"It's been going on quietlike for quite a while and I've been doing all I could to stop it. It begun maybe when she hauled him out of the lake—I don't know. They didn't meet often. I heard 'em talking once on the dock, and I told him I'd run him off if he come across the fence or said another word to her. She begged for him then; but I never promised her nothing. I knew it was my job as your foreman to take care of that, so I didn't go to you."

"Go on," says he. "Tell me!"

"She didn't say nothing to him for a long time—she didn't meet him, not after she said she wouldn't. Then he sent letters over—tied to the collar of our little dog—two or three letters; maybe four or five, for all I know. He was crazy over her. All the time he owned up to her and me that he oughtn't to do what he done. He said in his letters he oughtn't to raise his eyes to her—he knowed he ought to of come around to the front door and not to the back door; and he said that very thing. But he said, like a man will, that he couldn't help it.

"She didn't never answer his letters, so far as I know. I don't know as she ever got any word to him at all. So far as I know, they never did talk much, only that one time when I heard 'em. But, as to something going on—why, yes, it's been going on for quite a little while. And I've knew it; I've knew I ought to go and tell you. And all the time I couldn't, because I loved her and she ast me not to tell."

"Did she ever tell you anything? Do you think she cared anyway for him? You see," he goes on, "I never seen him to know him. I don't know who he is. I didn't hardly know he was alive on earth. Gawd forgive me! I ought to of known. I told her once not to talk to that hired man; but if I'd thought anything of this I'd maybe of killed him then."

"Yes; and I ought to of told you, Colonel," says I. "It was only the way things happened and because she ast me not to."

"She had that secret from her father!" says he, slow. "Who can tell what's in a woman's heart?"

"That's it," says I; "now you got it. She was a woman—she told me so."

"What more did she say, Curly?"

"Once she come to me crying, and she says, 'Curly, I love him!'—she meant that man next door. And I know for shore now he wasn't fit to wipe her feet on."

Old Man Wright he set down then, quiet like. I couldn't help him none, I had to set and see him take it. It was awful.

"She said that—she loved him? How long ago?"

"A few weeks, maybe," says I. "I never could get the nerve to tell you then. I hoped she'd get to see how foolish it was for her to care for a cheap gardener—I thought she'd be too proud for that. And then I allowed she'd, like enough, marry Tom Kimberly, and that'd change her and it'd all come out all right. All the time I was hoping and trying to save both her and you. I been nigh about crazy, Colonel. And all the time, of course, I was only a damn fool cowpuncher, without any brains."

"She's gone!" says he, after a time.

"Yes," says I; "near as I can figure, she's thought about it all night and concluded it'd be best for her not to marry Tom, feeling like she did about this other man. She's shook us, Colonel. But, believe me, she wasn't never happy doing that. It must of been like death to her."

"Why did she do it, Curly?" he whispered. "How could she? Why?"

"I done told you, Colonel," says I. "It was because she found she was a woman. She hadn't knew that before—nor us neither."

At length he got up, but he couldn't stand up straight.

"How can we keep this quiet?" says he.

We couldn't keep it quiet at all. It was all over the house right now. That Annette girl had read all them Peanut letters before William ever got 'em. Like enough he'd read 'em too. They was scared when we walked into their part of the house.

"Where's that dog?" says Old Man Wright.

William, he got pale.

"Very good, sir," says he, and pretends to go after Peanut, which he knows wasn't there.

"Hi suppose she took 'im along with 'er, sir," says William after a while.

Annette she chips in:

"Oui, oui—yes, yes; she took him with her."

"Took him with her? What do you mean? What do you know about it? Keep quiet, you people!" says Old Man Wright. "Get into that room!" He locked them in.

"Now, Curly——" says he.

I knew he was clear in his own mind by now that the girl had run away with that gardener. He'd maybe go over there.

"No, Colonel," says I; "you keep out of this."

"What do you mean?" says he. "Ain't you my friend at all? Ain't I got a friend in all the world?"

"You're alderman here," I says, "and that's the same as being sher'f. When you was sher'f you couldn't do what the law said you couldn't—now could you? You have to keep up the law when you're a alderman or sher'f. With me, it's different. Besides, this is my job, not yours."

"Curly," says he, and I could see his jaw get hard all along the aidge, "Curly, ain't there no place on earth for a pore old broken-hearted man?"

"Never mind just yet, Colonel," says I. "It ain't your turn," says I—"that's all. Sometimes," I says to him, "it's best to go a little slow at first and not make no foolish breaks. Let's just take it easy till we see which way the cat has jumped—we don't know much yet."

"She—she wouldn't kill herself?" says he sudden; and he got even whiter.

"I don't think so," I says; "and I'll tell you why. I don't think she was thinking so much of dying when she said 'I am a woman.' It was life!"

He looked at me quiet.

"She said that?"

"Uh-huh!—sever'l times. And it was like you said, Colonel, after all. There ain't no fence high enough to keep a young man and a young woman apart. It was bound to come, and we didn't know it—that's all."

"We give her every chance. There was Tom."

"Yes," says I; "and there was the man next door. These things goes by guess and by Gawd. For instance," says I, "what in the world could Bonnie Bell's ma ever see in you, Colonel?"

That hit him hard, though I didn't mean it that way. He turned his face away, like he seen something awful before him.

"My Gawd!" says he. "I done that my own self! I stole her ma away. She loved me and I loved her. Ain't there no one to show a pore old helpless man what he ought to do?"

"It's life, and she showed us the way," says I. "When you stole Bonnie Bell's ma you was ready to meet her folks, I reckon, if they come to take her away. You taken your chance when you married her. So's the man that's run off with Bonnie Bell. Let him have a even break, Colonel. He loves her, maybe—and he seems to have a way with women."

"He's ruined her!" says Old Man Wright. "It's marriage he was after, of course; but look at the difference. I never touched a cent of her ma's money. We made our own way. But here's a low-down sneak that's come in at our back door and run away with my girl for her money! Don't you see the difference? What's this skunk like?" he says to me after a time.

"He ain't such a bad-looking fellow," says I, "if he was dressed up. He's a sort of upstanding fellow. His clothes was always so dirty he didn't look like much. He was a good-talking fellow enough."

"They all are—the damn fortune-hunting curs! I can believe that."

"I was too much a coward to tell you, Colonel," says I. "I love that girl a awful lot. I'd do anything I could to help the kid, even now when she's in so bad."

"Yes," says he.

"She had it in her natural," says I. "Her pa and ma run away. She was plumb gentle till she bolted—and then all hell couldn't hold her. Ain't that like her pa?"

"Yes," says he, humble; "it's like her pa."

"And she's handsome, and soft, and kind, and gentle—so any man couldn't help loving her. Ain't she like her ma thataway? Wasn't she thataway too?"

"Yes," says he, choking up like; "she's like her ma."

"Well, then?" says I. "Well then?"

So I pushed him outen the room and went on out down the walk.

I looked around at our house as I was going out. It was big and fine, but somehow the curtains looked dull and dirty to me. Everything was shabby-looking someways. This place was where we'd failed. And then I seemed to see my own self like I was—Curly, a bow-legged cowpuncher offen the range, with no use for him in the world but just to get things mixed up, like I had. And Old Man Wright—that used to be our sher'f and the captain of the round-up, and the best cowman in Wyoming—what had come to him here at this place?

I turned around to look back. Just then he come out the room where I'd pushed him in.

He was a tall man, but now he stood stooped down like. His red mustache was ragged where he'd gnawed the ends for the last half hour. His face seemed different colors and wasn't red like usual. He seemed to have got leaner all at once. His knees didn't seem to keep under him good and his back was bowed. He'd changed a lot in less than a hour. He seemed to be thinking of what I was thinking of, and he sort of taken a look around at the house too.

"I made it, Curly," says he, and his voice was sort of loose and trembling, like he was old. "I made it for her. I made a lot of money for her. I tried to make her believe I was happy here, but I never was. I ain't been happy here, not a hour since we come. It's all been a mistake."

He hammers his fist on the wall by the door where he stood.

"Brick on brick," says he, "I built it for her. I pretended I liked all these things, but I didn't care a damn for 'em. It's all been a bluff; we've bluffed to each other and we've all been wrong. It's been a failure; all we tried to do for her has been no good. She's throwed us down. Curly, I don't count for nothing no more."

