CHAPTER III.
Mrs. Sellers returned, now, with her composure restored, and began to ask after Hawkins’s wife, and about his children, and the number of them, and so on, and her examination of the witness resulted in a circumstantial history of the family’s ups and downs and driftings to and fro in the far West during the previous fifteen years. There was a message, now, from out back, and Colonel Sellers went out there in answer to it. Hawkins took this opportunity to ask how the world had been using the Colonel during the past half-generation.
“ Oh, it’s been using him just the same; it couldn’t change its way of using him if it wanted to, for he wouldn’t let it.”
“ I can easily believe that, Mrs. Sellers.”
“ Yes, you see, he doesn’t change, himself—not the least little bit in th
