The Man Next Door Part 2

He set and looked off across the range toward the Gunsight Gap, at the head of the river, and I could see him get white under his freckles. He was game, but he was scared.

"We can't help it, Curly," says he. "We've raised the girl between us and we've got to stick all the way through. You've been my foreman here and you got to be my foreman there in the city. We'll land there with a few million dollars or so and I reckon we'll learn the game after a while."

"I'd make a h.e.l.l of a vallay, wouldn't I, Colonel?" says I.

"I didn't ast you to be no vallay for me," says he. "I ast you to be my foreman--you know d.a.m.n well what I mean."

I did know, too, far as that's concerned, and I thought more of Old Man Wright then than I ever did. Of course it's hard for men to talk much out on the range, and we didn't talk. We only set for quite a while, with our knees up, breaking sticks and looking off at the Gunsight Gap, on top of the range--just as if we hadn't saw it there any day these past forty years.

I was plenty scared about this new move and so was he. It's just like riding into a ford where the water is stained with snow or mud and running high, and where there ain't no low bank on the other side. You don't know how it is, but you have to chance it. It looked bad to me and it did to him; but we had rid into such places before together and we both knew we had to do it now.

"Colonel," says I at last to him, "I don't like it none, but I got to go through with you if you want me to."

He sort of hit the side of my knee with the back of his hand, like he said: "It's a trade." And it was a trade.

That's how come us to move from Wyoming to Chicago, looking for some of them Better Things.

II

WHERE WE THREW IN

"Well, Curly," says Old Man Wright to me one day a couple of months after we had our first talk, "I done it!"

"You sold her?" says I.

"Yes," says he.

"How much did you set 'em back, Colonel?" says I; and he says they give him a million and a half down, or something like that, and the balance of four million and a quarter deferred, one, two, three.

That's more money than all Wyoming is worth, let alone the Yellow Bull Valley, which we own.

"That's a good deal of money deferred, ain't it, Colonel?" says I.

"Well, I don't blame 'em," he says. "If I had to pay anybody three or four million dollars I'd defer it as long as I could. Besides, I'm thinking they'll defer it more than one, two and three years if they wait for them grangers to pay 'em back their money with what they can raise.

"But ain't it funny how you and me made all that money? It's a proof of what industry and economy can do when they can't help theirselfs. When Tug Patterson wished this range on me forty years ago I hated him sinful. Yet we run the ditches in from year to year, gradual, and here we are!

"Well, now," he goes on, "they want possession right away. We got to pull our freight. You and me, Curly, we ain't got no home no more."

That was the truth. In three weeks we was on our way, turned out in the world like orphans. Still, Old Man Wright he just couldn't bear to leave without one more whirl with the boys down at the Cheyenne Club. He was gone down there several days; and when he come back he was hungry, but not thirsty.

"It's no use, Curly," says he. "It's my weakness and I sh.o.r.e deplore it; but I can't seem to get the better of my ways."

"How much did you lose, Colonel?" I ast him.

"Lose?" says he. "I didn't lose nothing. I win four sections of land and five hundred cows. I didn't go to do it and I'm sorry; because, what am I going to do with them cows?"

"Deed 'em to Bonnie Bell," says I. "Trust 'em out to some square fellow you know on shares. We may need 'em for a stake sometime."

"That's a good idea," says he. "Not that I'm scared none of going broke.

Money comes to me--I can't seem to shoo it away."

"I never had so much trouble," says I, "but if you're feeling liberal give me a chaw of tobacco and let's talk things over."

We done that, and we both admitted we was scared to leave Wyoming and go to Chicago. We had to make our break though.

Bonnie Bell was plumb happy. She kept on telling her pa about the things she was going to do when she got to the city. She told him that, so far as she was concerned, she'd never of left the range; but since he wanted to go East and insisted so, why, she was game to go along. And he nods all the time while she talks that way to him--him aching inside.

We didn't know any more than a rabbit where to go when we got to Chicago; but Bonnie Bell took charge of us. We put up in the best hotel there was, one that looks out over the lake and where it costs you a dollar every time you turn round. The bell-hops used to give us the laugh quiet at first, and when the manager come and sized us up he couldn't make us out till we told him a few things. Gradual, though, folks round that hotel began to take notice of us, especial Bonnie Bell.

They found out, too, like enough, that Old Man Wright had more money than anybody in Chicago ever did have before--at least he acted like he had.

"Curly," says he to me one day, "I got to go and take out a new bank account. I can't write checks fast enough on one bank to keep up with Bonnie Bell," says he.

"What's she doing, Colonel?" I ast him.

"Everything," says he. "Buying new clothes and pictures, and lots of things. Besides, she's going to be building her house right soon."

"What's that?" I says.

"Her house. She's bought some land up there on the Lake Front, north of one of them parks; it lays right on the water and you can see out across the lake. She's picked a good range. If we had all that water out in Wyoming we could do some business with it, though here it's a waste--only just to look at.

"She's got a man drawing plans for her new house, Curly--she says we've got to get it done this year. That girl sh.o.r.e is a hustler! Account of them things, you can easy see it's time for me to go and fix things up with a new bank."

So we go to the bank he has his eye on, about the biggest and coldest one in town--good place to keep b.u.t.ter and aigs; and we got in line with some of these Chicago people that are always in a hurry, they don't know why. We come up to where there is a row of people behind bars, like a jail. The jail keepers they set outside at gla.s.s-top tables, looking suspicious as any case keeper in a faro game. They all looked like Sunday-school folks. I felt uneasy.

Old Man Wright he steps up to one of the tables where a fellow is setting with eyegla.s.ses and chin whiskers--oldish sort of man; and you knowed he looked older than he was. He didn't please me. He sizes us up.

We was still wearing the clothes we bought in Cheyenne at the Golden Eagle, which we thought was good enough; but this man, all he says to us was:

"What can I do for you, my good people?"

"I don't know just what," says Old Man Wright, "but I want to open a account."

"Third desk to the right," says he.

So we went down three desks and braced another man to see if we please could put some money in his bank. This one had whiskers parted in the middle on his chin. I sh.o.r.e hated him.

"What can I do for you, my good man?" says he.

"I was thinking of opening a account," says Old Man Wright.

"What business?" says he.

"Poker and cows," says Old Man Wright.

The fellow with whiskers turned away.