I was only twenty when I hit that trail.

Well, as I told you, back here a ways a Gentile said Jane Withersteen could tell me about Milly Erne an' show me her grave!" The low voice ceased, and Lassiter slowly turned his sombrero round and round, and appeared to be counting the silver ornaments on the band.
Jane, leaning toward him, sat as if petrified, listening intently, waiting to hear more.

She could have shrieked, but power of tongue and lips were denied her.

She saw only this sad, gray, passion-worn man, and she heard only the faint rustling of the leaves.
"Well, I came to Cottonwoods," went on Lassiter, "an' you showed me Milly's grave.

An' though your teeth have been shut tighter 'n them of all the dead men lyin' back along that trail, jest the same you told me the secret I've lived these eighteen years to hear! Jane, I said you'd tell me without ever me askin'.