That paper printed some pictures too--one of Old Man Wisner and one of Bonnie Bell, allowing that he was our butler and the one of Bonnie Bell was the picture of the second-floor maid of the Wisner household. I reckon they had them pictures already in their newspaper office. But they printed a new picture of the Wisner wall and said some more funny things about that, like they had before.

This wasn't no funny time for us. The next day there was a big fire or something, and all those people got to writing about something else; and they let us alone.

After they'd gone away that morning Old Man Wright ast me if I'd learned anything. Then I told him about how William had made signs that morning across the wall to people in that house.

"Now it seems to me like this, Colonel," says I: "I never went to sleep that night, and neither did Bonnie Bell. When she seen them lights on the windows, maybe she went to her own window. He was maybe standing there and seen her. Maybe she seen him. Maybe all at once it come over her that she'd have to--she'd have to---- Well, you know what I mean."

He nodded then.

"You see, it must of come over the pore girl all at once," says I; for, to save my life, I couldn't help trying to excuse her every way I could.

"She hadn't sent no word over to him and he hadn't got no word to her for weeks so far as I knew. It must of all come to them both just in that one minute. It was like cap and powder--you can't help the explosion then. I reckon maybe she's somewhere--with him."

"Yes; with him!" breaks out Old Man Wright. "It was neck against neck--me and Wisner. I had him beat; I'd of had him on his knees. And now he's put the greatest disgrace on us any man could of figured out, no matter how hard he tried--his hired man has run away with my daughter! I could of laughed at Wisner once. Can I laugh at him now?"

"That ain't the worst," says I.

"No," says he; "it ain't the worst. The worst is, she's married a low-down cur that's been after her money all this time. All this time, Curly--and I didn't know it. And you let him go thataway--right here; you heard the wheels that took 'em away!"

"Yes, Colonel," says I; "that's true. Now it's a little late, but I'm going to get on this job the best I know how from this time down. That means I've got to go away from town for a little while, Colonel. I want you to set here and leave this thing to me. Please don't say 'No' to that. I may need you after a while--in case I locate them. Since the newspapers has got fooled by this thing we pulled off this morning, maybe the best thing I can do is to go away while things is quiet.

"Stay here, then, Colonel," says I. "Don't drink no more and no less than you been doing. If anybody comes tell them Bonnie Bell is sick.

Wait till you hear from me."

XXVI

HOW I WENT BACK

I argued that when you look for a man who has done a crime you got to figure on what he said and done last, so as to get a line on what he's going to do next; and when I come to study over that hired man had mostly said to me I remembered it was about Wyoming and ropes and cows--things like that. I knowed he was batty, like so many people is, about Western things--not that Western men is any different from anybody else, though a lot of people think they are.

Now I figured that the place he'd make a break to was, like enough, the range. He'd told me he knowed the Circle Arrow, too, his boss being a whole lot interested in the Circle Arrow.

I put one thing together with another; and, without saying anything to Old Man Wright about it, I bought a ticket for the Yellow Bull country and pulled out for there as fast as I could go.

It was a good bet. When I got to the station for our old ranch, below Cody, forty miles from where our ranch was when we lived there, there wasn't very many people around the station that I knew. A good many new men was there, with wide hats, and leggings on their legs, and breeches that b.u.t.tons on the side--folks that had come out West to be right Western. Most of 'em come out to raise bananas on the Yellow Bull and be gentlemen farmers, I reckon.

I looks around among these people for a good while. None of them paid much attention to me. At last I seen him. Yes; it was that hired man. He was getting ready to drive out of town with a pair of mules. .h.i.tched to a buckboard. He was fixing in some boxes and things. I knowed him in a minute.

But where was she? I waited to see if Bonnie Bell would come out anywhere; but she didn't.

I walked over to him; and he seen me standing there looking at him just as he was going to pull out. I went on over and got onto the seat with him.

"Drive right on straight out of town," says I, quiet. "Don't say anything. Just act like nothing had happened," says I.

Under my coat I pushed the muzzle of my gun into his ribs. He looked straight ahead and done what I told him to. If he was scared bad he didn't let on.

