Chapter 9

"I had to find some way to tell you," says he. "What part have I had in this foolish squabble? Was that my fault? I'm only a servant now; but give me a chance to break out of that. Why, when I was out West----"

"Were you out West?" says she, sudden.

"Yes; in the Yellow Bull Valley, among the cowmen--among the real people. You came from that valley yourself."

"Yes, we did," says she; "and we'd far better of stayed there."

"You couldn't of stayed there," says he. "And besides, if you'd stayed there I'd never of met you, or you me."

"Indeed! Was that all my fortune--to meet the servant of my father's enemy?"

"It's all of mine! I'm not your enemy. But suppose now I went to your father and told him--what would he do?"

"He'd maybe kill you," says Bonnie Bell simply; "or else Curly would."

"I wouldn't blame either of them," says he. "I don't want to sneak around. I'm going away again----"

"What made you come back?" she says.

"Because I was sick in my heart. Because I thought I could look over once in a while and see you. But when I came back, here was this cursed fence and I couldn't see you any more. I thought I'd go mad. Maybe I have; I don't know."

"With or without the fence," says Bonnie Bell, "how could our circles cross, yours and mine?"

"Circles!" says he. "Circles! What are circles? I've heard this talk of circles all my life," says he. "I've seen it going on all around me. It's rot--rot! It's my misfortune to find one so far above me."

"My money?" says she, scornful. "I've a lot of it."

He didn't say a word to that for a long time.

"Did you really think that of me for a minute?" says he at last.

"You take it for granted that I've thought of you at all?" says she.

"I wouldn't of dared," says he--and it sounded like the truth, through the door. "Don't class me that way!"

"How can a girl tell?" says she. "Men talk like this to girls----"

"Have they talked to you? Who was it?"

"My social opportunities," says she slow and bitter-like, "seem to be confined to our neighbors' gardener."

"Don't!" says he. "Oh, don't! I don't want to see you hurt, even by your own tongue."

I never'd heard any man hand out any talk of this sort to any girl before. It was right interesting and I was glad I listened.

"How can a girl tell?" says she, like she was talking to herself.

"Shorely she can't tell all at once," he answers. "I'd never ask you to do more than wait. I'd want to go away and stay away till I could come in at your front door and be welcome," says he. "I wouldn't ask you to decide one thing now. But, as for me, I decided everything long ago."

She didn't say nothing.

"As to your money," says he after a while, "listen to me. Look at me--look close. Look into my eyes. Am I not honest? Tell me--if truth like mine can be mistaken for deceit, then what chance has any man on earth?"

She didn't answer, and he goes on like he had stepped up closer--I don't know but what he did.

"Look into my eyes," says he. "Look at me close. Maybe that'll help me some, for shorely you can see how much I----"

"Don't!" says she. "Don't!"

I don't believe she looked into his eyes at all.

"I wouldn't touch you," says he. "I wouldn't touch your hand--I wouldn't touch the hem of your garment. It wouldn't be right. It maybe ain't right for me to think of meeting you again; but it's right this once."

She didn't answer at all. He come to what seemed to trouble him.

"Is it the money?" he says again. "What's money if you've got nothing else?"

"Not much," says she; "not very much."

"I've not coveted it," says he. "It's another commandment I've broke. I've coveted that which was my neighbor's. I've coveted you--no more, so much! If you and I had a shack on the Yellow Bull out there, and forty acres to start with," says he, "out where the sun shines all the time, and the wind is sweet, and the mountains rise up around you----"

"Don't!" says she again. "Don't! Please go away--I can't stand that."

I couldn't stand it neither; so I opened the door.

XVI

HOW I WAS FOREMAN

They jumped apart--or farther apart--when I walked out. They wasn't holding hands, but she must of been looking at him and him at her.

"Miss Wright," says I, quiet--the first time I ever called her Miss Wright in all my life--"Miss Wright," says I, "come up to the house."

"Curly," says she, "oh, don't--don't!"

But she seen I didn't have no gun.

"Get across there quick!" says I to him.

"You overheard!" says he. "You overheard what I've been saying?"

