said Saterlee, “let’s put the hood down. In case we do capsize, we don’t want to get caught under it.”

Saterlee on his side, and Mrs. Kimbal, not without exclamations of annoyance, on hers, broke the toggle-joints that held the dilapidated hood in place, and thrust it backward and down. At once the air seemed to circulate with greater freshness.

For some moments Saterlee considered the river, up-stream, down-stream, and across, knitting his brows to see better, for the light was failing by leaps and bounds. Then, in an embarrassed voice:

“I’ve got to do it,” he said. “It’s only right.”

“What?” said Mrs. Kimbal.

“I feel sure,” he said, “that under the circumstances you’ll make every allowance, Ma’am.”

Without further hesitation–in fact, with almost desperate haste, as if wishing to dispose of a disagreeable duty–he ripped open the buttons of his waistcoat and removed it at the same time with his coat, as if the two had been but one garment. He tossed them into the bottom of the buggy in a disorderly heap. But Mrs. Kimbal rescued them, separated them, folded them neatly, and stowed them under the seat.

Saterlee made no comment. He was thinking of the state of a shirt that he had had on since early morning, and was wondering how, with his elbows pressed very tightly to his sides, he could possibly manage to unlace his boots. He made one or two tentative efforts. But Mrs. Kimbal seemed to divine the cause of his embarrassment.

“Please,” she said, “don’t mind anything–on my account.”

He reached desperately, and regardlessly, for his boots, unlaced them, and took them off.

“Why,” exclaimed Mrs. Kimbal, “both your heels need darning!”

Saterlee had tied his boots together, and was fastening them around his neck by the remainder of the laces.

“I haven’t anybody to do my darning now,” he said. “My girls are all at school, except two that’s married. So–” He finished his knot, took the reins in his left hand and the whip in his right.

At first the old mare would not budge. Switching was of no avail. Saterlee brought down the whip upon her with a sound like that of small cannon. She sighed and walked gingerly into the river.

The water rose slowly (or the river bottom shelved very gradually), and they were half-way across before it had reached the hubs of the wheels. But the mare appeared to be in deeper. She refused to advance, and once more turned and stared with a kind of wistful rudeness. Then she saw the whip, before it fell, made a desperate plunge, and floundered forward into deep water–but without the buggy.