At first the widda talked to him, pleasant and encouragin'. But when he just said, "Yas, ma'am," and "No, ma'am," and nothin' else, she changed. I figger ('cause women is right funny) that her pride was some hurt. What if he _was_ bound up in the boy? Didn't he have no interest in _her?_ It hurt her all the worse, mebbe, 'cause I was there, and seen how he acted. 'Fore long she begun to git plumb outen patience with him. And one day, when he was standin' gazin' out, she flew up. "George Bergin," she says, "a door is somethin' else 'cept a place to scratch you back on." And she shut it--him outside, plumb squshed! Wal, we'd did our best--both Mace and me--and fell down. But right here is where somethin' better'n just good luck seemed to take a-holt of things. In the first place, _con_siderin' what come of it, it shore was fortu_nate_ that Pedro Garcia, one of them trashy section-gang cholos, was just a-passin' the house as she done that. He heerd the slam. He seen the look on Bergin's face, too. And he fixed up what was the matter in that crazy haid of hisn. In the second place, the very _next_ day, blamed if Curry didn't hunt Bergin up. "Sheriff," he begun, "I ain't been able to collect what's due me from Mrs. Bridger. She ain't doin' nothin' with the property, neither. So I call on you to put her off." And he helt out a paper. _Put her off!_ Say! You oughta saw Bergin's face! "Curry," he says, "in Oklahomaw, a dis-_po_ssess notice agin a widda ain't worth the ink it's drawed with." "Ain't it?" says Curry. "You mean you won't act. All right. If you won't, they's other folks that _will._" "_Will_ they," answers the sheriff, quiet. But they was a fightin' look in his eyes. "Curry, go slow. Don't fergit that the Gap property ain't worth such a hull lot." The next thing, them cholos in the section-gang 'd heerd what Bergin was ordered to do. And, like a bunch of idjits, 'stead of gittin' down on Curry, who was _re_sponsible, they begun makin' all kinds of brags about what they'd do when next they seen the sheriff. And it looked to me like gun-play was a-comin'. But not just yet. Fer the reason that the sheriff, without sayin' "I," "Yas," 'r "No" to nobody, all of a suddent _disappeared_. "What in the dickens has struck him!" I says t' Mace. "Just you wait," she answers. "It's got t' do with Mrs. B. He ain't down in a cellar _this_ time." Wal, he wasn't. But we was in the dark as much as the rest of the town, till one evenin' when the section-boss called me to one side. He had somethin' t' tell me, he said. Could I keep a secret--cross my heart t' die? Yas. Wal, then--what d' you think it was? _The sheriff was camped right back of the widda's_--_on Rogers's Butte!_ "Pardner," I says, "don't you cheep that to another soul. Bergin is up there t' keep Curry from puttin' the widda out." The section-boss begun to haw-haw. "It'd take a hull regiment of soldiers to put the widda out," he says, "--with them greasers of mine so clost."