It was true, all he'd said. We'd played our little game and lost it. I never felt so bow-legged in my life, or so red-headed, as I did when I turned to walk down from our house to Wisner's. I looked back just once. There was Old Man Wright standing in the door, tall and bent over, a hand against each side of the door frame.

I left him there, holding onto the frame of the front door of what he called our home, that he'd worked so hard for—that we'd both tried so hard to make her happy in. He'd found one game at last where he couldn't win.

And she'd shook us now—our girl—shook us for a man that never had knocked at our front door!



XXV

ME AND THEM

I was almost down to our front gate, with half a notion to go over and have a talk with them Wisner people, when I heard our William calling to me; he'd got out of the room where we locked him up and run around the back of the house.

"Oh, Mr. Wilson! Mr. Wilson!" says he. "Hi beg of you, don't!" says he; and he come running after me.

"What's the matter with you?" I ast him.

"Hi beg your pardon, sir," says he; "but Hi'm most deeply concerned in hall of this," he says.

"What do you mean, you shrimp?" says I. "Have you been mixed up in anything here?"

"Hit was the mide across the way, sir—across the wall, that is to say. Well, perhaps Hi've been too attentive to their Hemmy, sir, from the hupper-story window; but she was that pretty and so fond of me! Hi 'ope Hi did no wrong, sir; but you see, sometimes when all was quite still, sir, Hi did flash a light across from my window on 'ers, and we did 'ave a 'appy time, sir, come midnight—quite silent, sir, and quite far apart; quite respectable, Hi assure you, sir—nothing more—all above the wall; for otherwise Hi couldn't 'ave seen 'er at all."

"Was you busy with that sort of thing about one or two o'clock this morning?" I ast him. "I want to know what you done—what happened?"

"A great deal 'appened, sir. Quite without plan, I saw a man appear at the window of this 'ouse across the wall; 'e was right by the window and looking across. At first Hi thought 'e was looking at my window and Hi stepped back, not wishing to compromise a lady like Hemmy—that being the 'ousemide's name across the wall, sir."

"What was this man doing?"

"Hi cawn't 'ardly tell, sir. 'E looked and 'e made some motions. There seemed a light on 'is window too; in fact, all between the two 'ouses seemed quite bright at the time, what with 'im and what with me. A short time afterwards a car went out."

I turned on down toward the gate.

"Oh, Hi beg of you," says he, "to say nothing over there. Knowing as Hi do that both you and Mr. Wright are very violent men, and caring as Hi do for Hemmy, the 'ousemide, sir, Hi feel most uneasy—Hi do, indeed."

"Well, if that's the way you feel, William," says I, "you go on back in the house."

"You don't mean any violence, Hi 'ope, sir?"

"I don't know yet what I mean; but go on back in."

He turns around just about in time, for now I seen two or three people coming in at our front gate. I didn't know any of them. They was young fellows. One of them ast me if I knew anything about the alleged elopement. Then I seen word had got out somehow—like enough from our Annette or their Emmy, and these was maybe newspaper reporters come up to see about it.

"I haven't heard of any elopement," says I. "I was just calling our butler down for flirting some with one of their hired girls over there."

"May we talk to your butler?" ast one of them.

"No; you can't," says I, "because he's gone in to see about breakfast."

One of the young fellows looked up and sort of scratched his head with a lead pencil.

"I say," says he, "are we on a high love story or one of the servants' quarters? Tell us, friend"—he says to me—"can't you help us out on this?"

"It ain't in my line of business," says I; "but it seems plain, if their hired man has run away with our maid, or our butler run away with theirs, it ain't story enough to bother a alderman or his foreman about before breakfast."

"Well, lemme get a picture of the wall, anyways," says he; and he done that before I could help it.

"Have you got one of your butler?" he ast.

"No, we ain't; and you can't get none. We don't bother about the lower classes," says I.

So they laughed and bimeby went on away. I give them some cigarettes—all I had; and they said I was a good scout, like enough.

Well, of all the papers that tried to get a story that morning, not one printed a word except one. It come out with about a colyum in the paper all about a mysterious disappearance in Millionaire Row. It allowed that nobody could tell who had disappeared, but some said that Old Man Wisner had run off with one of Alderman Wright's hired girls, and others said that Old Man Wright had eloped with Mrs. Wisner, while others declared that the Wrights' butler had eloped with the second-floor maid of the Wisner household; though still others insisted the Wisner gardener had disappeared with the heiress of Alderman Wright, the well-known citizen whose re-election at the coming term was practically assured.

That paper printed some pictures too—one of Old Man Wisner and one of Bonnie Bell, allowing that he was our butler and the one of Bonnie Bell was the picture of the second-floor maid of the Wisner household. I reckon they had them pictures already in their newspaper office. But they printed a new picture of the Wisner wall and said some more funny things about that, like they had before.

This wasn't no funny time for us. The next day there was a big fire or something, and all those people got to writing about something else; and they let us alone.

After they'd gone away that morning Old Man Wright ast me if I'd learned anything. Then I told him about how William had made signs that morning across the wall to people in that house.

"Now it seems to me like this, Colonel," says I: "I never went to sleep that night, and neither did Bonnie Bell. When she seen them lights on the windows, maybe she went to her own window. He was maybe standing there and seen her. Maybe she seen him. Maybe all at once it come over her that she'd have to—she'd have to—— Well, you know what I mean."

He nodded then.

"You see, it must of come over the pore girl all at once," says I; for, to save my life, I couldn't help trying to excuse her every way I could. "She hadn't sent no word over to him and he hadn't got no word to her for weeks so far as I knew. It must of all come to them both just in that one minute. It was like cap and powder—you can't help the explosion then. I reckon maybe she's somewhere—with him."

"Yes; with him!" breaks out Old Man Wright. "It was neck against neck—me and Wisner. I had him beat; I'd of had him on his knees. And now he's put the greatest disgrace on us any man could of figured out, no matter how hard he tried—his hired man has run away with my daughter! I could of laughed at Wisner once. Can I laugh at him now?"

"That ain't the worst," says I.

"No," says he; "it ain't the worst. The worst is, she's married a low-down cur that's been after her money all this time. All this time, Curly—and I didn't know it. And you let him go thataway—right here; you heard the wheels that took 'em away!"

"Yes, Colonel," says I; "that's true. Now it's a little late, but I'm going to get on this job the best I know how from this time down. That means I've got to go away from town for a little while, Colonel. I want you to set here and leave this thing to me. Please don't say 'No' to that. I may need you after a while—in case I locate them. Since the newspapers has got fooled by this thing we pulled off this morning, maybe the best thing I can do is to go away while things is quiet.

"Stay here, then, Colonel," says I. "Don't drink no more and no less than you been doing. If anybody comes tell them Bonnie Bell is sick. Wait till you hear from me."



XXVI

HOW I WENT BACK

I argued that when you look for a man who has done a crime you got to figure on what he said and done last, so as to get a line on what he's going to do next; and when I come to study over that hired man had mostly said to me I remembered it was about Wyoming and ropes and cows—things like that. I knowed he was batty, like so many people is, about Western things—not that Western men is any different from anybody else, though a lot of people think they are.

Now I figured that the place he'd make a break to was, like enough, the range. He'd told me he knowed the Circle Arrow, too, his boss being a whole lot interested in the Circle Arrow.

I put one thing together with another; and, without saying anything to Old Man Wright about it, I bought a ticket for the Yellow Bull country and pulled out for there as fast as I could go.

It was a good bet. When I got to the station for our old ranch, below Cody, forty miles from where our ranch was when we lived there, there wasn't very many people around the station that I knew. A good many new men was there, with wide hats, and leggings on their legs, and breeches that buttons on the side—folks that had come out West to be right Western. Most of 'em come out to raise bananas on the Yellow Bull and be gentlemen farmers, I reckon.

I looks around among these people for a good while. None of them paid much attention to me. At last I seen him. Yes; it was that hired man. He was getting ready to drive out of town with a pair of mules hitched to a buckboard. He was fixing in some boxes and things. I knowed him in a minute.

