in America to
amount to much, and that potash is shore worth plenty of money--whatever
potash is. So I went out to look over things and I concluded to invest a
few hundred thousand dollars in making potash. I've got a good man, with
specs, that knows how to make it out of seaweed, or something that
grows raw and is plenty, I reckon. I suppose pretty soon we'll be making
forty to fifty per cent; maybe more. That's what bothers me--I can't
find no hard game to play. I can't hardly take no interest in life.

"I was looking around some more and I seen where this country ain't got
no dye works--the kind of dyes they make outen coal tar, which is made
outen coal. Yet we've got plenty of coal and I own several coal mines
out in Wyoming. I got another man, with specs, and I shouldn't wonder if
we'd be making plenty of dyes before long, same as they used to import.

"Well," says he, filling up his pipe again, "I'd be happy enough fooling
around this way, pushing in a few white checks once in a while--a few
hundred thousand dollars. Anyways, I'd like it if I could lose once in a
while--but then there's the kid."

"It comes around to her after all, Colonel, don't it?" says I.

"That's right," he says. "I play the game; she uses the winnings. She's
going to be one of the richest girls in this whole town."

Seems like I couldn't get to tell him what I ought to. Every time he
came around to the same place, talking about the kid. He didn't know as
much as I did. I knew what'd make Old Man Wisner the happiest man
alive--he'd feel that way if he knowed his hired man had got thick with
our girl! He'd of encouraged that any way he could if he'd knowed
anything about it. That would of pleased him. I had in my mind, too, how
Bonnie Bell had looked at that hired man. So I set there, not having
said a word yet and not daring to. It just seemed like I couldn't tell
the old man.

It was getting towards night now before long and I hadn't made no break
at all. I set and set, and didn't have no nerve. By and by it was too
late to say anything that night.

We heard Bonnie Bell coming down the staircase, and we went to the door
to meet her, like we did usual, because we liked to do that; she was so
pretty when she was ready for dinner. The servants didn't look up to her
pa and me very much, but they'd jump through hoops all the time for her.

She was dressed all up now in a pale blue dress, some sort of soft silk,
and she had on all her diam