Part 65

"Go eat, man," says he, "And don't talk to me about going away."

"What's that?" says I.

"You're a damn, worthless, trifling cowhand and you'll never be anything different. I ought to fire you--ought to of done it long ago; but I fire my own men--they don't fire theirselfs. Go eat."

"Can't you eat none now, too, Colonel?" I ast him.

"Not yet," says he. "Maybe after a while."

I went out and got the first square meal I'd had for two days. When I couldn't eat no more right then, I sort of taken a pasear around the house, which was looking like hell by now. When I come back I seen a electric brougham out at our front yard. Tom Kimberly was just coming in. Out in the brougham I seen two girls. One was Katherine and the other seemed like it was Sally Henderson.

"I shan't try to say anything, Mr. Wright," says Tom Kimberly after a while to the old man--"only, whatever Bonnie Bell's done, she's done because she's thought it was best. She's tried to do what was honest and fair. If she didn't love me it wouldn't have been fair to marry me. She never said she'd marry me; she said she'd tell me sometime. It was her right to decide for herself. I wish her well, hard as that is for me to say."

"Yes; I know," says the old man. "She was a fine girl, Tom. But she ain't the only one in the world at that; and she had freckles, some--they get worse when they get old. There's plenty girls in the world handsomer'n her--always is plenty. If I hadn't happened to marry her ma, Tom, I'd of married any other of half a dozen more girls, like, just as they come along. They're all alike, anyways, you see; so don't take it hard."

He was a damn old liar! He never would of married no other woman in the world but the one he did marry, and he knew it; but he was trying to make Tom feel more comfortable. So Tom he set there and lit a cigarette. His trousers was right short, and when he hitched 'em up I seen he wore garters--blue ones. I was reconciled then.

After a time he got up and said good-by to us. Then he went out to where the brougham was standing in the street. One of the girls inside opened the door for him to get in--maybe Sally Henderson.

XXVIII

THE HOLE IN THE WALL

A paper come out, with a picture of the Wisner fence, showing the place where the hole had been broke through. It was marked with a star to show where it was at. The man that wrote the story said here was a modern case of Pyramus and Thisbe. Who they was I don't know; but like enough they lived on the South Side. There was pictures this time of our William and their Emmy. I didn't read any more about the thing, for I was sore on the whole business, and considerable worried about Old Man Wright, what he was going to do. But at part of the piece it said something I happened to see.

Evidently [it says] though it may be difficult for a young man to kiss a girl through a four-foot wall, this aperture, opening or orifice, without doubt or question originally was intended as an avenue for Mr. Pyramus to achieve access occasionally, if not to the lips, at least to the ears of little Miss Thisbe. Which leaves it only a question of who was Mr. Pyramus and who Miss Thisbe. As to this, Alderman Wright has steadily denied himself to the press, while Mrs. Wisner, the only member of the family at home on the north side of the wall, also refuses to talk. It is well known that Mr. Wisner has been absent in Europe on important business connected with the war loan--

I read that far to Old Man Wright and then he broke out.

"War loan!" says he. "It's a loan for his own self that he's looking for. He's lost four million dollars on that irrigation scheme of his when he bought our ranch. Now I'm going to foreclose and he knows it. He's got his funds tied up in cargoes of meat and grain that ain't cashed in. He's short, and damn short! And I know it; and these are times when banks ain't loosening much. War--yes; I'll show him war! There can't nobody get title to a foot of that land till Old Man Wisner gets his title from me--and he ain't never going to get it. If it's my last act I'll ruin him. I trusted you, and you turned me down. I trusted her, and she threw me down. I won't trust nobody no more, except myself.

"What's it come to?" says he to hisself after a while, looking around at the big rooms. "What did it all come to, what I done for her? And I give up the ranch for her and give up the life I loved!"

"The sun was on the hills when I was out there, Colonel," says I to him, sudden, happening to think of something, "and the sky was blue as it ever was; and the wind was just carrying the smell of the sage, like it used to; and the river was running white on the riffles, same as it did before. And the cows----"

"Don't, Curly!" says he. "Don't!"

"I won't no more, Colonel," says I. "I won't be on your pay roll much longer; but them old days----"

"Don't!" says he. "I can't think about the old days no more. I'm closing the books now, Curly."

"So'm I," says I.

"What do you mean?" says he. "I ain't right clear about some things."

"No; you ain't," says I. "So long as it's fair war I'm in with you; but when it comes to making war on women and children--I ain't in."

"Children! Curly, what do you mean?"

"Children," says I, "is all there is to things. Buck the game the way you want to, Colonel," says I; "but when you buck the child game you're bucking God Almighty His own self. He's got it framed up so He can't lose. Them two couldn't help theirselfs. I've got to finish some day, same as you. All right; I'll finish with them."

Then I shooked hands with him and he done so with me. He looks me keen in the eyes and I looks him keen back. We didn't neither of us weaken. This was a heap the hardest thing we'd ever faced together, but we didn't neither of us flicker. We'd both decided what we thought was right.

"Son," says he after a while, "you're some man after all." And he puts his hand on my shoulder; like he used to.