But where was she? I waited to see if Bonnie Bell would come out anywhere; but she didn't.

I walked over to him; and he seen me standing there looking at him just as he was going to pull out. I went on over and got onto the seat with him.

"Drive right on straight out of town," says I, quiet. "Don't say anything. Just act like nothing had happened," says I.

Under my coat I pushed the muzzle of my gun into his ribs. He looked straight ahead and done what I told him to. If he was scared bad he didn't let on.

"I haven't got any gun," says he after a while. "I don't pack one."

"I haven't packed one for years myself," says I. "Sometimes a man has to pack one for coyotes and such things," says I.

He got kind of red in his face, but he didn't say anything.

"I'm just that kind of a man—when it comes to a show-down I don't care what happens," says I. "And I reckon you see it's a show-down now. Tell me where she is."

"She's out at our place," says he; "forty miles or so—you know where it is. I've got the Arrow Head Spring homestead; I bought it a while ago. I've got a few cows—not many. You see," says he, "I've saved a little money—not a whole lot. Our property isn't paid for yet. We've got a quarter section, but you know the range is in back of it. We think we can make some sort of a start."

"With her? Her that was used to so much?" says I. "Are you married? But, of course, that was what you was after—her money, not her."

He flushed plumb red then, and sort of swallowed several times.

"You think high of me and her, don't you, Curly?" says he.

I seen that, after all, I was too late; and my gun dropped down into the bottom of the buckboard, and neither of us noticed it.

"You married her—our girl," says I, "that we'd tried so hard to get a place for? She could of owned the whole ranch—and you give her forty acres, part paid for! That's fine—for the girl we loved so much!"

"You don't love her no more than I do," says he. "You never tried harder for her than I'll try for her. Love—why, what do you know about it? If she hadn't loved me do you think she'd of done what she done and run away with me? Do you think she'd of broke her father's heart and forgot all that had been done for her if it hadn't been for love? If it hadn't been for thinking of those things we'd be the happiest two young fools in all the world. We are now! She's some happy anyway. But it breaks my own heart to think she isn't any happier."

After a while he goes on:

"What could I do, Curly? It's a awful thing to love a woman this way; it's a terrible thing. There's no sense nor reason about it at all," says he. "But now if I only could have had any decent chance——"

"Pick up your gun," says he after a while; "it might fall out."

We rode on for quite a while. He made like he was going to reach into his pocket for something and I covered him quick, but he only hauled out a piece of Arrow Head plug. He offered me a chaw, absent-minded.

"No," says I; "I can't take no chaw of tobacco with such as you."

He put it back in his pocket, then, and didn't take none his own self. His face was right red and troubled now.

"Curly," says he, "what am I going to do? What's right to do? I hadn't much to give up, but such as it was I give it up gladly for her; I'd give up everything in the world—if I had everything—for her. That's what she means to me," says he. "We are so much to one another that I haven't any time to be scared of you. We haven't got around to that yet—not that I'm so cheap as to believe you're bluffing; I know you're not."

"No, I ain't," says I. "This thing has got to be squared and I come out here to square it. I know your record—I've heard you talk to more'n one woman. You've got a cast iron nerve," says I; "but it won't do you no good. Drive right on now till I tell you to stop."

"If you want to kill her too," says he, "all right—then shoot me down. Ride on out then and explain to her what you've done. Look at her face the way it will be then. Maybe you can tell then whether she cares anything for me or not. Do you want to see a woman's face looking thataway—see it all your life? And do you think you can square things or end things by killing me or her, or both of us? Maybe you'd murder more—who knows? We're man and wife. Would that square things, Curly? I don't know much myself, but I don't seem to think it would."

It was curious, but it seemed like it was true—he didn't seem to have got around to thinking of whether he was in danger or not. And I knowed he wasn't running any cheap bluff, neither, any more than me. He looked right on ahead and didn't pay no attention to my gun.

"Curly," says he, "you didn't make this and you can't end it. This is a case of man and woman, the way God made them. 'Male and female made He them.' If I died today—if she did too—I'd thank God that we had gone this far anyways together.

"Why," says he, going on like he was half talking to hisself, "I didn't believe in anything much—I was a atheist and a socialist—till I saw her. I couldn't see anything much worth while in the world—till I saw her. I didn't want to do or be anything much—till I saw her. And now, I see it all—everything! I see how much worth while the world is, and how much worth while she is and I am, and how much worth while other people are too. I just didn't know it before—till I saw her. Then I knew what life was all about. Do you think you can settle this now, or help it, Curly? No; it's too late."

We drove on quite a little way yet.

"Curly," says he at last, "I've made my talk. If any man says I married Bonnie Bell for anything but love—the best and cleanest of love—he's making the cruelest mistake in the world; and he's a damned liar too. You ask her, Curly."

"What's that?" says I. "Me ask her? I didn't come for that. I couldn't look at her. That girl can get my goat any station. I don't want to talk to her."

"But you wouldn't of lynched a cow thief on the range in the old days on such a showing as this."

"Thief?" says I to him. "She said she was a thief—she'd stole the life and happiness of her pa and others——"

"That's true," says he quiet like. "When you think of it, all life is only a theft every way. Each human being steals from all others. That's the way the world goes on. The coming generation steals always from the one that has gone by. Tell me, is that wrong? And tell me, can you and I judge if it is?"

I set and thought for quite a while, trying to figure out things. I couldn't. At last I reached up and threw my gun away into the sage.



XXVII

HOW I QUIT OLD MAN WRIGHT

I went back to the railroad station as soon as a wagon come along that would give me a ride, about half a hour after I left the hired man in the buckboard. Then I went on up to Cody. When I got there I done what anybody who knows cowpunchers knows I'd do in them circumstances. I certainly did run true to form.

First, I went to the telegraph office and sent a telegram to Old Man Wright: "Don't do nothing till you hear from me." Next, I showed I was a good business man by going and buying a railroad ticket back to Chicago; and I left it and ten dollars with the clerk at the hotel.

It might of been seven or eight days I was busy celebrating my losing my job like a cowpuncher almost always does. Having so much money it took me quite a while to finish decorating Cody the way I liked it best. Still, after a while, being down to ten dollars and the railroad ticket, I concluded to go back home.

When I got back to Chicago I found Old Man Wright setting right where I'd left him and he looked like he really hadn't done nothing since. His hair was right long and his face was full of whiskers.

"Well, I found 'em," says I.

"What did you do, Curly?" says he.

"I didn't shoot him none," says I. "So to speak, he taken my gun away from me."

"Huh! Where is she? How is she?"

I had to tell him I didn't bring no word from Bonnie Bell at all, and hadn't seen her even.

"I couldn't stand it, Colonel," says I. "He made a awful strong talk to me, Colonel," says I.

He didn't say nothing for a long time. He begin to talk right slow then.

"I thought I had one friend in the world," says he, "one man I could rest on. But even you've gone back on me—even you failed me, Curly."

"Yes, Colonel," says I. "I've done a heap worse than that. I know how you feel and I feel the same way. I ain't fitten to be your foreman. You only brought me on here because you was so damn softhearted you couldn't fire me. You didn't use no judgment or you'd of fired me then, and a hundred times since then. All this whole mix-up was because I didn't have no brains—I couldn't see a load of hay; yet it was me that was doing all the seeing—you never took no hand in it at all. Shore, I fell down! You ain't firing me right now; I fire myself. I've come back to say that to you, Colonel. I taken about a week in Cody to think it all over—with help."

He only set and looked at me, and I had a hard time trying to talk. I told him where them two was living.

Then all at once the whole picture of the old days, when him and me was young, seemed to come up before him. He flared up like only part of him had been afire inside. He got up and walked up and down, with his hands clinched tight.

"Damn you all!" says he, and his eyes was like coals now. "What have I done to any of you? What have I done wrong to anybody that I should deserve this? Can't you remember when you was a man, Curly? Can't you remember when you and me set on the gate of the big pasture, with our rifles acrost our knees, and waited for them sheepmen to come up and try to get them sheep through us? Did they get through? No; no one had us buffaloed. That was when you and me was men, Curly.

