The tournament went on for the rest of the afternoon and took up again as soon as supper was done and the men had returned from the barn, where they’d fed the horses and Jacob’s mule and milked the cow. Evangeline skimmed the cream off the top of the milk and gave some of it to Hortense in a chipped saucer placed comfortably close to the cookstove.

“I’ve about got Jacob talked into sleeping in here,” Scully said, shivering as he hung up his coat. “Lord have mercy, it’s cold enough out there to—” He glanced at Abigail, who was listening avidly, as always. “It’s just mighty cold, that’s all,” he finished lamely.

“I reckon I could spread my bedroll on the floor there, in front of the fire,” Jacob allowed. When the silence lengthened again, he went on. “I’ll be leaving at first light, of course. Miss June-bug will be looking for me, and Trey’ll be needing to get back to his place once he’s met that stage.”

Scully had been busy avoiding everybody’s gaze up until then. Now, it was plain enough that he was curious about this Trey fellow, and for that reason, Evangeline was, too. “He expecting something or somebody to come in with the next coach?” he asked.

Jacob weighed the matter in his mind for a long time before speaking, and Evangeline wondered if the habit ever drove Miss June-bug crazy. “I reckon he’s looking for his daughter to arrive,” he said, at long last.

Scully, leaning against the fireplace mantel, turned his head. “He’s got a daughter? That outlaw?”

Jacob smiled. “He ain’t so bad, Scully. ’Sides, even outlaws can have daughters. She’s just a little scrap of a thing, hardly bigger than Abigail here. Only about eight years old, I’m told. Trey sent her away to live with a spinster aunt someplace near Choteau, after his wife passed over, but now the aunt’s gone, too, so he’s got to take her in.”

Evangeline felt a deep sadness on the little girl’s behalf, though she was reserving judgment about Trey himself. Scully didn’t seem to have much use for him, and she wondered why. Scully had shown himself to be an easy-going man, all things considered, more inclined toward thinking the best of people than the worst.

“What’s her name?” Abigail asked, fairly bursting with the need to know. “Will I see her?”

“I don’t rightly know what they call her,” Jacob said. “I don’t recollect anyone telling me that. But I’ll be sure and find out, and pass the word along to you first chance I get.”

Abigail’s eyes were shining at the mere prospect of having a friend near her own age, and Evangeline’s heart ached a little. “I think I’ll call her Elisabeth, in my mind,” the child confided, “just until I know what her real name is, you understand. That way, I won’t have to say ‘that Hargreaves girl’ whenever I talk about her to my mama or Scully or Hortense or my toy horse.”