Part 45

"Well," says I, "it ain't just as though the cat had brought him in. He's good-looking," says I, "and he can dance; and he's a pleasant fellow enough. I only sort of got it in for people that drink cocktails instead of straight liquor and push their hair back thataway."

"Well now," he went on, "you've got to allow for differences in different places. Riding and roping ain't so important in Chicago as dining and dancing--not among our best people," says he. "You've got to take account of that. A girl might do a lot worse."

"There ain't nobody good enough for Bonnie Bell," says I, "when it comes to that; but I was just sort of thinking I like a man to know something about riding and shooting, and that sort of thing, as well as dancing."

"Curly," says he, "you said your pa was a hard-shell?"

"Yes," says I.

"A hard-shell Presbyterian?" says he. "Anyhow, your folks must of been right exacting. Now don't be too hard on young folks."

"Listen to me, Colonel," says I. "Suppose you had two of 'em right here--one that didn't have no family nor no money, but took to ranch work sort of natural; and one that could dance and dine like you say. One of these men parts his hair on one side and one combs it back, without no part. Which one of 'em would you like most?"

"I'd have to see both men and size 'em up," says he. "But what makes you ask? The other kind of young man you're talking about ain't showed up yet. Besides, one thing that favors Tom is he don't have to marry for money. Bless you; he ain't thinking of her money--not one dollar; just thinking of her, right the way she is. He's gone--that's what he is."

"That's so," says I; "that's certainly so. But how about her?"

"They all take their chances," says Old Man Wright, solemn, after a while. "Anyway you can fix it a woman takes a chance. She's in a gamble all her whole born life. She's a gamble herself and she has to play in a gamble from the time she begins to toddle till the time they fold her hands. She can't tell if her husband's going to stick; she can't tell if her husband's going to make good; she can't tell how her kids is going to turn out--that's all a gamble too.

"Do your best, Curly, and try your damnedest, there ain't no way you can protect no woman against them gambles. If I wait for exactly the right man to come along, that don't comb his hair back, how do I know he'll ever come? If he does come maybe he'll have a eye on her bank roll, or maybe he'll measure forty inches around his pants. Either one--ary one--it's all a gamble for a girl.

"No," he went on; "about the only thing she can do, after all, is to use her own head and her own heart. It ain't in the nature of things that you can look ahead and see how the game's coming out for any girl--she has to take her chances. We've got to stand by and see her do it. I wisht it wasn't so. I loved her ma so much, and she looks so much like her ma--why, I wisht--why, I wisht---- Damn it, don't I wisht it wasn't such a dash-blamed, all-fired, hell-for-certain gamble for the kid!"

It wasn't no time for me to say anything about any hired man now! By and by the old man quit looking into the fire and got up and went off to bed.

XIX

THEM AND BONNIE BELL

It was a right fine place for me--probably not. Here I was, foreman under full pay, and bound to play on the level with the boss, to say nothing of the long time I'd worked for him. Of course I ought to tell him all about that Wisners' hired man; but how could I?

It come to a question whether I liked the boss best or Bonnie Bell, which is no fair place to put a man. Any man is apt to want to favor the woman in a case like that. Come to get down to cases, I found I liked Bonnie Bell a lot more than I ever'd realized I did. I was part her dad, you know, and I couldn't stand to see her unhappy.

The trouble with a cowpuncher, like I said, is that he hasn't got no real brains. I never used to notice that before, because it don't need no brains to be a puncher, as long as you stick to the ranch. But here I needed 'em right keen now.

Every day I walked the line fence; but there wasn't no work about that, for the bricks was mostly stuck back in the hole, and the hired man that had made all the trouble he kept on his own side--I didn't never see him no more at all.

Bonnie Bell didn't say a word to me, nor me to her. I thought she ought to come to me and talk things over; but she didn't. I knowed she hadn't said a word to her pa, and I knowed I hadn't neither.

Tom he called three times the first week. I didn't care much for him someways, though I knowed I ought. Bonnie Bell knowed she ought too. Her pa knowed he ought too. If ever a fellow played in a game like that, with all the ways greased for him, Tom was him.

Old Man Wright he turns to me one evening when we was setting by the fire in our room, and he says to me:

"Well, Curly, how are you enjoying yourself now in this hard and downtrod position that life has gave to you?"

"I don't like it none, Colonel," says I; "not none at all, nohow."

"Why don't you join a cowpunchers' union, then?" he ast. "Pshaw! This is a good town and I rather like it. The game here is easy to beat--easier than it was in Wyoming. For instance, just the other day I bought a bunch of timber land out in Arizony--a place where I've never been nor want to go, because they've got the tick fever down there scandalous, and irrigation, which is a crime. Well, I only bought in on this timber because a friend of mine wanted me to come in with him; and, figuring I didn't know nothing about it, I allowed I certainly would lose for once--I couldn't tell a pine tree from a spruce to save my life."

"Huh!" says I. "I suppose then somebody comes along and offers you twice your money for it, maybe?"

"No; they didn't," says he. "I was hoping they would; but they didn't. No, it was old Uncle Sam come along through that part of the state, and he sees where we've got about all the best timber left on top of a range of mountains in there, and he allows he ought to keep that timber from ever being cut; so he buys it off us for four times what we give for it--not twice. Uncle Sam pays in real money."

"Huh!" says I. "I never did have no trouble like you have, Colonel, to find a game where I could lose money. I suppose maybe you made seegar money out of that too?"