"What have we done now? We let this damn hypocrite, Dave Wisner, get the best of us all the way down the line. He's married his hired man to my girl; and he's set up that hired man out on the old home ranch, where her ma and me made our first start. Could anything be harder for me to bear than that? You was on the gate, Curly; and you let 'em through."

"He said they was plumb happy—them two, Colonel," says I. "What in hell could I do, Colonel? It all come over me. I could see the sun shining; I could feel the wind blowing again, like it was in the old days."

"Happy!" says he. He was half whispering now and his voice was like that of a right old man. "Happy! So was I—so was her ma—out there in the old log house, with the mountains, and the sun shining, and the wind blowing. Curly," says he, "what made her throw her life away? What made us come here at all?"

"I wish you'd stake me to some ham and aigs, Colonel," says I, "before I go. I met a fellow a while back that was broke; so I haven't et much."

"Go eat, man," says he, "And don't talk to me about going away."

"What's that?" says I.

"You're a damn, worthless, trifling cowhand and you'll never be anything different. I ought to fire you—ought to of done it long ago; but I fire my own men—they don't fire theirselfs. Go eat."

"Can't you eat none now, too, Colonel?" I ast him.

"Not yet," says he. "Maybe after a while."

I went out and got the first square meal I'd had for two days. When I couldn't eat no more right then, I sort of taken a pasear around the house, which was looking like hell by now. When I come back I seen a electric brougham out at our front yard. Tom Kimberly was just coming in. Out in the brougham I seen two girls. One was Katherine and the other seemed like it was Sally Henderson.

"I shan't try to say anything, Mr. Wright," says Tom Kimberly after a while to the old man—"only, whatever Bonnie Bell's done, she's done because she's thought it was best. She's tried to do what was honest and fair. If she didn't love me it wouldn't have been fair to marry me. She never said she'd marry me; she said she'd tell me sometime. It was her right to decide for herself. I wish her well, hard as that is for me to say."

"Yes; I know," says the old man. "She was a fine girl, Tom. But she ain't the only one in the world at that; and she had freckles, some—they get worse when they get old. There's plenty girls in the world handsomer'n her—always is plenty. If I hadn't happened to marry her ma, Tom, I'd of married any other of half a dozen more girls, like, just as they come along. They're all alike, anyways, you see; so don't take it hard."

He was a damn old liar! He never would of married no other woman in the world but the one he did marry, and he knew it; but he was trying to make Tom feel more comfortable. So Tom he set there and lit a cigarette. His trousers was right short, and when he hitched 'em up I seen he wore garters—blue ones. I was reconciled then.

After a time he got up and said good-by to us. Then he went out to where the brougham was standing in the street. One of the girls inside opened the door for him to get in—maybe Sally Henderson.



XXVIII

THE HOLE IN THE WALL

A paper come out, with a picture of the Wisner fence, showing the place where the hole had been broke through. It was marked with a star to show where it was at. The man that wrote the story said here was a modern case of Pyramus and Thisbe. Who they was I don't know; but like enough they lived on the South Side. There was pictures this time of our William and their Emmy. I didn't read any more about the thing, for I was sore on the whole business, and considerable worried about Old Man Wright, what he was going to do. But at part of the piece it said something I happened to see.

Evidently [it says] though it may be difficult for a young man to kiss a girl through a four-foot wall, this aperture, opening or orifice, without doubt or question originally was intended as an avenue for Mr. Pyramus to achieve access occasionally, if not to the lips, at least to the ears of little Miss Thisbe. Which leaves it only a question of who was Mr. Pyramus and who Miss Thisbe. As to this, Alderman Wright has steadily denied himself to the press, while Mrs. Wisner, the only member of the family at home on the north side of the wall, also refuses to talk. It is well known that Mr. Wisner has been absent in Europe on important business connected with the war loan—

I read that far to Old Man Wright and then he broke out.

"War loan!" says he. "It's a loan for his own self that he's looking for. He's lost four million dollars on that irrigation scheme of his when he bought our ranch. Now I'm going to foreclose and he knows it. He's got his funds tied up in cargoes of meat and grain that ain't cashed in. He's short, and damn short! And I know it; and these are times when banks ain't loosening much. War—yes; I'll show him war! There can't nobody get title to a foot of that land till Old Man Wisner gets his title from me—and he ain't never going to get it. If it's my last act I'll ruin him. I trusted you, and you turned me down. I trusted her, and she threw me down. I won't trust nobody no more, except myself.

"What's it come to?" says he to hisself after a while, looking around at the big rooms. "What did it all come to, what I done for her? And I give up the ranch for her and give up the life I loved!"

"The sun was on the hills when I was out there, Colonel," says I to him, sudden, happening to think of something, "and the sky was blue as it ever was; and the wind was just carrying the smell of the sage, like it used to; and the river was running white on the riffles, same as it did before. And the cows——"

"Don't, Curly!" says he. "Don't!"

"I won't no more, Colonel," says I. "I won't be on your pay roll much longer; but them old days——"

"Don't!" says he. "I can't think about the old days no more. I'm closing the books now, Curly."

"So'm I," says I.

"What do you mean?" says he. "I ain't right clear about some things."

"No; you ain't," says I. "So long as it's fair war I'm in with you; but when it comes to making war on women and children—I ain't in."

"Children! Curly, what do you mean?"

"Children," says I, "is all there is to things. Buck the game the way you want to, Colonel," says I; "but when you buck the child game you're bucking God Almighty His own self. He's got it framed up so He can't lose. Them two couldn't help theirselfs. I've got to finish some day, same as you. All right; I'll finish with them."

Then I shooked hands with him and he done so with me. He looks me keen in the eyes and I looks him keen back. We didn't neither of us weaken. This was a heap the hardest thing we'd ever faced together, but we didn't neither of us flicker. We'd both decided what we thought was right.

"Son," says he after a while, "you're some man after all." And he puts his hand on my shoulder; like he used to.

"She ain't got no ma," says I to him the last thing. "I'm half her pa, the only half she's got left; and I'll stick if her father don't. But she ain't got no ma. That's what makes me so sorry for the kid," says I.

He looks at me, with his eyes wide open, but he don't talk none.

"I seen her setting right there, Colonel," says I, "in this room, on our old hide lounge—her wringing her hands like she'd tear 'em apart. She was bucking a hard game then, and doing her best to play it fair—her just a kid, with no special chance to be so very wise, and not having no ma. She didn't have a soul to go to, and all that was worrying her was which side of the game she really was on. For she knowed, even if we didn't, like I told you just now—she must of knowed it somehow—there's one particular game that God Almighty plays so He can't lose."

He groaned like I hated to hear. But he didn't weaken. I knowed he couldn't quit.



XXIX

HOW THE GAME BROKE

Today was the day Old Man Wisner was to get home; and that evening me and Old Man Wright laid out to go over there and have a talk with him. So a lot of things had to be done that day.

Old Man Wright he got up at sunup, and almost all day he was busy in the room he used for a office at the house; he hadn't hardly went downtown at all since Bonnie Bell run away. He had a desk full of papers here, and now he sent for his lawyer and his barber to come over early in the day.

"Why, Alderman," says the lawyer man, "you act like you was making your last will and testament, and getting ready to close up business."

He laughs then; but Old Man Wright don't laugh.

"I am," says he. "It's time; I've been dead more'n a week now."

They made out some papers about houses and lots and stocks and things, how they was to be distributed in case of the deemise of the said John William Wright. Then after a while they come around to the papers in the big case we had against Old Man Wisner for the last deferred payment on the Circle Arrow trade that hadn't been paid yet and wouldn't be. Old Man Wright sets back and looks at them papers right ca'm.

"I know what Old Man Wisner's been East for," says he. "He couldn't raise that much money—nigh on a million dollars—on anything as wildcat as strawberries and cream in Wyoming; not these times. Even the banks is wise onto that now. Stenographers and clerks and ministers and doctors don't bite like they used to no more; it's harder to find people that's willing to pay in so much a month for a bungalow in Florida or Wyoming while they set home engaged in light and genteel employment. Every oncet in a while the American people gets took with a spasum of a little horse sense. There's places for peaches and cream, and there's places for cows, but you don't want to get your wires crossed.

