"I don't know," said she. "Dad has lost so many other things beside his temper, stumpin' around with that cane, that he thinks he has lost the key to the chest. He goes around grumblin' an' lookin' for it; but he don't ask if any one has found it. Why do you suppose that is?"

"It ain't any of my supposin'," sez I. "What are you goin' to do about it?"

"As soon as I get through with this letter--an' make up my mind not to hunt through the chest--I'm goin' to slip the key into his pocket--an'

then watch his face when he finds it."

"You oughtn't to treat your own father so, Barbara," sez I.

She laughed. "Barbara! that's a good soundin' name on your tongue, Happy," sez she. Then she sobered. "I don't care nothing for what you say or what he says; the' 's things I'm goin' to find out; an' I have a right to. I never told him why it was that I whopped those two girls over at school last winter, an' I never told even you. I whopped 'em 'cause they said I never had a mother. Everything has to have a mother, even a snake, an' I had one too. Why don't he tell me about her? Why does he allus turn me off when I ask about her? I don't intend to just let him tell me that she was the most beautiful woman in the world an'

too good to stay here, an' such things. I am going to find out who she was, an' if you wasn't a coward you'd help me. Now."

It was true what she said, an' I might have known she was studyin'

about it. I might, if I'd had the sense of a hoss, have known that this was what made her old-like--studyin' about things she never ought to have been forced to study about.

"Does that letter tell about her, Barbie?" I asked.

"That's what I want to know; but you ain't got the sand to read it, an'

I can't make it out. Here, read it."

I took it an' read it. The writin' was fine an' like what was in Barbie's writin' book along the top. It sounded like as if a young girl had written it partly against her will, although it was purty lovesome too. It told about how lonely she was, an' that she hadn't never been able to tell whether it was Jack or him she was most in love with until Jack had asked her, an' then after Jack had deceived her an' he had been so kind, she found out 'at he was the one she had loved the most all the time. She reminded him 'at she had written to him before acceptin' Jack, an' that now if he was still sure he wanted her, she would accept him; but she could never live near the Creole Belle. She closed with love, an' signed herself Barbara.

I kept on lookin' at the page a long time after I had read it. I remembered what Monody had said when I thought he was out of his head--about George Jordan an' Jack Whitman, an' the Creole Belle. I knew 'at Barbie was studyin' my face, an' I pertended to spell out the words a letter at a time until I could get full control o' myself.

"What kind of a bell is a Creole Bell?" sez I. "She ain't got it spelled right neither."

"A Creole Belle is a beautiful woman of French an' Spanish blood who lives in New Orleans," sez Barbie. "What do you make out about it?"

I was thinkin' fast as I could, but I still pertended to read the letter. So Jabez had been in a sc.r.a.pe with some cross-breed woman, an'

he an' this Jack Whitman had loved the same girl, an' the' was a bad mix-up somewhere.

"Little girl," I sez, "the' 's a lot o' wickedness in this world you don't know about--"

"An' the' a lot o' wickedness I do know about 'at I ain't supposed to,"

she snaps in. "Do you reckon I could knock around this ranch the way I have an' not know nothin' except about flowers an' moonlight? You cut out the little girl part an' play square."

"Well, you look here," I sez. "I don't know what you do know an' I don't know what you don't know; but I do know 'at lots of the things you think you know ain't so, if you picked it up from the fool stories some o' these d.a.m.n cow punchers tell; an' you ought to be ashamed to listen to 'em."

"Oh, yes, of course!" she fires up. "I am the one what ought to be ashamed of the stories the cow punchers tell! That's the way from one end to the other; somebody else says somethin' an' I ought to be ashamed 'cause I ain't too deaf to hear it. Now the' 's a lot of questions I'm goin' to ask you as soon as I get time. I want to know why--"

"No, you don't!" I yells, jumpin' to my feet an' blushin' clear to my ears. "I ain't neither one o' your parents an' I ain't your teacher. If you want to know things you ask Melisse. If you don't put a curb on yourself I'm goin' to flop myself on Starlight an' streak for the Lion Head this very minute, an' I won't stop before reachin' the Pan Handle."

