"Have you asked her?" sez I.

"I'm askin' you," sez he.

"Well, I want you to understand 'at I ain't no spy," sez I, glad of a way out. "I don't know all 'at 's on her mind, an' I don't propose to guess; and if I did know, I wouldn't tell unless she told me to. If you know any way to make me tell, why go ahead and I'll stand by and watch the proceedin's."

Well, he ranted up an' down a while, an' finally he pulls himself down an' sez, "Now look here, Happy, the' 's a difference between a parent an' anybody else."

"I own too to that," sez I; "but what have I got to do with it?"

"Well, you can sort of hint around until you find out what's on her mind, an' if it ain't somethin' fit, you can tell her so; because if it comes to a show down, she thinks I ought to tell her anything she wants to know."

"Well, hadn't you?" sez I.

"Yes, sometime, I suppose--but hang it, it's mighty hard to answer some of her questions, or to give reasons why I can't answer 'em."

"Have you asked her what's on her mind this time?" sez I.

He fidgeted around a while, an' then he sez, "Yes, I asked her."

"What did she say?" sez I.

"She looked me plumb in the eyes, an' said, 'Do you want me to ask you what I want to find out?'"

"What did you say?" sez I.

"Why, I said, 'Yes, Barbara, if it is something you ought to know.'"

"Well?" I sez, after waitin' a bit.

"Why, she flared up," sez Jabez, "an' went on sarcastic about it bein'

strange to her why girls was so much different from other folks, an'

there bein' so many things 'at they wasn't fit to know; an' finally she said to me point blank, 'Do you want me to ask you what I want to know, an' if I do ask you will you answer?'"

"What did you say?" I sez.

"I didn't know what to say," sez Jabez. "She looked different from any way she had ever looked before, and after a minute I sez, 'No, Barbara, I don't think you had better ask me, an' I don't think you had better think of it any more.' Don't you think I did right?"

"No," sez I, "you did not. You simply side-stepped; you wilted under fire, an' she hates a coward as much as you do. Why didn't you face it right then?"

"Happy," he sez, an' his voice wrung my heart, "the' 's things she'll have to know sometime, but she ain't old enough to know 'em yet." He stopped, an' his face grew hard as stone when he went on. "But the' 's some things that she never can know, an' I don't want her to even learn that there are such things. That's why you have to find out what's on her mind."

"Now you know, Jabez, that I have my own ideas on what I have to do; but you tell me what kind o' things there are that she mustn't ever learn, an' maybe I'll see your way of it."

Jabez looked down at the ground, an' the sweat broke out on his forehead before he answered me. When he did the' wasn't a trace of friendliness in his tone. "You have done a heap for me, Happy, and if there's anything in the money line that you think I owe you, why, name it an' it's yours; but you can see for yourself that we can't go on this way. I haven't asked you to do anything unreasonable and you have refused point blank. I don't intend to explain myself to one of my own men, and I don't intend to have an argument with him every time I want anything done my way. This is my ranch and as long 's my own way suits me, that's the only man it has to suit."

"Yes, you own this ranch," sez I; "but you don't own the earth, so I'll move on."

"I haven't fired you," sez Jabez. "You're welcome to work here as long as you want to; but you'll have to be like the other men from this on.

You've been like one of the family so long 'at we don't pull together any more, and so if you stay I'll have to send you out with the riding gangs."

I looked into his face and laughed, though even then I was sorry for him. He led a lonely life, an' I knew 'at he'd miss me; but we was both as we was, so I rolled up my stuff, loaded up Starlight, an' said good-bye to little Barbie. That was the hard part of it. She didn't cry when I told her I was goin'--that would 'a' been too girlish-like for her; she just breathed hard an' jerky for a couple o' minutes while we looked in opposite directions, an' then she said, "How'll you come back next time, Happy? It's over three years ago since you left that other time, an' you came back just as you said, ridin' on a black hoss with silver trimmed leather. How'll you come back next time?"

"I don't know, Barbie," I said, "but I'll sure come back, true to you."

"Yes," she said, "an' I'll sure be true to you, all the time you're away and when you come back."

"Barbie," I said, "you haven't treated your father right. You've let him see that you're worryin' about somethin', an' it bothers him."

"I ain't made out o' wood," she snaps out fierce. "I try to be contented, but I get tired o' bein' a girl. I've half a mind to go with you, Happy."

"Yes, but the other half of your mind is the best half, Barbie," I said. "Now I'm goin' to tell you a secret; your daddy is twice as lonesome as you are, and he's been through a heap of trouble sometime.

You miss the mother that you never did see, but he misses the mother that he knew and loved; and I want you to promise to do all you can to cheer him up and make him happy."

