"But say, man, you and me has got to get that girl acrost somehow, between us. You know her and me--and sometimes that Englishman--travels along in the amberlanch. She's allowed to me quiet that when the time come for her to go acrost, she'd ruther you and me went along. She's all ready now, if you air."

"Very good," said I, "we'll go now--they've got a fire there, and are cooking, I suppose."

Mandy left me, and I went for my own horse. Presently we three, all mounted, met at the bank. Taking the girl between us, Mandy and I started, and the three horses plunged down the bank. As it chanced, we struck a deep channel at the send-off, and the horses were at once separated. The girl was swept out of her saddle, but before I could render any a.s.sistance she called out not to be alarmed. I saw that she was swimming, down stream from the horse, with one hand on the pommel.

Without much concern, she reached footing on the bar at which the horse scrambled up.

"Now I'm good and wet," laughed she. "It won't make any difference after this. I see now how the squaws do."

We plunged on across the stream, keeping our saddles for most of the way, sometimes in shallow water, sometimes on dry, sandy bars, and now and again in swift, swirling channels; but at last we got over and fell upon the steaks of buffalo and the hot coffee which we found at the fire. The girl presently left us to make such changes in her apparel as she might. Mandy and I were left alone once more.

"It seems to me like it certainly is too bad," said she bitterly, over her pipe stem, "that there don't seem to be no real man around nowhere fittin' to marry a real woman. That gal's good enough for a real man, like my first husband was."

"What could he do?" I asked her, smiling.

"Snuff a candle at fifty yards, or drive a nail at forty. He nach'elly scorned to bring home a squirrel shot back of the ears. He killed four men in fair knife fightin', an' each time come free in co'te. He was six foot in the clean, could hug like a bar, and he wa'n't skeered of anything that drawed the breath of life."

"Tell me, Aunt Mandy," I said, "tell me how he came courting you, anyway."

"He never did no great at co'tin'," said she, grinning. "He just come along, an' he sot eyes on me. Then he sot eyes on me again. I sot eyes on him, too."

"Yes?"

"One evenin', says he, 'Mandy, gal, I'm goin' to marry you all right soon.'

"Says I, '_No_, you ain't!'

"Says he, '_Yes_, I air!' I jest laughed at him then and started to run away, but he jumped and ketched me--I told you he could hug like a bar.

Mebbe I wasn't hard to ketch. Then he holds me right tight, an' says he,' Gal, quit this here foolin'. I'm goin' to marry you, you hear!--then maybe he kisses me--law! I dunno! Whut business is it o'

yourn, anyhow? That's about all there was to it. I didn't seem to keer.

But that," she concluded, "was a real _man_. He sh.o.r.e had my other two men plumb faded."

"What became of your last husband, Mandy?" I asked, willing to be amused for a time. "Did he die?"

"Nope, didn't die."

"Divorced, eh?"

"Deevorced, h.e.l.l! No, I tole you, I up an' left him."

"Didn't G.o.d join you in holy wedlock, Mandy?"

"No, it was the Jestice of the Peace."

"Ah?"

"Yep. And them ain't holy none--leastways in Missouri. But say, man, look yere, it ain't G.o.d that marries folks, and it ain't Jestices of the Peace--it's _theirselves_."

I pondered for a moment. "But your vow--your promise?"

"My promise? Whut's the word of a woman to a man? Whut's the word of a man to a woman? It ain't words, man, it's _feelin's_."

"In sickness or in health?" I quoted.

"That's all right, if your _feelin's_ is all right. The Church is all right, too. I ain't got no kick. All I'm sayin' to you is, folks marries _theirselves_."

I pondered yet further. "Mandy," said I, "suppose you were a man, and your word was given to a girl, and you met another girl and couldn't get her out of your head, or out of your heart--you loved the new one most and knew you always would--what would you do?"

But the Sphinx of womanhood may lie under linsey-woolsey as well as silk. "Man," said she, rising and knocking her pipe against her bony knee, "you talk like a fool. If my first husband was alive, he might maybe answer that for you."

CHAPTER XXIII

ISSUE JOINED

Later in the evening, Mandy McGovern having left me, perhaps for the purpose of a.s.sisting her protegee in the somewhat difficult art of drying buckskin clothing, I was again alone on the river bank, idly watching the men out on the bars, struggling with their teams and box boats. Orme had crossed the river some time earlier, and now he joined me at the edge of our disordered camp.

"How is the patient getting along?" he inquired. I replied, somewhat surlily, I fear, that I was doing very well, and thenceforth intended to ride horseback and to comport myself as though nothing had happened.

"I am somewhat sorry to hear that," said he, still smiling in his own way. "I was in hopes that you would be disposed to turn back down the river, if Belknap would spare you an escort east."

I looked at him in surprise. "I don't in the least understand why I should be going east, when my business lies in precisely the opposite direction," I remarked, coolly.

"Very well, then, I will make myself plain," he went on, seating himself beside me. "Granted that you will get well directly--which is very likely, for the equal of this Plains air for surgery does not exist in the world--I may perhaps point out to you that at least your injury might serve as an explanation--as an excuse--you might put it that way--for your going back home. I thought perhaps that your duty lay there as well."

"You become somewhat interested in my affairs, Mr. Orme?"

"Very much so, if you force me to say it."

"I think they need trouble you no farther."

"I thought that possibly you might be sensible of a certain obligation to me," he began.

"I am deeply sensible of it. Are you pleased to tell me what will settle this debt between us?"

He turned squarely toward me and looked me keenly in the eye. "I have told you. Turn about and go home. That is all."

"I do not understand you."

"But I understand your position perfectly."

"Meaning?"

"That your affections are engaged with a highly respectable young lady back at your home in Virginia. Wait--" he raised his hand as I turned toward him. "Meaning also," he went on, "that your affections are apparently also somewhat engaged with an equally respectable young lady who is not back home in Virginia. Therefore--"

He caught my wrist in a grip of steel as I would have struck him. I saw then that I still was weak.