"So," says he, "I know I've got Old Man Wisner broke right now. He's been over to Holland to see if he couldn't form a Dutch syndicate for to unload on. The Dutch is the last resort of the American landboomer. When you can't sell out a bunch of greasewood land for a pineapple colony to no one else, go over and sell it to them Dutch; they're easy. I seen a man one time sell almost all the north end of New Mexico to a Dutch syndicate for a coffee plantation. It was good for cows; but he had pictures of steamboats and canals and things out there in the sagebrush—you've got to have a canal on your blueprint if you sell anything to them Holland people. Like enough Old Man Wisner had pictures of canals. But he couldn't sell this property none, following on the war over there; they're busy with other things.

"The result is he's come back here broke. He knows the banks has got wise and they ain't going to back him no further than they have. They're too busy lending a billion dollars or so to the folks over in Europe to help blow up some steamboats for us.

"Therefore," says he, jarring the paper weight on the table when he brings down his fist, "if times gets any harder, as like enough they will, Dave Wisner's got to let that property go on the market for what it'll bring inside his one year of grace after foreclosure. I know what that means; it'll mean I got a few thousand acres of land more to distribute among my heirs and assigns, my executors, friends, faithful servitors, villagers and others—however you got that figured out in them papers.

"Let me see them papers," says he after a while. "Are you shore you got my girl's name spelled Katherine? And that she gets this city residence here?"

Then they went over it again. But after a while the lawyer got done, and so did the barber, and they both went away; and the old man turns to me.

"Curly," says he, "I'm rich. I'm awful rich. I didn't know how rich I was till I begun to figure it up with Fanstead, Maclay & Horn, my lawyers here. I reckon, taking fair values, I'm worth ten or twelve million dollars—maybe twenty or forty—most of it made in this here town in a couple of years or so, and all out of the Wisner money we got for the ranch, which we're going to get back pretty nigh clean of cost, you might say. I didn't mean to; but I'm rich—awful rich!

"And so, seeing I ain't got no heirs of my own blood and kin, I been looking around for a few others. There's that Katherine; she's a good girl. She kissed me right here once." And the old man put his hand on the top of his head. "I'm going to give her a little something after I'm dead; for instance, this house and the things here—half a million dollars maybe. Likewise, I've fixed up a few things for my faithful servitor aforesaid, Henry Absalom Wilson—which is you, Curly. I give you only enough for cigarette money," says he; "never mind how much. And as for them two," says he—"her and the Wisners' hired man—not a cent! Not a damned cent! I'll show him!

"The old ranch," says he, "is going to be fixed up sometime—some of my heirs and executors'll get a hold of that. It's easy to get plenty of heirs if you have twelve or fifty million dollars. I've left instructions to make improvements out there. It'll sort of be the best apology I can make to the woman that's buried out there—Gawd bless her!—as good a woman as ever lived on earth. I can't see how she could have such a girl like she done. Well," he finishes, sort of sighing. "I done my best. I may not live more'n thirty or forty years more.

"So, now then, Curly," says he after a while, "since we've finished all our day's work and have a little time left, we can now engage in some simple pastime, such as mumblety-peg, or maybe marbles, till later in the evening. I'm through cutting her off, Curly, and I'm happy. I've left it as clean as I know how. Now I'll bet you a thousand dollars I can beat you three games out of five at mumblety-peg. My executor, without bond," says he, going right on, "is Old Man Kimberly."

"You're on, Colonel," says I; "though I don't know where I'll get a thousand till after your will is probated."

So we went outdoors and set down on the grass and played mumblety-peg—me losing that thousand, natural. Then we sort of fussed around outdoors one way or another till it come towards dark. He left me after a while and went into the house alone.

When I went in I seen him standing by hisself in our ranch room, looking at some things he'd picked up. They was a white silk scarf and a pair of long white gloves—he'd like enough found 'em back of the sofa, where Bonnie Bell probably dropped 'em the night when I seen her setting there wringing her hands because she didn't know what to do. We never let no one clean up the ranch room. He put 'em down soft on the sofa and smoothed out the scarf and folded the gloves; it was like he was laying 'em away in a drawer.

We didn't enjoy nothing much to eat, not even ham and aigs. It begun to get dark right soon after that and I sort of wandered out on the front walk to look around. Old Man Wright was in the house by hisself.

Right then I seen a car come in right fast and pull up at the sidewalk about halfway between our house and the Wisners'. Someone got out of the car and come running up our walk. I could see it was a woman. Not wishing no one to be bothered then, I went down to meet her.

It was Bonnie Bell! She'd come home then.

I run down the walk to meet her and pushed her away. I knew it wouldn't do for them two to meet now. But she run up and put her arms around my neck. She was alone, though there was someone in the car that hadn't got out.

"Curly!" says she, "Curly! I saw you standing there and I came in. Where is he, Curly?"

I nods behind me.

"In there," says I. "Don't go in—you mustn't."

"I must, sometime. Let me go now."

"No you don't," says I. "You can't. It's too late."

"Too late? Too late? Why, what do you mean, Curly? I've—I've come back! I want to see my dad! I've got to see my dad. There's lots I must tell him. He don't know—I didn't know."

"You can't see your dad no more, kid," says I. "That time has went by. I'm foreman here till midnight of today; and while I am there ain't nobody going to bother him. He's had trouble enough already."

She stood sort of shaking. I had her wrists in my hands now.

"When it's all over," says I—"meaning a few things we're going to settle tonight—I'll come out to you in Wyoming. I won't be foreman here no more. I'm going to go and throw in with you, even against the old man."

She begun to cry now.

"What are you talking about? I want him!" says she. "I want to see my dad. I need him—and he needs me!"

"Yes; he does need you," says I. "He's needed you for a long time. But you wouldn't like to see him now; he's changed a heap. He ain't got a friend left on earth except me, and that ends at midnight. He's had it pretty rough, when you come to think it all over," says I.

"I must go in, Curly," says she.

"No; you can't," says I. "I'm foreman and I won't let you. He wouldn't want it; he's marked you off his books—we just been doing that today, with a lawyer and a barber."

"But, Curly, he doesn't know——"

"Huh!" says I. "Well, he thinks he does. He figures you're the same as if you was dead."

"Curly!" she cries now hard. "Curly, it mustn't be! It's all a mistake; it's all been a mistake. I've come back——"

"Yes," says I; "it was a mistake. It ain't been nothing but a mistake all down the line. But, as far as it can be squared, the old man and me we've set out to square it tonight. Him and me is going to call on Old Man Wisner this evening," says I. "We're going over as soon as Old Man Wisner gets home. I'm going with your pa, Bonnie. You know me and I reckon you know him too. I reckon there may be some plain conversation."

"I've got to see him!" says she over and over again.

"Well, if you want to see him," says I, "you go on over there and, like enough, you will see him before long. You belong that side the wall now. Tonight is when Old Man Wright and me settles with Old Man Wisner, and settles permanent. We live on this side."

She turns now and runs away so fast I couldn't catch her.

I seen someone get out of the car now—a man; and she taken his arm and they both went out of sight around the end of the wall. I allowed they'd went up to the door. Right soon I seen a light in their higher windows above the wall—you could just see that much from where I was standing. If I'd wanted to go upstairs I might of seen more from our windows; but I wouldn't do that now.

I went back in the house and stood near our door, watching the street. In about half or three-quarters of a hour I seen Old Man Wisner's car coming in; there was lights in the car and I could see him plain. He was setting with his head kind of bent down. I suppose, like enough, he'd already been served with them papers of ours down town. He'd got into town early that morning and been busy all day at his office. He was just getting home now. He must of knowed he was busted.

I waited for half a hour more, so things could get right settled down over there, and then I went in and found Old Man Wright. He was setting still as a dead man, looking into the fireplace in our ranch room, though there wasn't no fire. He was all dressed up in his evening clothes; and now I seen why he'd had the barber come. There wasn't a finer-looking gentleman in all the town than Old Man Wright was right then—though him pale and sad. Lord, how sad he was! But not can-nye—none whatever, him, even if Old Lady Wisner had called us all that.

"He's come, Colonel," says I, quiet, turning from one sad old man to another sad old man.

I didn't say nothing to him about who else I'd seen in our front yard; I didn't want to stir him all up, for I knowed he'd marked Bonnie Bell off'n his books and closed the books for keeps. When I spoke to him he turns around and stands up, quiet.

