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Quartus looked him up and down, assessing. “Yes…I can see why she was so taken by you. You look like you have muscles on top of muscles.” He looked about with gleaming eyes. “Thus my errand to this hearty place in the out-of-doors! And this is such a manly pursuit! The fresh air, the sawmill, the sky, the, ah, the rocks…”
    Behind Quartus’ back, Erskine whispered loudly, “Her husband ?”
    Cormack curtly nodded. “I’ll explain later. Maybe.”
    Getting a devilish idea, Cormack fetched three horns and a bottle of whiskey from the shanty. Handing Quartus a horn as the fellow sat on a tree stump, he explained, “To gratify your dry.”
    “Oh, my.” Quartus took one sip and nearly expectorated upon the ground, but he maintained his composure with watery eyes. “What sort of juice is this?”
    Taking large “manly” swallows from his own horn, Erskine truly did laugh then. “Juice?”
    “Bug juice, more like it,” Cormack said politely into his own horn. Sitting on his square rock, he confronted the silly man respectfully. “Mr. Stringfellow, my old hoss.” Quartus chortled at being called an old horse. “What is this message from Miss Sparks that you bring?”
    Pleased at having something important to do, Quartus sobered. “The message is. You are to come immediately to the fort, and to meet Zelnora at her cabin.” Turning to Erskine, he explained, “She shares a cabin with Sister Narrimore, another of our brethren from New York.” He swiveled back to Cormack and continued, “Since Elder Brannagh is out of town and back in San Francisco for the next couple of weeks, Zelnora deems it appropriate that you visit her when Brannagh cannot…”
    Cormack filled in. “Cannot rain his wrath down upon me?”
    Quartus nodded stiffly. “Something like that, yes.”
    Cormack shared a glance with Erskine, angry and intrigued at the same time. “All right here, Stringfellow. Let me get this straight. I’m prepared to strike out at once for the fort, only I’d like a few questions answered. First of all, if you’re her husband, then Brannagh can’t possibly be her husband, am I correct?”
    “Hard doings when it comes to that,” Erskine commented helpfully.
    Quartus nodded. “Correct. Brannagh is merely her benefactor who agreed to employ her when we reached the Far West.”
    Erskine harrumphed. “A slave.”
    Ignoring him, Cormack inquired, “Then there should be no reason Brannagh would lift any hair were some fellow to come courting Miss Sparks?”
    Losing his professional decorum, Quartus burst into another round of giggles and slapped his knee. “‘Lift hair’! Oh, I do love the colorful way you backwoodsmen speak!”
    Cormack frowned in annoyance, swallowed the remainder of his horn, and pointed at Quartus with it. “Now you. Suddenly she has a brand-new husband I’ve never heard of, yet she wants an assignation with me? You can understand my puzzlement. This seems to be quite a fix. I mean, there’s damp powder and no fire to dry it, you take my meaning?”
    Apparently the “juice” was affecting poor Quartus, for he began to belt out a queer song. “‘Down the center, hands across! You, Jake Herring, thump it! Now you all go right ahead, every one of you hump it’!”
    “Stringfellow!” cried Cormack, gripping him by the shoulder and giving him a little shake. “You. Zelnora’s husband. Why would she want an assignation with me if she’s married to you?”
    Quartus’ eyes became large and round. “Oh. Why, that’s ludicrous! Why wouldn’t she want an assignation with you? You’re handsome and muscular, and I’m frivolous and, well, smaller.” He waved a limp hand at Cormack. “I’m not her real husband. I’m what they call a nominal husband, a husband in name only. Another sort of protector, like Brannagh, to ward off the undesirable suitors.” Leaning in confidentially to Cormack, Quartus imparted, “We’ve never even slept in the same bed together!”
    Cormack