Chapter 13

"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.