By snatches she read her letter, a sentence or a fragment of a
sentence at a time as the light served. Luckily he had left a
case nearly full of matches, and one after another of them
dropped, charred and burned out, before she had finished reading.
After she had read it, her first love letter, she must needs go
over it again, to learn by heart the sweet phrases in which he
had wooed her. It was a commonplace note enough, far more neutral
than the strong, virile writer who had lacked the cunning to
transmit his feeling to ink and paper. But, after all, it was
from him, and it told the divine message, however haltingly. No
wonder she burned her little finger tips from the flame of the
matches creeping nearer unheeded. No wonder she pressed it to her
lips in the darkness and dreamed her happy dream in those few
moments when she was lost in her love before cruel realities
pressed home on her again.
"I told you, Little Curly Haid, that I had first-rate reasons for
not wanting to be killed by these Mexicans. So I have, the best
reasons going. But they are not ripe to tell you, and so I write
them.
"I guessed your secret, little pardner, right away when I seen
you in a girl's outfit.
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