Part 50

"Honey," says I, "you got us in wrong--awful wrong! Now us men has got to square it the best we can."

"Stop, Curly!" says she, and she shook me by the shoulder. "Stop! He's--he's a good man. He's--he's honest. He's meant all right. Give him a chance."

"He don't deserve no chance," says I, "and he won't get none."

"It was the best he could do! He had no chance to come here openly--not a chance in the world. Maybe he only wanted to say good-by--oh, how do you know?"

"Did he say good-by or good morning in that last letter, Bonnie Bell?" I ast her. "Not that it makes much difference either way."

"I won't tell you what he said, Curly," she flared up at me now. "I only say he did the best he could. He asked for his chance--that's all."

"His chance! The hired man of the worst enemy we got! His chance! His chance! What chance has he give you? How fair is he playing the game where all your happiness is up? Oh, Bonnie, shore you don't care for him?" says I. "Now do you?"

She didn't say a word and I turned toward the door.

"Where you going, Curly?" says she, coming after me.

"I'm going downtown," I says to her.

"Why?"

"To see your pa," says I. "I got to tell him all about this, and do it now."

She made a quick run at me then, and her arms come around my neck again.

"Oh, Curly! Curly!" she says; and she was crying now. "Oh, what have I done? It'll kill dad if anything of this gets out--I couldn't stand it. I can't stand to think of it, Curly. I can't! I can't!"

"Why can't you, Bonnie?" says I.

"Because, Curly"--she got me by the arms again and she was crying hard--"because---- I'll have to tell you--I'll have to, Curly. I can't help it! I didn't want it to happen--I fought it to keep it from happening as long as I could--I didn't want it to be this way. It was hard--so awfully hard. I tried every way I could; but I can't--I can't help it, Curly! I can't! I can't! It's no use!" She just run on, over and over.

"What is it, Bonnie?" says I. "Do you love him?"

"Yes, yes; it's true! I do, Curly--I love him!"

XXI

HER PA'S WAY OF THINKING

"Near as I can figure, Curly," says Old Man Wright to me soon after what had happened between me and Bonnie Bell--"near as I can figure, Old Man Wisner's been advertising that the old Circle Arrow Range is a great little place for the honest granger to raise bananas, pineapples and other tropical fruits."

"It ain't," says I, "except tomatoes--and them in tin cans."

"The honest yeoman," says he, "according to Old Man Wisner's description, he don't never have to eat anything as common as bread and butter, not after he's bought some of that land at four hundred and fifty dollars a acre. He lives after that time on bird tongues and omelet souflay, and all he has to do is to set on his wide veranda and watch his lowing herds increase and multiply at eighty-five dollars a head--and prices going up all the time. Ain't that fine, Curly? Things never used to happen just thataway when you and me owned that range, did they?"

"Not hardly," says I.

"No," says the old man, falling into one of them thinking spells. "No; they didn't."

Then after about half a hour he says:

"Nor they can't, neither. It'll cost that old miser, Dave Wisner, about three or four million dollars," says he. "He's put up his life, his fortune and his sacred honor on that irrigation scheme, and he's going to be lucky if he gets through with any of them before I call it off."

"Colonel," says I, "you and him remind me of two old Galloways out on the range, standing head to head, and pushing for a couple of hours or so at a time--only, you two been pushing for a couple of years."