"I haven't got any gun," says he after a while. "I don't pack one."

"I haven't packed one for years myself," says I. "Sometimes a man has to pack one for coyotes and such things," says I.

He got kind of red in his face, but he didn't say anything.

"I'm just that kind of a man--when it comes to a show-down I don't care what happens," says I. "And I reckon you see it's a show-down now. Tell me where she is."

"She's out at our place," says he; "forty miles or so--you know where it is. I've got the Arrow Head Spring homestead; I bought it a while ago.

I've got a few cows--not many. You see," says he, "I've saved a little money--not a whole lot. Our property isn't paid for yet. We've got a quarter section, but you know the range is in back of it. We think we can make some sort of a start."

"With her? Her that was used to so much?" says I. "Are you married? But, of course, that was what you was after--her money, not her."

He flushed plumb red then, and sort of swallowed several times.

"You think high of me and her, don't you, Curly?" says he.

I seen that, after all, I was too late; and my gun dropped down into the bottom of the buckboard, and neither of us noticed it.

"You married her--our girl," says I, "that we'd tried so hard to get a place for? She could of owned the whole ranch--and you give her forty acres, part paid for! That's fine--for the girl we loved so much!"

"You don't love her no more than I do," says he. "You never tried harder for her than I'll try for her. Love--why, what do you know about it? If she hadn't loved me do you think she'd of done what she done and run away with me? Do you think she'd of broke her father's heart and forgot all that had been done for her if it hadn't been for love? If it hadn't been for thinking of those things we'd be the happiest two young fools in all the world. We are now! She's some happy anyway. But it breaks my own heart to think she isn't any happier."

After a while he goes on:

"What could I do, Curly? It's a awful thing to love a woman this way; it's a terrible thing. There's no sense nor reason about it at all,"

says he. "But now if I only could have had any decent chance----"

"Pick up your gun," says he after a while; "it might fall out."

We rode on for quite a while. He made like he was going to reach into his pocket for something and I covered him quick, but he only hauled out a piece of Arrow Head plug. He offered me a chaw, absent-minded.

"No," says I; "I can't take no chaw of tobacco with such as you."

He put it back in his pocket, then, and didn't take none his own self.

His face was right red and troubled now.

"Curly," says he, "what am I going to do? What's right to do? I hadn't much to give up, but such as it was I give it up gladly for her; I'd give up everything in the world--if I had everything--for her. That's what she means to me," says he. "We are so much to one another that I haven't any time to be scared of you. We haven't got around to that yet--not that I'm so cheap as to believe you're bluffing; I know you're not."

"No, I ain't," says I. "This thing has got to be squared and I come out here to square it. I know your record--I've heard you talk to more'n one woman. You've got a cast iron nerve," says I; "but it won't do you no good. Drive right on now till I tell you to stop."

"If you want to kill her too," says he, "all right--then shoot me down.

Ride on out then and explain to her what you've done. Look at her face the way it will be then. Maybe you can tell then whether she cares anything for me or not. Do you want to see a woman's face looking thataway--see it all your life? And do you think you can square things or end things by killing me or her, or both of us? Maybe you'd murder more--who knows? We're man and wife. Would that square things, Curly? I don't know much myself, but I don't seem to think it would."

It was curious, but it seemed like it was true--he didn't seem to have got around to thinking of whether he was in danger or not. And I knowed he wasn't running any cheap bluff, neither, any more than me. He looked right on ahead and didn't pay no attention to my gun.

"Curly," says he, "you didn't make this and you can't end it. This is a case of man and woman, the way G.o.d made them. 'Male and female made He them.' If I died today--if she did too--I'd thank G.o.d that we had gone this far anyways together.

"Why," says he, going on like he was half talking to hisself, "I didn't believe in anything much--I was a atheist and a socialist--till I saw her. I couldn't see anything much worth while in the world--till I saw her. I didn't want to do or be anything much--till I saw her. And now, I see it all--everything! I see how much worth while the world is, and how much worth while she is and I am, and how much worth while other people are too. I just didn't know it before--till I saw her. Then I knew what life was all about. Do you think you can settle this now, or help it, Curly? No; it's too late."