Part 19

"It's a good thing Bonnie Bell could run that boat," says I.

"Bonnie Bell?" says he. "Is that her name? By Jove! Well now, by Jove! And what's your name?" says he.

"Wilson," says I. "They call me Curly for short."

"Curly?" says he. "That sounds sort of like a cowboy's name, don't it?"

"I never seen a cow camp yet where there wasn't some cowpuncher name Curly," says I.

"Cowpuncher! You wasn't ever one yourself, was you?" says he.

"I never was nothing else," says I.

Then he held out his hand.

"Shake!" says he. "Some folks gets what other folks wishes. Ain't it the truth?"

"What do you mean?" I ast him.

"Well," says he, "I always wanted to be a cowboy, yet I never did have a chance to go on a ranch."

"You're the gardener, ain't you?" says I, and he nods.

"That's all I get to do. Still, I may have a chance to do better sometime."

He was a right nice-looking fellow, clean shaved and his hair cut good, and his mustache cut right short. He looks down at his clothes now, but he didn't seem to care--acted like he had plenty more; and he laughed. He was wet, but he wasn't shivering. He come pretty near drowning but he wasn't scared. I rather liked him even if he was only a hired man like myself. He seemed sort of hardy.

"You know how she got me?" he ast me now. "She threw the loop of a rope over me, and if I hadn't got it in my hand I reckon she'd of choked me to death."

"She's a good roper," says I, "and she can ride as well as she can rope."

"Could you ever show me how to rope?" says he. "Would you?"

"Shore I'll show you sometime if we ever get a chance," says I. "I'll look round in our ranch room there in the house, and see if I can find a rope."

"Have you got a room in there like a ranch?" says he.

"Exacty like our old ranch," says I. "It's the main room out of the old Circle Arrow Ranch."

"Could she, now--would she help teach a fellow how to rope a drowning person?" says he. "That's what she done. She's a corker, ain't she?"

"She shore is," says I. "Her own folks mostly reserves the right to say that, though."

"I beg pardon," says he, and he got red again. "I know where I belong."

"Just kind of keep on knowing where you belong and where she belongs, son," says I--"it's two different propositions. I trust, my good man," says I to him, "that you understand I'm the foreman of the ranch."

"Don't it beat the world," says he to me after a while--us standing there still talking though he was wet as a rat--"how things is run? Sometimes it seems like we can't help ourselfs, and we all get into the wrong places trying to get into the right ones. Now I'd like to thank that lady; but I can't. She's wonderfully beautiful, isn't she--your mistress? I say now, Curly, you thank her for me, won't you?"

I felt rather savage towards anybody coming from the Wisner side of the fence, but someway this fellow was so decent, and he evident meant to be so square, that I couldn't hardly feel no way but friendly to him.

"You've been with your folks quite a while, ain't you?" says I after a while.

"Oh, yes; I suppose I'm kind of useful in the scheme some ways or they'd tie a can to me."