I sent the kid up stairs to her room to think things over. Then I set
down in our ranch room to think things over myself, because I didn't
hardly know what to do.
While I was setting there in come Old Man Wright hisself from down town,
and he was so happy I was shore he'd thought out some new devilment for
his neighbor Wisner.
"Well, Curly," says he, "what do you know?"
"I don't know nothing that's pleasant," says I.
"Huh!" says he. "Don't you like the grub here no more, or what is it?"
"I don't like nothing about the place no more," says I. "I wish you'd
foreclose on the Circle Arrow right away and us all go back there," says
I. "Of course you wouldn't, but that's where you overlook a big bet,
Colonel."
He looks at me serious.
"Is it as bad as that, Curly?" says he. "Sometimes I feel thataway
myself, although along of me being so busy I can stand it better'n you
maybe. But what kick have you got? You ain't got nothing to do--take it
all around, I never seen a foreman that had less," says he.
"Huh!" says I. "That's all you know."
"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.