"All of it," says I. "It was my business to. Of all the low-down things any man ever done in all his life, that's what you done now. I heard it all."

"Stop!" says he. "I won't stand that for a minute."

"You'll stand it for a lot longer than that," says I. "If you show this side the fence again I'll kill you!"

"Curly!" says he. "Why, Curly!"--like he was surprised. "Is it like that?"

"That's what it's like," says I. "Don't never doubt we can take care of our womenfolks. It's my own fault this has happened. I ought to of watched her closter. I ought never to of allowed you on our dock, let alone mixing with you. I thought you was more of a man than this," says I.

When I said that Bonnie Bell jumped and throwed her arms around my neck, and held on with both hands.

"Curly," says she, "stop! I'll not have this. Stop, I say!"

"You'll have this, and a lot more," says I to her, "till this thing is settled. Let me alone with him. Haven't your pa and me give up our lives for you? It's a fine trade you're trying to make; to trade us for a low-down coward like this. They built that fence, not us. Hell could freeze before your pa or me would ever cross it; but here you're talking the way you done with their hired man--that has sneaked around here to meet you."

He didn't give back none, though he couldn't talk at once.

"Go slow!" says he. "Curly, be careful! I didn't have any other chance."

"Any other chance?" says I. "For what? To make love to a girl that ain't had much experience--to make love to her because she's got a load of money? I've seen some sort of dirt done in my life," says I, "but this is the lowest down I ever seen," says I.

"And Bonnie Bell," says I--she still had me around the neck, holding my arms down, and I didn't want to hurt her--"how'll I tell the old man? You know I've got to come through with him. You, the girl we loved so much, Bonnie Bell," says I, "we never thought you'd class yourself below your own level."

"She hasn't!" says he, right sudden then. "It wasn't her fault. She hasn't promised a thing to me, and you know that. She's not to blame for a thing, and you know that too. She hasn't said a word she couldn't say before all the world. What more do you want? She's too good a girl to get the worst of it. Her father's too good a man to get the worst of it too. She'd never let him."

"She won't have to do that," says I. "I'll take care of that. That's my business."

"Curly," says she, "what are you going to do? Don't you love my father at all--or me? You're like another father to me. And I've loved you; and I always will, whatever you do to me."

I couldn't put her arms down--I wasn't very strong, because I was thinking.

"If you tell my father," says she, "you'd break his heart. Cover it up for me, Curly--I've not promised anything. But, oh, Curly, I didn't mean harm to anyone; and I'll never be happy any more."

"You see what you've done!" says I to him after a while.

He got white now, instead of red.

"How can I make it up? I can't stand to hear her talk that way," he says.

"Whose business is it how she talks?" says I to him. "Damn you! What right have you to come here and make her unhappy for a minute? Didn't you know how we loved her?"

"Everyone does," says he. "Till I die I'll do that. How can I help it any more than you can? And if I've hurt her now," says he, "God do so to me and more also. But I've declared myself--I'll not take back a word. I didn't lie then and I won't now."

He seemed game. Still, so long as it's just talking, you can't always tell how much of a bluff a man is throwing.

"If it'll make her happy for me to go away and never come back," says he, "I'll do that. I don't want to play any game except on the square. Don't start anything that can't be ever mended," says he.

"It's started now," says I. "Maybe you can talk a girl down, but you can't us."

"What're you going to do, Bonnie Bell?" says I to her, and I taken her hands now in mine. "You've heard me and you've heard him. Which do you want, him or us--us that's loved you and give you everything we had, or him, this here coward, that come in the back way--our worst enemy's hired man? You got to choose."

I felt her slip loose from my neck then. She'd kept tight hold of me all the time, so I couldn't do anything. I looked down at her, and she was all loose and white. I reckon she fainted, though I never seen anyone do that before.

I laid her down on the boards, and I was so cold mad clean through now I couldn't of said a word. I've felt that way before. There ain't no law then. But he was white as she was.

"Curly," says he, "what have we done to the poor child?"

"She ain't your pore child," says I; and, with her in my arms and me helpless, I felt hot in my eyes. "She's our pore child. Shut up and go home!"

He didn't go home, but went and got some water in his hat.

