Billy, he'd allus liked Rose. And Rose'd allus liked Billy. Wal, after
Andrews's s-a-d endin', you bet I made up my mind that Billy'd be
ole man Sewell's next son-in-law. Billy was smart as the dickens, and
young, and no drunk. He hadn't never wore no hard hat, neither, 'r
roached his mane pompydory, and he was one of the kind that takes a run
at they fingernails oncet in a while. Now, mebbe a puncher 'r a red
ain't par-_tic_ular about his hands; but a _pro_feshnal gent's _got_ to
be. And with a nice gal like Rose, it shore do stack up.
But it didn't stand the chanst of a snow-man in Yuma when it come to
ole man Sewell. Doc Simpson was new in town, and Sewell'd ast him out
to supper at the Bar Y ranch-house two 'r three times. And he was clean
stuck on him. To hear the ole man talk, Simpson was the cutest thing
that'd ever come into the mesquite. And Billy? Wal, he was the bad man
from Bodie.
Say! but all of us punchers was sore when we seen how Sewell was
haided!--not just the ole man's outfit at the Bar Y, y' savvy, but
the bunch of us at the Diamond O. None of us liked Simpson a _little_
bit. He wore fine clothes, and a dicer, and when it come to soothin'
the ladies and holdin' paws, he was there with both hoofs. Then, he
had all kinds of fool jiggers fer his business, and one of them toot
surreys that's got ingine haidlights and two seats all stuffed with
goose feathers and covered with leather--reg'lar Standard Sleeper.
It was that gasoline rig that done Billy damage, speakin' financial.
The minute folks knowed it was in Briggs City, why they got a misery
somewheres about 'em quick--just to have it come and stand out in
front, smellin' as all-fired nasty as a' Injun, but lookin' turrible
stylish. The men was bad enough about it, and when they had one of Doc
Simpson's drenches they haids was as big as Bill Williams's Mountain.
But the women! The _hull_ cavvieyard of 'em, exceptin' Rose, stampeded
over to him. And Billy got such a snow-under that they had him a-diggin'
fer his grass.
I was plumb crazy about it. "Billy," I says one day, when I met him
a-comin' from 'Pache Sam's hogan on his bi_cy_cle; "Billy, you got
to do somethin'." (Course, I didn't mention Rose.) "You goin' to
let any sawed-off, hammered-down runt like that Simpson drive you out?
Why, it's free grazin' here!"
Billy, he smiled kinda wistful and begun to brush the alkali offen that
ole Stetson of hisn, turnin' it 'round and 'round like he was worried.
"Aw, never mind, Cupid," he says; "--just keep on you' shirt."
But pretty soon things got a darned sight worse, and I couldn't hardly
hole in. Not satisfied with havin' the hull country on his trail account
of that surrey, Simpson tried a _new_ deal: He got to discoverin' bugs!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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