Page:Morley roberts--Painted Rock.djvu/32

 "You've had trouble since you left?" said Gedge.

"I've had ten years' happiness, and now it's done," said the pioneer. "She's dead, old man."

"I'm sorry," said Gedge. They did not speak for some minutes, and then Keno said that his wife would be sorry to hear it. But old Smith did not know that Gedge had been married too,

"Oh, yep," said Gedge, "and since bein' married I've understood what was a puzzle to me when you left the country, Smith."

They did not speak of Hale, but Smith knew what was in the other's mind. Keno told him the same story that he had told me in the afternoon.

"You understand!" said Smith. "She was very delicate, you see, Gedge, and she loved me dear, and if I'd been killed it would have killed her. That's why I turned coward and stood what I did."

I shifted my chair farther away, and the scraping of the chair on the rough flooring attracted the old man's attention. He looked