"It's cruel, cruel--it's all been cruel for her, who deserves the best that life could give. Can't you believe me, man?" says he.

She couldn't hear us now, and even the water I poured on her face didn't wake her up. I wouldn't let him touch her.

"Lord help us all!" says I. "For now it's a hard thing to say what's best. Tell me," says I, "was there anything I didn't hear? Did she make any sort of promise to you?"

"Not a word," says he--"not a word."

"That's lucky," says I. "The Circle Arrow never went back on its word. I'm glad she didn't promise you nothing," says I.

"There's nothing matters now," he says.

He set back on his heels, looking at me in a way I couldn't stand--with us both bending over her, trying to bring her to.

"I'm better than you think," says he, after a little while. "All this happened because things got criss-crossed."

"You queered the game the way you played it," says I to him. "The Circle Arrow plays wide open, with all the cards on the table. It beats hell how the luck runs in a square game sometimes! The front door is the place for a man that talks to a girl--like Katherine Kimberly comes in, or her brother, Tom."

"Does she know him?" says he, sudden.

"That's our business," says I. I still was pouring water on Bonnie Bell.

"Yes," says he, "that's true. He's not your enemy's servant."

About then Bonnie Bell begun to move her hands and I raised her up against my knees. She set there looking him in the face.

"Kid," says I, "you needn't rub your eyes and ast, 'Where am I?' I'll tell you. You're right in the middle of one hell of a muss!"

XVII

HIM AND THE FRONT DOOR

I sent the kid up stairs to her room to think things over. Then I set down in our ranch room to think things over myself, because I didn't hardly know what to do.

While I was setting there in come Old Man Wright hisself from down town, and he was so happy I was shore he'd thought out some new devilment for his neighbor Wisner.

"Well, Curly," says he, "what do you know?"

"I don't know nothing that's pleasant," says I.

"Huh!" says he. "Don't you like the grub here no more, or what is it?"

"I don't like nothing about the place no more," says I. "I wish you'd foreclose on the Circle Arrow right away and us all go back there," says I. "Of course you wouldn't, but that's where you overlook a big bet, Colonel."

He looks at me serious.

"Is it as bad as that, Curly?" says he. "Sometimes I feel thataway myself, although along of me being so busy I can stand it better'n you maybe. But what kick have you got? You ain't got nothing to do--take it all around, I never seen a foreman that had less," says he.

"Huh!" says I. "That's all you know."

"Don't I know all there is to know?" he ast me.

"No, you don't," says I. "Don't I have to ride that line fence of ours and ain't it the worst one I ever traveled in all my life?"

"Don't let that bother you, son," says he. "I'll do the worrying about that."

Now when he said this I begun to think of all he'd done for me all my life; of how he'd paid all the bills, and taken the responsibility, and give me my wages. I didn't want to rake him up the shoulder now by telling him what I was just about going to tell him. I knowed if I told him that his girl had anyways gone against his will it'd nigh kill him--and as for this! But I argued I had to tell him. Then I thought that what a cowpuncher concludes deliberate is mighty apt to be the wrong thing. So where does that leave me? For the first time in my life I didn't know whether to back or copper my own bet.

The old man staved it off a little while, anyway. He goes over to the table and begins to fill his pipe.

"Well, Curly," says he, "I couldn't foreclose on the Circle Arrow if I wanted to now--they paid their deferred payment for this year. Old Wisner, he got backing from three banks and he come through. That leaves only one payment more. Somebody's going to be out in the cold before long; but it won't be us."

"No," says I; "it'll be them grangers."

"It ain't them that's going to get the worst of it--it's Old Man Wisner," says he. "As for us, we can't go back there no more--we're city folks now. I've got to stay here to watch Old Man Wisner a while and you've got to ride that fence.

"Where's Bonnie Bell?" says he then.

"Huh!" says I. "Where is she? That's what I'd like to know too."

"Come to that, after all," says he, smoking and looking into the fireplace, "the girl's got me guessing lately. She don't look well. Now she's up and now she's down--her actions don't track none. If I didn't know better I'd say she was in love. That couldn't be, for there ain't been no chance."

