"If it'll make her happy for me to go away and never come back," says he, "I'll do that. I don't want to play any game except on the square.

Don't start anything that can't be ever mended," says he.

"It's started now," says I. "Maybe you can talk a girl down, but you can't us."

"What're you going to do, Bonnie Bell?" says I to her, and I taken her hands now in mine. "You've heard me and you've heard him. Which do you want, him or us--us that's loved you and give you everything we had, or him, this here coward, that come in the back way--our worst enemy's hired man? You got to choose."

I felt her slip loose from my neck then. She'd kept tight hold of me all the time, so I couldn't do anything. I looked down at her, and she was all loose and white. I reckon she fainted, though I never seen anyone do that before.

I laid her down on the boards, and I was so cold mad clean through now I couldn't of said a word. I've felt that way before. There ain't no law then. But he was white as she was.

"Curly," says he, "what have we done to the poor child?"

"She ain't your pore child," says I; and, with her in my arms and me helpless, I felt hot in my eyes. "She's our pore child. Shut up and go home!"

He didn't go home, but went and got some water in his hat.

"It's cruel, cruel--it's all been cruel for her, who deserves the best that life could give. Can't you believe me, man?" says he.

She couldn't hear us now, and even the water I poured on her face didn't wake her up. I wouldn't let him touch her.

"Lord help us all!" says I. "For now it's a hard thing to say what's best. Tell me," says I, "was there anything I didn't hear? Did she make any sort of promise to you?"

"Not a word," says he--"not a word."

"That's lucky," says I. "The Circle Arrow never went back on its word.

I'm glad she didn't promise you nothing," says I.

"There's nothing matters now," he says.

He set back on his heels, looking at me in a way I couldn't stand--with us both bending over her, trying to bring her to.

"I'm better than you think," says he, after a little while. "All this happened because things got criss-crossed."

"You queered the game the way you played it," says I to him. "The Circle Arrow plays wide open, with all the cards on the table. It beats h.e.l.l how the luck runs in a square game sometimes! The front door is the place for a man that talks to a girl--like Katherine Kimberly comes in, or her brother, Tom."

"Does she know him?" says he, sudden.

"That's our business," says I. I still was pouring water on Bonnie Bell.

"Yes," says he, "that's true. He's not your enemy's servant."

About then Bonnie Bell begun to move her hands and I raised her up against my knees. She set there looking him in the face.

"Kid," says I, "you needn't rub your eyes and ast, 'Where am I?' I'll tell you. You're right in the middle of one h.e.l.l of a muss!"

XVII

HIM AND THE FRONT DOOR

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 sh.o.r.e 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 G.o.d's truth, Colonel!" says I.