"No," says he; "it ain't the worst. The worst is, she's married a
low-down cur that's been after her money all this time. All this time,
Curly--and I didn't know it. And you let him go thataway--right here;
you heard the wheels that took 'em away!"
"Yes, Colonel," says I; "that's true. Now it's a little late, but I'm
going to get on this job the best I know how from this time down. That
means I've got to go away from town for a little while, Colonel. I want
you to set here and leave this thing to me. Please don't say 'No' to
that. I may need you after a while--in case I locate them. Since the
newspapers has got fooled by this thing we pulled off this morning,
maybe the best thing I can do is to go away while things is quiet.
"Stay here, then, Colonel," says I. "Don't drink no more and no less
than you been doing. If anybody comes tell them Bonnie Bell is sick.
Wait till you hear from me."
XXVI
HOW I WENT BACK
I argued that when you look for a man who has done a crime you got to
figure on what he said and done last, so as to get a line on what he's
going to do next; and when I come to study over that hired man had
mostly said to me I remembered it was about Wyoming and ropes and
cows--things like that. I knowed he was batty, like so many people is,
about Western things--not that Western men is any different from anybody
else, though a lot of people think they are.
Now I figured that the place he'd make a break to was, like enough, the
range. He'd told me he knowed the Circle Arrow, too, his boss being a
whole lot interested in the Circle Arrow.
I put one thing together with another; and, without saying anything to
Old Man Wright about it, I bought a ticket for the Yellow Bull country
and pulled out for there as fast as I could go.
It was a good bet. When I got to the station for our old ranch, below
Cody, forty miles from where our ranch was when we lived there, there
wasn't very many people around the station that I knew. A good many new
men was there, with wide hats, and leggings on their legs, and breeches
that buttons on the side--folks that had come out West to be right
Western. Most of 'em come out to raise bananas on the Yellow Bull and be
gentlemen farmers, I reckon.
I looks around among these people for a good while. None of them paid
much attention to me. At last I seen him. Yes; it was that hired man. He
was getting ready to drive out of town with a pair of mules hitched to a
buckboard. He was fixing in some boxes and things. I knowed him in a
minute.
But where was she? I waited to see if Bonnie Bell would come out
anywhere; but she didn't.
I walked over to him; and he seen me standing there looking at him just
as he was going to pull out. I went on over and got onto the seat with
him.
"Drive right on straight out of town," says I, quiet. "Don't say
anything. Just act like nothing had happened," says I.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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