"I never thought o' that before," said she, "I'll do the best I can--but you'll come back to me sometime, won't you, Happy?"

"I sure will," I said, an' we shook hands on it. Then I decided that I'd leave Starlight with her. He wasn't as good for knockin' around as a range pony, and I didn't know what I'd be doin', so I took my stuff off him, picked out a tough little mustang from the home herd, shook hands with her again, an' started. I glanced up toward old Savage, and she read my thoughts. "I'll take flowers to him now and again," sez she, "and I'll go up there and talk to him about you; and Happy, Happy, we'll both be lonesome until you come back!" And so I kissed her on the lips, and rode away the second time.

CHAPTER NINE

ADRIFT AGAIN

Well, I rode purty tol'able slow. Some way I didn't want to go back to the Lion Head Ranch. I knew 'at Jim would be glad to see me, but I knew I'd be lonesomer there than among total strangers; so I just floated, punchin' cows most o' the time, but not runnin' very long over the same range.

It was just about this period that I begun to lose my serious view o'

life and get more man-like. The usual idea is that a boy is a careless, happy, easy-goin' sort of a creature, and a man is a steady, serious minded, thoughtful kind of an outfit; but just the reverse. A boy starts out believin' most o' what's told him an' thinkin' that it's his duty to reform the world; an' about the only thing he is careless of is human life--his own or any one else's. Fact o' the matter is that if you watch him close enough you'll find out that even in his games a boy is about the solemnest thing on earth, an' you have to know the game purty thorough to tell when it drifts into a real fight. That's why all wars have been fought by boys. They believe in any cause 'at looks big enough to lay down their lives for, an' that's their chief ambition. A man, though; gets to see after a time that the' 's most generally somebody up behind who's working the wires, an' he gets so 'at he don't want to lay down ANYBODY's life, except as a last resort. He looks favorable upon amus.e.m.e.nt, an' after a while he kind o' sort o' gets hardened to the fact that the whole thing's a joke and he'd rather laugh than shoot. Why, I'd be more afraid of a boy with a popgun than I 'd be of a man with a standin' army.

So as I said, it was just about this time in my life that I begun to hunt up pleasant places to eat and sleep; an' if I heard of trouble in the next county I turned out an' went around. I did a little of everything; even lugged a chain in a surveyor outfit, but the' wasn't enough chance in that. I got to have a trace of gamblin' in anything I do; so the first thing I knew I was down in Nevada lookin' for the treasure 'at Bill Brophy had buried there. The last of his gang had tried to describe the place, but his description would have done for 'most any place in Nevada--she not bein' what you might call free-handed in the way of variety.

Well, I ragged around in the mountains between Nevada and California, lookin' for a flat-shaped rock with a mountain-peak on each side of it, an' a cold wind sweepin' up the canon--I don't know just how the cold wind got included, but the dyin' outlaw dwelt upon that cold wind something particular. I stayed out puny late in the season, an' if cold winds was identifyin', Brophy had his treasure buried purty unpartially all over the West.

I reckon I'd have died if I had it fallen in with Sloc.u.m. Sloc.u.m was a queer lookin' speciment when you first came upon him. His skin didn't fit him very well, bein' a trifle too big, an' wrankled an' baggy in consequence; his eyes was kind of a washy blue, an' they stuck out from his face, givin' him the most sorrowful expression I ever see. You just couldn't be suspicious of a man with such eyes as that; he seemed to have throwed himself wide open an' invited the whole world to come an'

look inside. Why, a perfect stranger would have trusted Sloc.u.m with his last plug of tobacoo, and like as not he'd have gotten part of it back.

Well, as I said, I was headin' for warmer weather, but I got overtook an' had about given up all hope when I noticed the smell of smoke in the air. I was walkin' on foot an' pullin' a burro with a pack behind me, an' after a time I located that smoke comin' right up through the snow.

I yelled and shouted around for a while without gettin' any response.

Night and the snow was both fallin' fast, an' that smoke was exceeding temptin'. Finally I took a piece of burlap off the pack, put it over the hole where the smoke was comin' up through, an' piled snow on top of it. I was curious to see what would happen. I waited--perhaps it was only five minutes, but it seemed that many hours--an' then a low, calm voice, down somewhere beneath me, sez, "Get off that chimney!"

"I will," sez I, "when you tell me how to get to the fire."

I waited again, an' then a man with a lantern emerged into the cut about forty feet below me, an' told me how I could wind around and come down to him. Well, me an' the burro finally worked it out, an' there was a man with long whiskers standin' in his shirt-sleeves in front of a hole in the snow.

"You like to 'a' smothered me," he grumbled. "Don't you know better'n to stop up a chimney that's workin'?"

"I wanted the chimney to work double," sez I, "an' that was the only way I could think up to attract your attention."