and I couldn't stand to see her unhappy.

The trouble with a cowpuncher, like I said, is that he hasn't got no
real brains. I never used to notice that before, because it don't need
no brains to be a puncher, as long as you stick to the ranch. But here I
needed 'em right keen now.

Every day I walked the line fence; but there wasn't no work about that,
for the bricks was mostly stuck back in the hole, and the hired man that
had made all the trouble he kept on his own side--I didn't never see
him no more at all.

Bonnie Bell didn't say a word to me, nor me to her. I thought she ought
to come to me and talk things over; but she didn't. I knowed she hadn't
said a word to her pa, and I knowed I hadn't neither.

Tom he called three times the first week. I didn't care much for him
someways, though I knowed I ought. Bonnie Bell knowed she ought too. Her
pa knowed he ought too. If ever a fellow played in a game like that,
with all the ways greased for him, Tom was him.

Old Man Wright he turns to me one evening when we was setting by the
fire in our room, and he says to me:

"Well, Curly, how are you enjoying yourself now in this hard and
downtrod position that life has gave to you?"

"I don't like it none, Colonel," says I; "not none at all, nohow."

"Why don't you join a cowpunchers' union, then?" he ast. "Pshaw! This is
a good town and I rather like it. The game here is easy to beat--easier
than it was in Wyoming. For instance, just the other day I bought a
bunch of timber land out in Arizony--a place where I've never been nor
want to go, because they've got the tick fever down there scandalous,
and irrigation, which is a crime. Well, I only bought in on this timber
because a friend of mine wanted me to come in with him; and, figuring I
didn't know nothing about it, I allowed I certainly would lose for
once--I couldn't tell a pine tree from a spruce to save my life."

"Huh!" says I. "I suppose then somebody comes along and offers you twice
your money for it, maybe?"

"No; they didn't," says he. "I was hoping they would; but they didn't.
No, it was old Uncle Sam come along through that part of the state, and
he sees where we've got about all the best timber left on top of a range
of mountains in there, and he allows he ought to keep that timber from
ever being cut; so he buys it off us for four times what we give for
it--not twice. Uncle Sam pays in real money."

"Huh!" says I. "I never did have no trouble like y