Page:Weird Tales Volume 7 Number 2 (1926-02).djvu/107

and no word! Oh, God! I thought I didn't care—she deserved the worst that could happen to her. This is the keepsake token. Yes. But where is she? I loved her. I want to know."

He shut his face in his quivering hands.

I put my hand upon his shoulder.

"Come, come," said I. "The half of the coin and the half of the story have been yours. Shall I tell you the other half of the story, to match this other half of the coin? It says 'Till We Meet Again', remember."

Then he faced me once more.

"We halved the coin when we parted in the States, I for Fort Bridger as a government clerk there, she to wait till I should send for her. Yes, yes. Fifty and more years ago. 'Till We Meet Again'! And mine: 'God Be With You'! Ah! What do you know? How can you stand and tell me of her? Did you ever see her—did you ever see her?" He clutched me by the arm. "Did you ever see her, that hussy, that scarlet woman, that—that—yes, and my own wife who made me lose faith in woman, man, and God; took my youth from me, sent me wandering about without home and without charity? Curse her! The end of the trail, and what do I find? Dry bones. Whose bones?" He faltered, and he implored, simply: "You guessed? You're too young to have been on the plains in those days. Did you know him?"

"Pierre Lavelle?"

"Ah!" he quavered. He dashed down the half coin. "Are you going to tell me these bones are his? No, no! Such men as he live long. And this keepsake! Tell me she died miserably; that will be something. You did know him? You did? Or do you dare to allege you can rebuild a past, from this dungheap? What?"

"You wrong her, Mr. Brown," I answered. "I never knew Lavelle, never saw him. I never knew her—I do not even know her name, except by yours. But———"

"Catherine," he murmured. "Kitty. A beautiful girl, and false as hell."

"You wrong her," I repeated. "You wrong those poor bones. Will you listen?"

"Go on." He steadied himself. "They won't speak. Can you?"

"I'll speak for them," I continued. "In 1867 a government wagon train was en route from Leavenworth for old Fort Bridger of Utah."

"Very likely," he sneered.

"There was a young wife with it, to join her husband at the post. And there was a train attachế named Pierre Lavelle, half Spanish and half Indian—a handsome scoundrel."

"I'll take your word for that."

"He coveted the girl. She was innocent—she had no notion. One evening after supper he and she rode up into a narrow draw, here in western Wyoming, to seek flowers. He roped her and gagged her and left her while he returned to the camp, on one pretext or another. He succeeded in fastening a note inside her tent: 'Tell my husband I've gone with a better man.'"

"I got the note," nodded the old man grimly. "Well?"

"The note was a forgery and a lie," said I.

He sneered again.

"How do you know?"

"I know. This first night he rode with the woman tied to her saddle; the second night he freed her. He didn't fear pursuit, and the trail and the train were fifty miles behind. It was a lowering evening, and a wild land. He advanced upon her, she smiled as if she had yielded, but when he reached for her she struck him across the mouth and snatched his knife from his belt and defied him."

"Indeed? And how do you happen to know that, sir?"

"Wait. This stopped him for a