"Well," says I, "there's other kinds of deferred payments, ain't there, Colonel?"

"Maybe so," says he, sort of sighing. "We'll let it run as it lays; we can't help it much. Mostly a handsome girl finds somebody somewhere or somehow; or sometime----"

"Ain't that the God's truth, Colonel!" says I.

I was just on the point of telling him all I knew.

"If only she was safe from the sharks!" says he. "If I found any young man that I thought was after her money, not after her--why, I don't know what I'd do to him!"

"I know what you'd do, Colonel," says I; and I was glad I hadn't told him.

"Well, maybe. The trouble is to find any young man that's halfway as good as her, with some sort of folks back of him and some sort of way of making a living. You see, Curly, you can't tell much about things ten or twenty years ahead. A pore man may get money or a rich man may lose money. Now her ma married me when I didn't have no chance on earth ever to be anybody or to have any money; but we got on and was right happy--anyways I was--and I wasn't rich then.

"I'm awful rich now, Curly," says he, "though I don't know as I'm any happier. It bores me. For instance, I was looking around today for a chance to invest a little more money; not much, only about half of this here last deferred payment that come in--all Old Man Wisner's money--and I seen in the papers that we haven't got no potash works in America to amount to much, and that potash is shore worth plenty of money--whatever potash is. So I went out to look over things and I concluded to invest a few hundred thousand dollars in making potash. I've got a good man, with specs, that knows how to make it out of seaweed, or something that grows raw and is plenty, I reckon. I suppose pretty soon we'll be making forty to fifty per cent; maybe more. That's what bothers me--I can't find no hard game to play. I can't hardly take no interest in life.

"I was looking around some more and I seen where this country ain't got no dye works--the kind of dyes they make outen coal tar, which is made outen coal. Yet we've got plenty of coal and I own several coal mines out in Wyoming. I got another man, with specs, and I shouldn't wonder if we'd be making plenty of dyes before long, same as they used to import.

"Well," says he, filling up his pipe again, "I'd be happy enough fooling around this way, pushing in a few white checks once in a while--a few hundred thousand dollars. Anyways, I'd like it if I could lose once in a while--but then there's the kid."

"It comes around to her after all, Colonel, don't it?" says I.

"That's right," he says. "I play the game; she uses the winnings. She's going to be one of the richest girls in this whole town."

Seems like I couldn't get to tell him what I ought to. Every time he came around to the same place, talking about the kid. He didn't know as much as I did. I knew what'd make Old Man Wisner the happiest man alive--he'd feel that way if he knowed his hired man had got thick with our girl! He'd of encouraged that any way he could if he'd knowed anything about it. That would of pleased him. I had in my mind, too, how Bonnie Bell had looked at that hired man. So I set there, not having said a word yet and not daring to. It just seemed like I couldn't tell the old man.

It was getting towards night now before long and I hadn't made no break at all. I set and set, and didn't have no nerve. By and by it was too late to say anything that night.

We heard Bonnie Bell coming down the staircase, and we went to the door to meet her, like we did usual, because we liked to do that; she was so pretty when she was ready for dinner. The servants didn't look up to her pa and me very much, but they'd jump through hoops all the time for her.

She was dressed all up now in a pale blue dress, some sort of soft silk, and she had on all her diamonds, for she was shining all over. Her hair was high up and it had a little band on it, and a little pile of it stuck up behind on her head. Her neck was cut low, like they wore 'em at the hotel where we lived once, and her dress didn't have no sleeves in it. She had rings on her fingers, though not no bells on her toes--only little blue slippers; and her socks was pale blue, like we could see when she come down the stairs.

I don't expect there was any handsomer woman in the world than she was then--they don't make 'em any handsomer. We stood looking at her, us two cowmen, both in clothes that was always getting mussed up, and with tobacco in the pockets. We couldn't say a word. We got scared of her, I said; you would, often, when you looked at Bonnie Bell, she was so pretty. Yet she didn't know she had such looks.

"Daughter," says Old Man Wright, and he went up to her slow, like he was afraid of her, "you're very beautiful tonight," says he. "What makes you pale? You're a mighty fine girl. Dast you kiss your old pa before he goes in and gets into togs fit to eat with you?"