"Very well," says he; "we'll go on over now."

So us two walk together out of our front door. He shuts the door then behind him and we go on down the walk together. He only turns once and looks back at the house.

The whole street laid there in front of us when we walked out from our yard to go over into theirs. The lights was all lit now, miles and miles of 'em; and below us was the hundreds of thousands more of the lights of the big city—the city that hadn't made us as happy as we thought it was going to. I heard a boat whistle deep somewheres out on the lake—it sort of made my stomach tremble.

Over west, beyond our part of the city, you could hear a low sort of sound like maybe of street cars; but on our side there wasn't anything but automobiles—thousands of 'em—going along as swift and smooth as birds. Most of them was going north still; but on the other side of the street some was going down, maybe with people going to the theaters. It was about the time when people in the city eat what they call dinner. The moon was coming up back of our house, which lay there all black—not a light in it now. I could see the flower beds in our yard, and the white naked statutes standing there. It looked right pretty, but cold like a graveyard.

The front door was shut and, the moon being up over east, the part of the house toward us was black-like. I remembered what the lawyer man had said about things being signed, sealed and delivered. Well, we'd closed the books. It was to hell with them Better Things!

I didn't tell Old Man Wright that Bonnie Bell had been there, because he had things hard enough the way it was and I was working for him yet a little while. He was ca'm as a summer day now.

I'd been his deputy once or twice when we had to go and arrest a bad man. He was now just like he was then. He walks, his thumbs, on both sides, just resting on the waistband of his pants. I don't know what he had in his mind; but you couldn't of saw the sign of a gun on him and I'd throwed my gun away. His coat tails hung straight down. Outside he was plumb civilized. His face was white and he looked right gentle—just gentle. He wasn't. As for changing him, it would of been as easy to change one of them marble statutes over in our garden.

Them Wisners wasn't watching their own gate like they'd ought to of. We walked on up their stairs and the old man rung the bell and stood there, his face without no expression now.

We heard some noises inside there—their dog begun to bark and it seemed like people was talking. Their William opened the door and we all stood there.

Old Man Wright reaches out his arm and pushes him to one side, and him and me go on in, walking fast toward the middle of the house.



XXX

HOW IT COME OUT AFTER ALL

There was a curtain acrost the door between the hall and the room beyond. Old Man Wright made one sweep and throwed open the whole room before us. We stood there in the door, neither of us making any move. Everything stopped then. There wasn't nobody talking no more. What we seen before us was something you couldn't hardly of figured on seeing at all.

They was all setting at the dinner table and they was all dressed up. There was Old Man Wisner and the old lady, and Bonnie Bell—she was setting next to the old lady. Just beyond, and square acrost the table from us, facing us, was the hired man—the man on whose account we'd come to square things now and leave them signed, sealed and delivered.

I thought it was right funny for their hired man to be eating with them, and him all dressed up just like them. Then I remembered how fresh he'd always been and how he'd bragged about the pull he had with them people. And I remembered the talk I'd heard between him and Old Lady Wisner too. Anyways, there he was setting, big as life; and if they was having any trouble over anything you couldn't see it. No one was shedding no tears and there didn't seem to be no war going on.

I felt like I was up in the air. I felt like I'd been dreaming about something and hadn't woke up. I couldn't figure out what it was I seen. No one spoke a word.

You must remember that Old Man Wright didn't know yet Bonnie Bell was anywhere within three thousand miles of him. And when he pulled aside the curtain there she was, setting right at their table! And right acrost was a young man setting, too—a young man who he don't know none.

You see, he never had saw that hired man at all, so as to know him. I hadn't told the old man about Bonnie Bell being there, because I allowed he'd find it out anyways. Now he had.

It was Bonnie Bell that moved first—for she knew what might happen. She made one jump for her pa and threw her arms round him—not around his neck, but down around his arms. She didn't try to kiss him—she didn't say a word; she was scared. She knowed where he carried his gun—up under his shoulder. I never knowed whether she found it or not.

"No!" says she, quick; and she locked her hands behind his back so he couldn't get his arms loose. "No! No; you can't—you shan't! No, no!" she says. "Dad! Dad!"

Ordinary she would of been no more than a straw to him, he was that strong. But, you see, he wasn't expecting to see her—and a lot of things come over him all at once. Here she was, with her arms around him anyways, no matter what for.

For once Old Man Wright forgot. His hand only kind of went out to hers where they was, and he says, trembly:

"Bonnie, girl! I didn't know you was here!"

By that time everybody was on their feet. The hired man starts for us, but I stopped him.

"Not yet," says I. "I'm working for the old boss till midnight tonight. You stay where you are."

When I said that Old Man Wisner and Old Lady Wisner they just froze right where they was. But Bonnie Bell didn't. She turns to me now and I felt her hand on my arm.

"What do you mean, you men? Are you crazy?" says she. "I'll not have this! Set down! You, Curly—you make any break here and I'll slap you in the face," says she. "You hear me? Don't you start anything here!"

Well, now, you wouldn't think we'd all been broke up thataways just by a girl, would you? But she had us on the run before we got started. It was mostly because of all this being so unexpected. I didn't expect to see the hired man at their table and Old Man Wright didn't expect to see Bonnie Bell at all; so the whole herd begun to mill round.

She pushed her pa down into a seat, and me too.

"So that's the way you act when I'm not here!" says she. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," says she. "I won't have any more of this."

Their hired man set down now, right serious. He didn't laugh none nor try to pass it off. We all knew that it was a show-down, that it was a settlement, and that it had to go through.

Old Man Wright he didn't seem to look at anyone but Bonnie Bell. If you can say a man can look hungry with his eyes, that's the way he looked then. By this time she was crying, and she puts her arms around his neck now.

"Dad!" says she. "Pore old dad! Pore old foolish, unhappy dad!" Now she begins to kiss him some; but he can't talk none—only pats her shoulders.

"I'm the wretchedest, wickedest girl on earth," says she to him, pushing back his hair, "and I'm the happiest too! Dad, listen to me. You mustn't sit in judgment. Don't take things so hard. Wait—try to see. Try to see if maybe there isn't some other will in the world besides your own, dad—maybe some will bigger than all of ours. I couldn't help it, dad—I couldn't! I'm so happy," says she, "so foolish happy now!"

"Happy?" says he at last; and he pushes her away from him. "With him, there?" He nods now at the hired man, having got him placed. "What's he doing here?" says he.

"Why shouldn't he be here?" says Old Man Wisner right then, speaking for the first time. "He's my son!"

"What's that?" says Old Man Wright. "Your son!"

"Shore!" says he. "Who'd you think he was? He can eat at my table. He's done well; he's married the best girl I ever seen!" says he. Then he gets so he can't talk worth a cent too.

Shucks! I wisht I was most any place else. His son! How could his son be his hired man, and where was the hired man if this wasn't him? I felt myself begin to get sweaty on my face and all over. I'd been one awful fool, me.

"Dave Wisner," says Old Man Wright, "I come acrost to settle things with you. Our account is some long. You've made it hard for me—awful hard!—when you made your hired man run off with my girl. Your son! What kind of talk is this? What do you mean?"

"But he is our son!" says Old Lady Wisner right then, her speaking for the first time. "In heaven's name, who did you think he was? Hired man! What do you mean?"

"It's what I been trying to tell you and Curly," says Bonnie Bell now, holding to her pa's coat with one hand and patting him hard on the shoulder with the other. "I told you it was all a mistake—everything was all mixed up. Except for Gawd's mercy sending me here right now, somebody might of been killed, for all I know," says she. "You men ain't got no more brains than a rabbit. It's time I come!"

"Your son!" says Old Man Wright. "Son! And Curly said he was your hired man!"

Old Man Wisner laughs right out loud at that.

"Hired man! Oh, I see how you thought that! You maybe seen him pottering around in the flowers like—he was always dotty about them things—but no hired man; he wasn't hardly worth a salary."

"And what do you think?" laughs Bonnie Bell at Old Lady Wisner then. "His mother thought once I was a hired girl!"

