Part 64

"Curly," says he at last, "I've made my talk. If any man says I married Bonnie Bell for anything but love--the best and cleanest of love--he's making the cruelest mistake in the world; and he's a damned liar too. You ask her, Curly."

"What's that?" says I. "Me ask her? I didn't come for that. I couldn't look at her. That girl can get my goat any station. I don't want to talk to her."

"But you wouldn't of lynched a cow thief on the range in the old days on such a showing as this."

"Thief?" says I to him. "She said she was a thief--she'd stole the life and happiness of her pa and others----"

"That's true," says he quiet like. "When you think of it, all life is only a theft every way. Each human being steals from all others. That's the way the world goes on. The coming generation steals always from the one that has gone by. Tell me, is that wrong? And tell me, can you and I judge if it is?"

I set and thought for quite a while, trying to figure out things. I couldn't. At last I reached up and threw my gun away into the sage.

XXVII

HOW I QUIT OLD MAN WRIGHT

I went back to the railroad station as soon as a wagon come along that would give me a ride, about half a hour after I left the hired man in the buckboard. Then I went on up to Cody. When I got there I done what anybody who knows cowpunchers knows I'd do in them circumstances. I certainly did run true to form.

First, I went to the telegraph office and sent a telegram to Old Man Wright: "Don't do nothing till you hear from me." Next, I showed I was a good business man by going and buying a railroad ticket back to Chicago; and I left it and ten dollars with the clerk at the hotel.

It might of been seven or eight days I was busy celebrating my losing my job like a cowpuncher almost always does. Having so much money it took me quite a while to finish decorating Cody the way I liked it best. Still, after a while, being down to ten dollars and the railroad ticket, I concluded to go back home.

When I got back to Chicago I found Old Man Wright setting right where I'd left him and he looked like he really hadn't done nothing since. His hair was right long and his face was full of whiskers.

"Well, I found 'em," says I.

"What did you do, Curly?" says he.

"I didn't shoot him none," says I. "So to speak, he taken my gun away from me."

"Huh! Where is she? How is she?"

I had to tell him I didn't bring no word from Bonnie Bell at all, and hadn't seen her even.

"I couldn't stand it, Colonel," says I. "He made a awful strong talk to me, Colonel," says I.

He didn't say nothing for a long time. He begin to talk right slow then.

"I thought I had one friend in the world," says he, "one man I could rest on. But even you've gone back on me--even you failed me, Curly."

"Yes, Colonel," says I. "I've done a heap worse than that. I know how you feel and I feel the same way. I ain't fitten to be your foreman. You only brought me on here because you was so damn softhearted you couldn't fire me. You didn't use no judgment or you'd of fired me then, and a hundred times since then. All this whole mix-up was because I didn't have no brains--I couldn't see a load of hay; yet it was me that was doing all the seeing--you never took no hand in it at all. Shore, I fell down! You ain't firing me right now; I fire myself. I've come back to say that to you, Colonel. I taken about a week in Cody to think it all over--with help."

He only set and looked at me, and I had a hard time trying to talk. I told him where them two was living.

Then all at once the whole picture of the old days, when him and me was young, seemed to come up before him. He flared up like only part of him had been afire inside. He got up and walked up and down, with his hands clinched tight.

"Damn you all!" says he, and his eyes was like coals now. "What have I done to any of you? What have I done wrong to anybody that I should deserve this? Can't you remember when you was a man, Curly? Can't you remember when you and me set on the gate of the big pasture, with our rifles acrost our knees, and waited for them sheepmen to come up and try to get them sheep through us? Did they get through? No; no one had us buffaloed. That was when you and me was men, Curly.

"What have we done now? We let this damn hypocrite, Dave Wisner, get the best of us all the way down the line. He's married his hired man to my girl; and he's set up that hired man out on the old home ranch, where her ma and me made our first start. Could anything be harder for me to bear than that? You was on the gate, Curly; and you let 'em through."

"He said they was plumb happy--them two, Colonel," says I. "What in hell could I do, Colonel? It all come over me. I could see the sun shining; I could feel the wind blowing again, like it was in the old days."

"Happy!" says he. He was half whispering now and his voice was like that of a right old man. "Happy! So was I--so was her ma--out there in the old log house, with the mountains, and the sun shining, and the wind blowing. Curly," says he, "what made her throw her life away? What made us come here at all?"

"I wish you'd stake me to some ham and aigs, Colonel," says I, "before I go. I met a fellow a while back that was broke; so I haven't et much."