Part 42

"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.