Old Lady Wisner for quite a while she'd been playing a sort of accompaniment, talking to herself. First, she starts in and says: "Oh, my laws! Oh, my laws sakes! Oh my laws sakes alive!"—over and over again, she was that scared. And now she begun to say: "Bless my soul! Gawd bless my soul! Oh, Gawd bless my soul!" And she says that right over and over again too.

"I told you, Curly," says Bonnie Bell now, "that there'd been a mistake all around. Why didn't you tell my dad I was here?"

"Well," says I, "I allowed he'd find it out after a while. Ain't he?"

I was sweating awful now and I felt how red my hair was. I toed in so bad my legs was crossed.

"I've found out a lot of things," says Old Man Wright now, right sudden and swift. "I been making some mistakes my own self; but you"—and he faces their hired man now—"you passed yourself off for a servant."

"That's true, sir," says he. "I was under false colors for a long while and I hated it as much as anyone could. But what could I do? I couldn't find any way to meet her. I didn't want her money and I didn't want her to want mine. Well, that's how it happened. I deceived you all, that's true. I deceived her too—she didn't really know who I was until less than a week ago. Then she came home."

"Why didn't you come and tell me at first?" says Old Man Wright.

"How could I?" says he. "I knew what that would mean, from all Curly said. Besides, I wanted to win her just for what I was—just for what she was. I wanted to be sure she'd love me the way I wanted, for just what I was. I'm sure now.

"But I was going to come and tell you; we came on now for that very thing—the two of us, as you see. It wasn't any pleasure for me to deceive either you or her—I never liked that any more than you did."

Old Man Wright he just set looking at him, and he couldn't talk. The young fellow went on.

"I loved her the first time I saw her, sir," says he. "I resolved, the first time I ever saw her, that sometime I'd marry her. I did. And we're happy—we're happier than I ever thought anybody could be. How can you bear a grudge against a girl like that—your own girl? She's only done what she thought was right. And it was right too! And it goes!"

"So you're the son of this family!" says Old Man Wright, slow. "That can't be helped, neither. I—well, I didn't know. I—I thought you wanted her for her money. I'll go so far as to say that."

"It wouldn't of made any difference," says Bonnie Bell then. "I'd of married him anyway. It's just like he says—he never told me about it until just a little while ago. I thought he was some sort of a distant relative of the Wisner family. If you stop to think you can see how all these things happened easy enough. Especially you can when you stop to think that, on foot and off a horse, Curly is apt to do more fool things than a cageful of white rats—God bless him! Because nobody else but him could of done just what he's done!"

"Well, it does seem to me," says I then, "that most of this happened account of me. I reckon I made about as many fool breaks as any fellow could," says I. "Like I told your pa, I couldn't see a load of hay. But here's where I quit. It don't look like you need me no more, for things is mixed up now as bad as they can get," says I.

"Keep still, Curly," says Bonnie Bell to me. "Set down!"

About then I seen them two old men looking at each other. Without saying nothing, they both got up and went out into the parlor together. We couldn't hear what they said. For that matter, we couldn't hear what we said ourselfs, because of something that happened around in there.

Their collie dog, Caesar, was barking at us when we come in. He'd sort of got under the table. But now we heard another dog barking plumb crazy. And now in comes from somewhere, out in the garridge or the car maybe, that Boston dog, Peanut, of Bonnie Bell's!

He was looking for a settlement too. He don't hesitate, but he goes straight for this collie under the table, and they mix it plenty right then and there, till most of us was glad enough to get up on the chairs. I tried to stop them and the old lady and Bonnie Bell was both hollering at them; but the hired man he raised his hand.

"Let them alone!" says he. "They got almost human intelligence someways," says he. "Let 'em alone, so they can have it out."

So they had it out for quite a while there in the dining-room, under the table and among the chairs, and under the sofa, and pretty much everywhere, both of 'em enjoying of theirselfs plenty. Their dog, Caesar, had got older now and Peanut he had his hands full; but he was shore industrious and sincere.

By and by, after quite a while, they hauled apart and set looking at each other, their tongues hanging out, happy and smiling. Peanut he goes over to his mistress, and he was shaking a ear that was loose. Caesar he goes over to the old lady, limping and holding up his foot, him looking plumb contented.

"They'll get along all right now," says the hired man—James, or Jimmie, or Jim, whatever you ought to call him.

I couldn't believe he was young Mr. James Wisner. Sometimes I don't hardly even yet.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," says Bonnie Bell. "I declare, men are brutes anyhow!"

"I know it, Bonnie Bell," says I. "I've made plenty of trouble, but not no more. I'm taking the morning train West," says I.

"Where to?" she ast me; and I can't answer—for me the whole world was upside down, same as this room here.

About then the two old men come back into the room, both of them serious; but you could see easy that they hadn't had no war—only some kind of a squaring and settling up; I reckon because of Bonnie Bell and this James, or Jimmie, or Jim, not being no hired man none after all, which maybe he had a strawberry mark on his arm—I don't know how they proved it.

Old Man Wright he stood up, with his hand on top of a chair; and he made a little after-dinner talk that cost him, maybe, several million dollars—not that he cared!

"I come here tonight," says he, "to maybe take the law into my own hands—anyways I reckon I come here to set in judgment; but I wasn't no good judge, because I was trying the case without having all of the facts. But I'm this kind of man," says he, "that when I've made a mistake, and know it, I'm game to stand up and say so. That's what I'm doing now. I reckon I been wrong. Some things you can't help. I ain't going to try to help this no more.

"The fact is, I reckon, maybe it's the best thing that could of happened. It didn't happen through me. I done my best to keep it from happening. That's where I was wrong. I'm glad of all this now and I take back what I said. I've been a twenty-two carat, pink-eyed, black-striped wild ass of the desert, though not halfway as big a fool as Curly. It was him that got us all in wrong."

Old Man Wisner he stands up too; and he makes his confession that's good for his soul. His Adam's apple kind of walked up and down his neck, but he come through.

"Don't say no more, Colonel," says he. "I'm to blame for all this myself. I was the biggest fool that ever was. That fence—why, that fence now——"

James, or Jimmie, or Jim, and Bonnie Bell they looks at each other then and laughs right out.

"You didn't build it high enough," says he; "you couldn't!"

"I'm glad I couldn't," says Old Man Wisner. "Things are going to come out all right, the way they ought to come. I've learned a lot tonight—a lot about being neighbors. Son, we had a neighbor and we didn't know it. Maybe it's that way plenty times. We had one neighbor that has saved your father from being broke and disgraced before all the world—before tomorrow night. That's what kind of neighbors we had all along," says he; "and we tried to build a fence and keep them away from us! Yes; thank Gawd, I couldn't build the fence high enough," says he.



"I knew something about this, dad," says James, or Jimmie, or Jim, then. "I could of told you long ago that ranch deal couldn't win. Scale it down, get at the real business and human values, and it ought to win—and win big!"

Old Man Wisner he's always rather strong for organization. He looks over at Old Man Wright and they both look at this young man; and they both nod.

"That's a good idea," says Old Man Wright—"a damn good idea! Now then, we're beginning to talk. Why can't we throw the two businesses in together and make one hand wash the other, and let this young gentleman take care of the reorganization on the spot?"

"That's the idea!" breaks in Bonnie Bell right then. "There ain't any better cow country out-of-doors than the Yellow Bull Valley. I know that. Give us a chance and we'll pull this whole business out of the hole," says she.

"James," says Old Man Wright, and he walks around and holds out his hand, playing the game wide open, like he always done—"James," says he, "will you shake hands with the worst old fool there is in the whole world—except Curly?"

Now James he's been doing pretty well up to now, but this about knocks him out. He gets up, kind of red and startled, and he shakes hands with the Old Man; but he couldn't say nothing and didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. So he puts his hand in his pocket, like a man will, and he seems to feel something there; and all at once, not being able to think of nothing else, he pulls out what he found and holds it out to Old Man Wright.

"Colonel," says he, "will you have a chew? It's Arrow Head—same name as our home spring out there," says he. "I've used no other since. I just heard you own most of the stock in the Arrow Head Tobacco Company; but I ain't surprised. You ain't overlooked much!"

I reckon that was the luckiest accident ever happened to him—when he found that piece of plug. Old Man Wright taken a bite of it liberal, and says he:

"Son, do you wear garters?"

