He had no real near neighbors--livin' a
little out of town--but those who was nearest said a wagon had
gone by in the night, an' they though it stopped at her door.
Well, tracks always tell, an' there was the wagon tracks an' hoss
tracks an' man tracks. The news spread like wildfire that Milly
had run off from her husband. Everybody but Frank believed it an'
wasn't slow in tellin' why she run off. Mother had always hated
that strange streak of Milly's, takin' up with the new religion
as she had, an' she believed Milly ran off with the Mormon. That
hastened mother's death, an' she died unforgivin'. Father wasn't
the kind to bow down under disgrace or misfortune but he had
surpassin' love for Milly, an' the loss of her broke him.
"From the minute I heard of Milly's disappearance I never
believed she went off of her own free will. I knew Milly, an' I
knew she couldn't have done that. I stayed at home awhile, tryin'
to make Frank Erne talk. But if he knowed anythin' then he
wouldn't tell it. So I set out to find Milly. An' I tried to get
on the trail of that proselyter. I knew if I ever struck a town
he'd visited that I'd get a trail. I knew, too, that nothin'
short of hell would stop his proselytin'. An' I rode from town to
town. I had a blind faith that somethin' was guidin' me. An' as
the weeks an' months went by I growed into a strange sort of a
man, I guess.
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