"You choose, Woodrow, all I want is a bottle and a pallet," Augustus said.

"A pallet? Are you sick?" Call asked.

"It's not even good dark." "Yes, sick of Austin," Gus said. "I wish we were leaving right this minute." Call was puzzled by the change in his old friend.

All energy and spirit seemed to have drained out of him-- and Gus McCrae was a man who could always be counted on for energy and spirit.

"You didn't say where you'd been," Call said.

Augustus turned and pointed up the hill, toward the Scull castle, its turrets just visible in the darkening sky.

"Up there--t's where I've been," Augustus said.

"Gus, it's been three hours--y must have drunk a fine lot of tea," Call remarked.

"Nope, we never got around to the tea," Augustus said. "Not the tea and not the biscuits, either. And while we're on the subject I don't think we ought to bring the Captain back." "Why not?" Call asked. "That's the only reason we're going, to bring him back. Of course, we've got to find him first." "You don't know Madame Scull, Woodrow," Gus said. "I'd say running off might be the Captain's only chance." "I don't know what you're talking about," Call said. "I've no doubt they squabble, but they've been married nearly twenty-five years --the Captain told me that himself." "He's a better man than me, then," Augustus said. "I wouldn't last no twenty-five years. Twenty-five days would put me under." Then, without more comment, he walked off toward the bunkhouse, leaving Woodrow Call more puzzled than he had been before.

When Call came in with his saddlebags over his shoulder, Maggie's spirits sank. She was too disappointed to speak. Woodrow only brought his saddlebag into her rooms when he was leaving early --he was meticulous about checking his gear and would spend an hour or more at his task whenever he had to leave.

"You've only been here a day," she said sadly. "We haven't even talked about the baby." "Well, you ain't having it tomorrow, and this may be a short trip," he said, not unkindly. "I expect we can discuss it when I come back." What if you don't come back? she thought, but she didn't say it. If she spoke it would only anger him and she would risk losing the little sweet time they might have. Austin was full of widows whose husbands had ridden off one morning, like Pearl Coleman's father, and never come back.

What Maggie felt was the fear any woman felt when her man had to venture beyond the settled frontier, and even the settled frontier was far from being really safe. Every year, still, settlers were killed and women and children stolen from their cabins, almost within sight of Austin. There was not much safety in town, but there was no safety where Woodrow had to go.

Worry about him sank deep in Maggie's gut, where it mixed with another grave worry: the question of what she would do if Woodrow refused to marry her, or accept her child as his. A woman with a child born out of wedlock had no hope of rising, not in Austin. If she wanted to raise the child properly she would have to move to another town and try to pass herself off as a widow. It would be hard, so hard that Maggie feared to think about it.

Unless Woodrow helped her she would be as good as lost, and the child as well.

But Maggie swallowed her questions and her doubts, as she had many times before. After all, Woodrow was there; he had come to her on his return and now again, on the eve of his departure.

He was there, not somewhere else; she did her best to push aside her worries and make the best of their time. The depth of her love for Woodrow Call gave him a power over her that was too great --and he didn't even know he had it.

"All right, I'll make you a meal--there's still two beefsteaks, if you want Gus to come," she said. It made Maggie happy if Woodrow brought Augustus home to eat with them: it was as if he were bringing his best friend home to eat his wife's cooking. She wasn't really his wife yet, but they were jolly on those occasions. Sometimes she and Gus could even tempt Woodrow into playing cards, or joining them in a singsong. He was a poor cardplayer and not much of a singer, but such times were still jolly.

"Gus went off to Madame Scull's and stayed three hours--t's why I'm late," Call said. "He just went to drink tea with her--I don't know why it took three hours.

Now he's too tired to eat. I don't think I've ever seen Gus too tired to eat before." Maggie smiled--everyone knew that Madame Scull took young men as lovers, the younger the better. She had taken Jake Spoon for a while; everyone knew that too. Lately Jake had come mooning around, wanting to make up to Maggie for his bad behaviour. He had offered to carry her groceries twice, and had generally tried to make himself useful; but Maggie remained cool. She knew his kind all too well.

Jake would be nice until he had what he wanted, and then, if she denied him a favor, he would pull her hair or slap her again. There was no changing men--not much, anyway; mainly men stayed the way they were, no matter what women did. Woodrow Call was not all she wanted him to be, but he had never raised a hand to her and would not think of pulling her hair. Jake could offer to carry her groceries if he wanted but she would not forget what he did.

Call noticed her smile, when he mentioned Gus's fatigue.

"What's that grin for? What do you know?" he asked.

"It's just a smile, Woodrow--I'm happy because you're here," Maggie said.

"No, it was something else--something about Gus," he said. "If you've a notion of why he stayed at Madame Scull's so long I'd like to know it." Maggie knew she was treading on dangerous ground. Woodrow had strict notions of what was right and what was wrong. But she was a little riled, too: riled because he was going away so soon, riled because he wouldn't talk about the baby, riled because she had to keep swallowing down the way she felt and the things she needed to say. If he wouldn't think about her baby, at least she could get his goat a little about their friend.

"I know why he's tired, that's all," she said, pounding the beefsteak.

"Why, then, tell me," Call asked.

"Because Madame Scull took his pants down --if you'd gone she would have tried to take yours down too," Maggie said.

Call flinched as if he had been slapped, or jabbed with a pin.

"Now, that's wrong!" he said loudly, but without much confidence in his own conclusion. "How could you know that?" "Because that's what she does with any man who goes home with her, when the Captain's away," Maggie said. "It's the talk of all the barrooms and not just the barrooms--she don't care who knows." "Well, she ought to care," Call said. "I expect the Captain would take the hide off her if he knew she was stirring up talk like that." "Woodrow, it's not just talk," Maggie said.