She knew enough to stop bettin' up a pair o' tens when she see the other feller wasn't to be bluffed; so she sez, "Well, I'm goin' to find it out some way or other--I'm going to find out everything I want to know before I'm done. I love my Daddy, but he don't always play fair; an' I'm goin' to find out what I want to find out--whether he wants me to or not."

I was in a sweat. "Barbie," I sez at last, "supposin' he is playin'

fair? Supposin' he has sacrificed his own happiness to keep sorrow out of your life, an' supposin' you nose around an' discover it--who'd be the one 'at played un-fair then? You're powerful young yet; you're a heap younger'n you realize, an' you can't know it all in a day. He'll tell you when he can, an' you ought to trust him. He loves you more'n anything else in this wide world. You ought to trust him, Barbie."

She trembled tryin' to steady herself, an' I looked off into the valley for a moment. "I know he loves me, an' I wouldn't hurt him for the world; but I think I'm old enough to know, an' I'm goin' to ask him. If he won't tell me now he has to set a date to tell me. I ain't goin' to have no dirty-faced school kids askin' me questions I can't answer."

"I reckon all you want to know is in that chest in the garret," sez I; "an' I reckon it's kept for you to read after--well some day; but if I was you, I'd put back the letter an' I'd not think about it any more'n I could help. Supposin' your Dad had had to kill a man to save your mother, an' didn't want you to know 'at he had ever killed a man--"

"Humph!" she snaps in. "Didn't Claud kill fourteen men in Gore Gulch, an' didn't I think it was fine? If he's killed a man I'd be proud of it."

"It's different in real life," sez I. "I like to read about Claud myself, but I wouldn't want to slaughter men in the quant.i.ties he does."

"You killed a man oncet yourself," sez she.

"When?" sez I.

"You killed at least one o' the Brophy gang with the b.u.t.t of your gun,"

sez she.

"It couldn't be proved," sez I.

"It couldn't be denied," sez she. "If that's all you think it is I'm goin' to ask him."

"Supposin' your mother had made him promise not to tell you until you came of age,--you know what store he sets on keepin' his word,--would you be glad to know 'at you had made him break it? This Barbara might have been his sister, an' some one else might have been your mother."

"Oh, I see it now--my mother was the Creole Belle, the beautiful lady.

He allus said she was beautiful, the most beautiful woman in the world--" She sat there with her eyes flashin', but I didn't want to let her make up things 'at wasn't so an' then be disappointed. "Who do you suppose George was, an' Jack?" sez I quiet.

She drew her brows together an' sat diggin' her spur into the dirt.

"That's so, too," she said, thinkin' aloud. "But Barbara certainly did have something to do with me, an' I wisht I knew! Oh, I wish I could grow as big as I feel--I hate this bein' a child. I hate it!"

"Will you put the letter back an' try to forget it?" I said at last.

"I'll put it back at once, I'll give him the key at once; that is, I'll slip it into his pocket, an' I won't pester him about it--now; but you got to promise to tell me if you ever find it out. Will ya?"

"Yes," sez I. "If I ever find it all out I'll tell you, honest across my heart."

"An' you won't say nothin' about this letter to Daddy, until I let you?" she said, fixin' her eyes on me.

"No, I won't say a word about that until you tell me to," sez I.

"Now, then, let's play tag goin' back to the house," she said, with her lip stiff again. Oh, she had a heart in her, that child had.

"You know the pinto has Starlight beat on turns an' twists," sez I.

"Yes," she sez, "an' on a two-hundred mile race, too." She played away through the summer an' never spoke a word on the subject again; but she hid it most too careful, and Jabez saw the' was somethin' on her mind.

"Have you any idea what the child's thinkin' about?" he asked me one day when we was figurin' some on the beef round-up.

I didn't answer straight off, an' he noticed it. "What is she studyin'

about?" sez he, mighty shrewd.

"How can a body tell what that child is studyin' about?" sez I.

"You're with her most of the time--fact is, about all you do is to play with her these days."

"Any time my work here don't suit you," I began; but he snaps in, "It ain't a question o' work. If you amuse her you're worth more to me'n any other ten men; but I have some rights. I want to know what you think."