Everybody fell to laughing then, excepting me and Old Man Wright. It was serious for us. We was figuring on cowmen now. Bonnie Bell, she goes up to her pa once more and hugs him, and looks at the hired man.

"Don't mind him, Jim," says she. "He's awful sometimes; but he means all right and he has his own ways of figuring. I've got the best dad in the world!" says she.

"You had the best ma in the world," says Old Man Wright. "Seems to me sometimes you favor your ma," says he.

Then they kissed each other; fact is, most everybody got kissed around there excepting me. Yet, when you come to figure about it, I'd been responsible for a good many of those things and the way they come out, and I didn't get no credit for it. No foreman ever does.

Old Lady Wisner, like I said, she was setting there and saying mostly: "Gawd bless me!" and "Gawd bless my soul!"—nobody paying much attention to her. But now Bonnie Bell she sidles over to her and sort of puts out her hand, shy. The old lady she puts a arm around her, and she begins to cry too. They was both right happy. Dogs has to fight and women has to cry; then they're happy. I reckon them two had some sort of understanding.

"Son," says Old Man Wright after a while to James, or Jimmie, or Jim, "where have I saw you before?" He'd been looking at him for some time.

"The first time you ever seen me, Colonel," says he, "was when I fell in love with your daughter, sir," says he. "That was when I drove you home to your house on Christmas Eve."

"You drove—when you drove us home!" says Old Man Wright. "What do you mean about that? We had our own car; and I give the driver a ten-dollar gold piece that night because it was Christmas Eve. He got lit up; so he was wabbly next day too. I remember that."

"So do I," says James, laughing. "I've got that money now. But it was your real driver that got lit up, not me. You see, when Bonnie Bell come out in the storm that night she didn't notice that it wasn't her car. Hers looked a good deal like it—both the same make and right new. Maybe she wasn't very well acquainted with her new chauffore yet; so she says to me to take her home. So I had to do that."

"How did you know where to go?" ast Bonnie Bell then, laughing.

"I knew all about you!" says he. "I'd been busy for over a hour there in the hotel dining-room with Henderson, and that was long enough to learn all I ever wanted to know. I knew how rich you were. That was why I drove you home and didn't let you know who I was; that was why I never tried to call; that was why a lot of things happened right the way they did. I had some fool theories of my own, maybe; maybe I did get a touch of socialism or something of that kind when I was in college.

"But anyway, Colonel Wright," he goes on, "I want to say to you, sir, that I've known you and admired you a lot more than you ever knew. I voted for you for alderman—though my own dad was running against you. I thought you stood for what I thought was right. All the world is really neighbors," says he, "and the human democracy is good enough for me. I voted for you then—and I do now. My dad has a lot to learn."

He turns to his pa then, and the old man like to of blew up, he was so mad; but we all ended by laughing at this too.

"Son," says Old Man Wright, "did you say to me that you used one of them old-fashioned razors? I'm this sort of man that sometimes they say has got prejerdices. Now I always hone my own razors."

"So do I," says James, or Jimmie, or Jim.

The old man he hesitates a while and looks at him right sad; and he says, like he was talking to hisself:

"Well, well! I do wonder how I was such a hand-painted idiot all the time! I believe we shore can make a cowman out of you yet," says he.

"It's in sixes and sevens," says James, or Jimmie, or Jim, "but there's a chance there on that ranch. Maybe I can learn. And it's so fine out there—with the mountains, and the skies, and the wind blowing in the sage, and the——"

"Hush, man!" says Old Man Wright to him. "You're making me so homesick I can't stand it. We'll all go out there to live. I'll tell you what we'll do," says he in his rushing way, sort of taking the lead of things. "We'll keep these two houses in here for both of us for our city homes, and we'll all of us have the old ranch for our country homes," says he. "And we'll all run the business plumb sensible on good business lines," says he, "with the peaches and cream out, and the ribs, chucks and plates all in. Why, we'll——"

"Oh, dad!" says Bonnie Bell, and she goes up to the old man, crying because she was happy. She'd seen him change right there before her—he'd got forty years younger in the last ten minutes. "Dad," says she—"dad, we will—when?"

"Daughter," says he, "we're going to begin right now to get them Better Things we started out for. You're going to have the place in life that your ma said you'd ought to have. You and Katherine," says he, "will have to fix it up about that house I was going to leave in my last will and testament. But, like I said, I'm going to give Katherine half a million when she marries—if she marries as good a man as you did. You see, Katherine kissed me—right here in a soft spot—on top of my old bald head."

He rubs the place then. Bonnie Bell she kisses him there too—for maybe sever'l million.

After a while I sort of moved over toward the door, it seeming like it wasn't no place for me no more.

"Where you going?" says Old Man Wright to me; and Old Man Wisner he says something, too, about my not being in a hurry.

"I don't know, but I reckon I'll be moving along now. Looks like I been some foreman. I done all this. But what thanks do I get for it?"

I starts away to get outside this kissing zone, so to speak. I didn't know but Old Lady Wisner'd try to kiss me. I didn't want that to happen.

"Ho, ho!" says Old Man Wright, laughing like he did years ago. "Hear that fool boy talk, won't you, Dave? You can't quit, Curly," says he; "there's too much for you to do out there on the old ranch. Do you suppose you could teach this kid to rope?" says he.

"I already got a start at it," says I. "Him and me used to practice some."

* * * * *

Well now, that was how come us to square it all up, both sides, and come to a understanding that didn't noways seem possible just a little while before. That was how we come to go back to the old Yellow Bull country, for part of the year anyways. It was how a right bad run-in was saved. It was how Old Man Wisner was kept from busting wide open the next day, and, like enough, a bank or so along with him. Likewise it was how them two fortunes, maybe fifty or ninety million or more between them when they got things cleaned up, was joined till death do them part. When them two old fellows got to pulling together something had to crack. We shore got a business now—sever'l of 'em.

I got Jimmie—we come to call him that on the ranch—so he could rope some inside his first year, though I had to show him how to spread his loop a little wide and not to depend on soaping his hondoo.

It was like old times to see a kid beginning on the range in the one man's game that's worth while on earth—raising cows in a good cow country. I was glad I hadn't shot Jimmie, or my boss hadn't shot his pa—I wouldn't of minded so about Old Lady Wisner, because I couldn't help remembering how she'd made trouble deliberate from the first. Of course I'd made trouble, too, but I hadn't went to.

What become of the old wall between them two houses? Nothing much; we left it stand, for someways it didn't seem so high no more when Bonnie Bell's ivy and them other plants begun to hang down on it. But, of course, I had to bust the hole in a little bit bigger after a while, so as the twins could get through right easy, as well as Peanut. One was named David Abraham and the other John William; but they couldn't help it.

The best time was when we all rounded up one spring out there at the station to go out on the ranch for the spring round-up, and to start things running for the year. Old Man Wisner and the old lady was there, and Old Man Wright and Jimmie and Bonnie Bell and me—me that was foreman now and, like enough, earning it, the way things had been let go to pieces.

We'd come down from Cody to that station where I found Jimmie—time I was out hunting for him. For a while we'd been quite considerable busy getting things packed, ready to go out to the ranch. We had two wagons, one full of groceries and things. They'd even put in fly screens out there now and had rocking chairs to set around in. Old Man Wright was as busy as a fiddler getting things pulled together. His sleeves was rolled up, and all at once Jimmie looks at him and says:

"Colonel, if I'm not mistaken your freckles is coming back again."

The old man roars laughing at that.

"Yes," he says; "I'm almost fit to run for sher'f oncet more. Ain't it all like the old times, Curly?" says he.

"It shore is, Colonel," says I; "and there ain't no better times than them."

The old man he gets into the buckboard on one side and he taken the two twins on his knees. On the seat back of him was Pa and Ma Wisner—me riding with Old Man Wright, in the middle. She was a three-seat buckboard, and the mules was full of oats and plunging some; but Jimmie didn't mind—he was driving, with Bonnie Bell, on the front seat.

"All set?" says he, turning his head around; and Old Man Wright nods.

"Giddap!" says Jimmie, and turns 'em loose.

Bonnie Bell, she turns around halfway, half looking at him and half at the twins, and says she:

"Home, James!"

THE END