She looks at me and then at him, and she knows I haven't said nothing about that talk with the hired man. She was pale and didn't smile. She went up to her pa like she was tired--she didn't have much color that night in her face--and she just puts up her arms around her pa's neck and laid her head down on his shoulder, and didn't say a word. She didn't cry; she just let her head lay there.

I seen his arm go around on her bare shoulders easylike--he didn't hardly touch her for fear she'd break; and he didn't say a word. He was that sort of man that almost any sort of woman would like to put her arms around his neck and lay her head on him if she was in trouble.

"What is it, Honey?" says he at last.

"Why, nothing, dad," says she. "I love you--that's all. You believe it, don't you?"

"Will you always, sis?" says he, sort of funny.

"Always," says she, quiet. "Now," says she, "run off and get dressed up. Have you forgotten that the Kimberlys are coming for dinner tonight with us? Curly, you must go get on some dark clothes, you know."

You see, I was one of the family. I maybe gave them plenty of trouble, but they never'd let me eat anywheres but with them all the time. By this time I'd learned quite a few things from Bonnie Bell--about how not to put a napkin up too high, or to break my bread up into little pieces and pile them up, or to pour out my coffee, or to use the same spoon for coffee and other vittles, or to sidle up my plate for the last drop of soup there was in it--oh, several tricks like that; though I knew the game was a heap complicated and I hadn't learned it all yet.

She looks at me when I went out the door and I shook my head to show I hadn't said nothing. She set down, all in her silk and her shining rings and things, right on our old hide lounge; and she was looking at our painting of the Yellow Bull Valley and the old ranch house. I left her there, all in her diamonds, her hair tied up high--about the richest girl in Chicago and, like enough, the miserablest right then. But she didn't have nothing on me at that.

When we come back, all fixed up the best we could, she was still setting there. She was pretty--Lord, how pretty!--but sad.

She gets up now and begins to laugh and talk right fast to the old man, and by and by, before anything broke, Old Man Kimberly and Old Lady Kimberly drifted in.

"The young folks'll be over before long," says he; "we didn't wait for 'em, because I just wanted a taste of the old bourbon that I find here and can't find anywheres else. Where did you get it, Colonel?" says he.

Most everybody called him Colonel now, from me doing it first, and then Katherine.

"We had a few barrels out on the old ranch," says the boss. "A little of it escaped in the massacree. I'm glad you like it."

It come now about time for dinner, which was always pulled off on the tick of the clock. On the ranch in camp the cook always calls "Grub pile!" for the hands. In the home ranch he's more particular, and he says, "Come and git it!" when dinner's ready. But here, in our new house, our butler, William, always'd gumshoe in and say it so low you couldn't hardly hear him: "Dinner is served, Miss Wright." But, as them kids was a little late in coming, Old Man Kimberly finds time to take another nip.

"Why, Wilfred!" says his wife to him, "I'm surprised!"

"It's funny how you're surprised," says he, chuckling in his shirt front; "but I'm glad to have you keep up my reputation by saying you're surprised."

Somehow it was with them like it is with plenty of folks in the States--the women always seem finer, more delercate than the men; yet they seem to like men that ain't fussy. Old Man Kimberly was a good sort; but to look at her you'd wonder why she married him. She always set up straight, away from a chair or a sofa back, and she had a face that was clean-cut, like one of them cameo faces on cuff buttons. Katherine was some like her pa, and a good sort too.

"How sweet you look tonight!" says Old Lady Kimberly to Bonnie Bell after a time.

She always seemed to want to reach out and touch Bonnie Bell, or kiss her once in a while--they natural liked each other--Bonnie Bell especial, from never having no ma of her own, very much.

But after a time our William come to the door and stood there like he was a pointer dog and had found some birds; and says he, with a stop between, like he always did:

"Miss Kimberly--ahum! Mr. Thomas Kimberly--ahum!"

XVIII

HOW TOM STACKED UP

I reckon if Katherine's brother, Tom Kimberly, had of knowed how much we was waiting for a look at him he might of been some fussed up about it; but when our William brought him and Katherine in he didn't seem rattled.