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Dora said. “Calamity said you had at least twenty girlfriends in Dodge. How’d you get ’em unless you spent some time there?”
    Blue looked amused—he rarely tried to deny that he was a sport.
    â€œI’m cursed with a weak memory,” he said. “I can’t recall that I had a single pal in the town.”
    â€œYou don’t need to be such a devil,” Dora said. “I wasn’t even asking about you. I had a few loves myself before we met, what do I care if you had a thousand? I just wonder about Calamity and Wild Bill.”
    â€œHe’s dead, what does it matter?” Blue asked.
    â€œHe’s dead, but Calamity ain’t,” Dora said. “I feel sorry for Calamity. I don’t believe any man’s ever loved her—plenty of women never get loved, you know. I get a sad feeling when she talks about Wild Bill, because it just don’t sound true.”
    â€œThat was years ago,” Blue reminded her. “Maybe she forgot the true part. People do forget.”
    â€œNot the great love of their life, they don’t,” Dora said. “Do you think I’d forget you? Hell and everything else will freeze over before I forget you.”
    â€œI do doubt that Calamity ever had such a true love as ours,” Blue said. His eyes grew misty and he kissed her—for all his brass he was a sentimental man at heart.

    Now Blue, sentimental still, was married and living on the Musselshell. Many a day Dora sat wrapped in her robes all morning, watching the plains to the north, and if a dot of a rider appeared far away her heart quickened despite her; most times, of course, the rider wasn’t Blue, and her hope turned to ache, to regret, to tears and listless misery. But every month or so the rider
would
be Blue, and a joy flooded her that she couldn’t suppress, despite his betrayal.
    â€œThe Marquis de Mores gave me this robe with the pearl buttons,” Dora mentioned to Fred, but the information was of no interest to the parrot. It wasn’t of much interest to Dora, either, though it was a nice robe.
    The Marquis de Mores had also been nice. He had once said something about taking her to Paris and getting her an apartment, but that was just the usual silly talk. After all, he had just moved to South Dakota to go into the cattle business. Then his tall, aloof wife arrived, and there was no more talk of Paris, and no more presents, either.
    Still, the Marquis
had
liked her while it lasted. He wasn’t T. Blue—no one was—but he had offered a decent affection. What Dora wondered was whether anyone had ever offered even that much to Calamity?
    If they had, it didn’t show—and true joys did show a little, Dora believed. Hers did, she knew—the miserable stretches didn’t completely erase them. It was her sad suspicion that Calamity had had no joys, nothing for time to erase except her youth itself.
    â€œWhat do you think, Fred? Loves me, loves me not?” Dora asked.
    Fred looked up from the robe and cocked his head toward his mistress.
    â€œGeneral Custer,” he said.
    Darling Jane—
    They call this dry old crack Powder River, it’s easy to see why. Today for a change I made good time, otherwise I wouldn’t behere, I’m a fair ways from where I started. I can’t stand the rattle at Mrs. Elk’s, she must have fifty grandkids and they all cry at the same time. Whoever said Indian babies don’t cry ought to spend a night at Mrs. Elk’s.
    I no longer have the patience I once had, Janey, squalling babies make me want to grit my teeth, the little squirts hold no charms for me. However why complain? I owe them my early start.
    Today I ran into a horse trader who had news of the boys, he says they’re down on the Little Missouri traveling with old No Ears. At least they won’t get lost, No Ears is the best scout left. General Crook tried to take him to Arizona to help catch