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?"
"A little, maybe. I only put in a little in the first place--two, three
hundred thousand dollars; not much. I was so in hopes I could lose some
money so as to sort of encourage me like, you know. But it's no use,
Curly!" And he sighs right heavy.
"You have my symperthy, Colonel," says I. "If ever you want any help,
so as to make the game more interesting, just let me set in and take
your hand for you--I'll guarantee on my record that I'll open your eyes
in ways how to lose money."
"All right, Curly," says he. "I'll ast you sometime and maybe copper
your bets. I always do that when my lawyer or my stockbroker gives me
any tips. It's the surest way in the world to make a killing in this
here, now, stock market.
"For instance, just the other day they told me down there to be shore
and buy a lot of Blue Mountain Steel, which certainly was backed by the
J. P. Morgan interests and was going to get a lot of war orders. So I
didn't--I bought Steel Boat Electric Common instead of that. I didn't
know anything about it, but somebody must of give them some war orders,
submarines of something. I notice our stock has rose around two hundred
per cent the last few weeks. I don't know why it is that things of been
going on this way," says he. "It bothers me a lot, Curly. Yet I only put
a few hundred thousand in that too.
"I'm setting aside two-thirds of all I make in this here city in the
kid's name, Curly," says he. "It's a five per cent trust for keeps. It's
getting to be something awful how much that fund of hers is! And, the
best I can do, I can't help its increasing right along. There don't
seem to be no way in which we can get broke and go back to honest work
again, such as raising cows--though making four calves grow where there
wasn't none in the sage brush before, that's really being useful in the
world, war or no war."
He set there for some time looking in the fire, serious, and he come
around again to the same old place.
"Curly," says he, "if there is any created critter on this human
footstool that I hate and despise, and that every he-man in the world
hates and despises, it's the man that'll marry a girl for her money.
Look at them dukes and things that come over here and marry our American
girls. I never shot a duke, but I will if one of 'em blows in here and
starts anything like that with our girl."
"Maybe he won't come," says I. "You never can tell."
"Curly," says he, "you can always tell! Listen to me. There's just one
thing certain in the whole world--or two. If a girl's handsome men'll
come around. If she's rich men'll come around. They fall out of the sky.
They come up out of the ground. They break in through the fence----"
"What's that?" says I. "Colonel, what do you mean about fences?"
"I mean to say that there ain't no fence on earth you could build
that'd keep out young men from a handsome girl that's got money."
"Ain't that the God's truth, Colonel!" says I. "How come you to figure
that out?"
"How? How come me to break through the fence that was built around
Bonnie Bell's ma, back in Maryland, and carry her away from there? But
when I think that, like enough, some low-down cuss like me'll come
around and break through my fence and carry off my girl, to take such
chances as her ma done--I tell you it makes the sweat come right out on
me."
"Well, Colonel," says I, "I reckon if any young man comes along here, no
matter if he gets in at the front door or crawls in under the fence,
he's got to show some revenue as well as be all right other ways?"
He set some time thinking before he answered.
"That's a right hard question, Curly," says he. "I wouldn't bar a poor
man if I was shore he was on the square. It wouldn't be so hard to
decide if she didn't have any money; but she has, and it can't be
concealed much longer."
He gets up and walks up and down a while talking.
"I declare, if I was a young man I'd never ast no rich young woman to
marry me at all. I'd be afraid to ast her, for fear she'd spot me or
accuse me, whichever way it was. I can't agree to no pore young man for
her, for I couldn't trust him. And I can't agree to no rich young man
for her, because none of 'em ain't worth a damm, as far as I've seen."
"It looks like a awful thing, Colonel, to have a cheeild that's rich and
lovely."
"Yes," says he; "and it ain't no joke neither."
"Well now, Colonel," says I, "take the houses in this Row where we live.
How many young men is there that we can tally out?"
He shook his head.
"There ain't none at all worth mentioning--believe me!" says he.
I did believe him. That left just Tom for the entry in the Bonnie Bell
Stakes. Looked like he couldn't lose.