"Ye remember when the old man had the fit in the timer's box? Well,
that knocked me galley-west. I felt a reg'ler murderer. But when he'd
braced up, an began makin' himself hateful over our weddin', I felt
glad that I'd done what I done."
"And what had you done, Nal, dear?"
"Hold on, Mandy, I'm tellin' this. Ye see, he promised to sell ye to
me for two thousand dollars cash. But when I tendered him the coin, he
went back on me. He was the meanest, the ornariest----"
"Hush, Nal, he's dead now."
"You bet he is, or we wouldn't be sittin' here."
They were comfortably installed upon the porch of the old adobe. A
smell of paint tainted the air, and some shavings and odds and ends of
lumber betrayed a recent visit from the carpenter. The house, in
short, had been placed in thorough repair. A young woman with fifty
thousand dollars in her own right can afford to spend a little money
upon her home.
"He wouldn't take the coin," continued Nal, "he said I'd robbed him of
it, an' so I had."
"Oh, Nal!"
"It was this way, Mandy. Ye remember the trial, an' how you give the
snap away. Well I studied over it, an' finally I concluded to jest dig
up the half-mile post, an' put it one hundred feet nearer home.
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