Part 33

By and by they all got up and said they had to go home. Old Man Kimberly he held out his hand to my boss, and they shook hands quite a while together, not saying very much.

"Will you come over some evening?" he ast Old Man Wright.

And he says:

"Shore!"

About then Katherine's ma was kissing Bonnie Bell some more--she seemed never to get tired of kissing Bonnie Bell. Then them two girls they walks off to the front door, their arms around each other. I seen 'em standing there under the light. By and by Katherine picks up Bonnie Bell's hand and looks it over, and there wasn't no rings on it.

"Are you engaged yet, Bonnie?" she ast.

Bonnie Bell kind of blushed at that.

"No," says she. "Are you?"

"No. Mommah says I'm too young," says she; "but then----"

"Yes," says Bonnie Bell; "but then----"

Old Man Wright he turns to me after they'd all went away.

"Well, Curly," says he, thoughtful, "I reckon we're coming on."

"Yes," says I; "but then----"

XIII

THEM AND THE RANGE LAW

When they all went home us three set quite a while in our ranch room, looking at the fire. It wasn't winter yet, but sometimes we lit the fire in the fireplace. Old Man Wright he seemed to be thinking of something, or trying to. At last he says:

"Sis, go get the fine-toothed comb and comb your pa's head--won't you, sis?" says he.

"Can't your barber do that for you?" ast she.

"He does; but no barber can really comb a alderman's head soothing," says he, "not like his own kid can. Now a alderman that's soothed proper might be induced to do almost anything, and combing him on his head is like scratching a pig along its back with a cob. You try it, kid; it might be perductive of a new car or something for you," says he.

So then she gets the comb and begins for to comb his head some, and he goes on talking with me. Evident he had something on his mind; that was the way he'd got used to think when something hard come up.

"Curly," says he to me after a while, "what would you say if we had a chance to buy in the Circle Arrow Ranch again?"

"I'd say it was the finest thing in the world," says I. "Them grangers ain't got a chance on earth. It takes a long course for to learn how to understand a cow's mind," says I.

"That's what they call sikeology in Smith," says Bonnie Bell.

"Well," says I, "you can't get no course in cow sikeology in no four years; it takes more than that on the range, like your pa and me done. They can't raise nothing out there in the Yellow Bull but cows, and they don't know how to raise them. Colonel," says I, "ain't them deferred payments deferring all right?"

"Some," says he. "They didn't pay nothing this year yet and it's way past due. Looks like there might be some trouble in there, don't it?"

"Well then," says Bonnie Bell, "where does that leave us? Look at this place; look at all our expense." She stopped combing then.

"Don't worry about that," says her pa. "We've made plenty of money other ways than that. For instance, I got a offer right now to sell out all our land below here toward the park for about three times what we paid for it. The Second Calvary Regiment wants to put up a barracks, or a armory or something, in there. Also, a French milliner wants in, just below here."

"What!" says Bonnie Bell. "That would ruin the whole Row. What do you mean by that?"