"I was too much a coward to tell you, Colonel," says I. "I love that girl a awful lot. I'd do anything I could to help the kid, even now when she's in so bad."

"Yes," says he.

"She had it in her natural," says I. "Her pa and ma run away. She was plumb gentle till she bolted--and then all h.e.l.l couldn't hold her. Ain't that like her pa?"

"Yes," says he, humble; "it's like her pa."

"And she's handsome, and soft, and kind, and gentle--so any man couldn't help loving her. Ain't she like her ma thataway? Wasn't she thataway too?"

"Yes," says he, choking up like; "she's like her ma."

"Well, then?" says I. "Well then?"

So I pushed him outen the room and went on out down the walk.

I looked around at our house as I was going out. It was big and fine, but somehow the curtains looked dull and dirty to me. Everything was shabby-looking someways. This place was where we'd failed. And then I seemed to see my own self like I was--Curly, a bow-legged cowpuncher offen the range, with no use for him in the world but just to get things mixed up, like I had. And Old Man Wright--that used to be our sher'f and the captain of the round-up, and the best cowman in Wyoming--what had come to him here at this place?

I turned around to look back. Just then he come out the room where I'd pushed him in.

He was a tall man, but now he stood stooped down like. His red mustache was ragged where he'd gnawed the ends for the last half hour. His face seemed different colors and wasn't red like usual. He seemed to have got leaner all at once. His knees didn't seem to keep under him good and his back was bowed. He'd changed a lot in less than a hour. He seemed to be thinking of what I was thinking of, and he sort of taken a look around at the house too.

"I made it, Curly," says he, and his voice was sort of loose and trembling, like he was old. "I made it for her. I made a lot of money for her. I tried to make her believe I was happy here, but I never was.

I ain't been happy here, not a hour since we come. It's all been a mistake."

He hammers his fist on the wall by the door where he stood.

"Brick on brick," says he, "I built it for her. I pretended I liked all these things, but I didn't care a d.a.m.n for 'em. It's all been a bluff; we've bluffed to each other and we've all been wrong. It's been a failure; all we tried to do for her has been no good. She's throwed us down. Curly, I don't count for nothing no more."

It was true, all he'd said. We'd played our little game and lost it. I never felt so bow-legged in my life, or so red-headed, as I did when I turned to walk down from our house to Wisner's. I looked back just once.

There was Old Man Wright standing in the door, tall and bent over, a hand against each side of the door frame.

I left him there, holding onto the frame of the front door of what he called our home, that he'd worked so hard for--that we'd both tried so hard to make her happy in. He'd found one game at last where he couldn't win.

And she'd shook us now--our girl--shook us for a man that never had knocked at our front door!

XXV

ME AND THEM

I was almost down to our front gate, with half a notion to go over and have a talk with them Wisner people, when I heard our William calling to me; he'd got out of the room where we locked him up and run around the back of the house.

"Oh, Mr. Wilson! Mr. Wilson!" says he. "Hi beg of you, don't!" says he; and he come running after me.

"What's the matter with you?" I ast him.

"Hi beg your pardon, sir," says he; "but Hi'm most deeply concerned in hall of this," he says.

"What do you mean, you shrimp?" says I. "Have you been mixed up in anything here?"

"Hit was the mide across the way, sir--across the wall, that is to say.

Well, perhaps Hi've been too attentive to their Hemmy, sir, from the hupper-story window; but she was that pretty and so fond of me! Hi 'ope Hi did no wrong, sir; but you see, sometimes when all was quite still, sir, Hi did flash a light across from my window on 'ers, and we did 'ave a 'appy time, sir, come midnight--quite silent, sir, and quite far apart; quite respectable, Hi a.s.sure you, sir--nothing more--all above the wall; for otherwise Hi couldn't 'ave seen 'er at all."

"Was you busy with that sort of thing about one or two o'clock this morning?" I ast him. "I want to know what you done--what happened?"

"A great deal 'appened, sir. Quite without plan, I saw a man appear at the window of this 'ouse across the wall; 'e was right by the window and looking across. At first Hi thought 'e was looking at my window and Hi stepped back, not wishing to compromise a lady like Hemmy--that being the 'ousemide's name across the wall, sir."

"What was this man doing?"

"Hi cawn't 'ardly tell, sir. 'E looked and 'e made some motions. There seemed a light on 'is window too; in fact, all between the two 'ouses seemed quite bright at the time, what with 'im and what with me. A short time afterwards a car went out."

I turned on down toward the gate.

"Oh, Hi beg of you," says he, "to say nothing over there. Knowing as Hi do that both you and Mr. Wright are very violent men, and caring as Hi do for Hemmy, the 'ousemide, sir, Hi feel most uneasy--Hi do, indeed."

"Well, if that's the way you feel, William," says I, "you go on back in the house."

"You don't mean any violence, Hi 'ope, sir?"

"I don't know yet what I mean; but go on back in."

He turns around just about in time, for now I seen two or three people coming in at our front gate. I didn't know any of them. They was young fellows. One of them ast me if I knew anything about the alleged elopement. Then I seen word had got out somehow--like enough from our Annette or their Emmy, and these was maybe newspaper reporters come up to see about it.

"I haven't heard of any elopement," says I. "I was just calling our butler down for flirting some with one of their hired girls over there."

"May we talk to your butler?" ast one of them.

"No; you can't," says I, "because he's gone in to see about breakfast."

One of the young fellows looked up and sort of scratched his head with a lead pencil.

"I say," says he, "are we on a high love story or one of the servants'

quarters? Tell us, friend"--he says to me--"can't you help us out on this?"

"It ain't in my line of business," says I; "but it seems plain, if their hired man has run away with our maid, or our butler run away with theirs, it ain't story enough to bother a alderman or his foreman about before breakfast."

"Well, lemme get a picture of the wall, anyways," says he; and he done that before I could help it.

"Have you got one of your butler?" he ast.

"No, we ain't; and you can't get none. We don't bother about the lower cla.s.ses," says I.

So they laughed and bimeby went on away. I give them some cigarettes--all I had; and they said I was a good scout, like enough.

Well, of all the papers that tried to get a story that morning, not one printed a word except one. It come out with about a colyum in the paper all about a mysterious disappearance in Millionaire Row. It allowed that n.o.body could tell who had disappeared, but some said that Old Man Wisner had run off with one of Alderman Wright's hired girls, and others said that Old Man Wright had eloped with Mrs. Wisner, while others declared that the Wrights' butler had eloped with the second-floor maid of the Wisner household; though still others insisted the Wisner gardener had disappeared with the heiress of Alderman Wright, the well-known citizen whose re-election at the coming term was practically a.s.sured.