_ CHAPTER XIII. THEM AND THE RANGE LAW
When they all went home us three set quite a while in our ranch room, looking at the fire. It wasn't winter yet, but sometimes we lit the fire in the fireplace. Old Man Wright he seemed to be thinking of something, or trying to. At last he says:
"Sis, go get the fine-toothed comb and comb your pa's head--won't you, sis?" says he.
"Can't your barber do that for you?" ast she.
"He does; but no barber can really comb a alderman's head soothing," says he, "not like his own kid can. Now a alderman that's soothed proper might be induced to do almost anything, and combing him on his head is like scratching a pig along its back with a cob. You try it, kid; it might be perductive of a new car or something for you," says he.
So then she gets the comb and begins for to comb his head some, and he goes on talking with me. Evident he had something on his mind; that was the way he'd got used to think when something hard come up.
"Curly," says he to me after a while, "what would you say if we had a chance to buy in the Circle Arrow Ranch again?"
"I'd say it was the finest thing in the world," says I. "Them grangers ain't got a chance on earth. It takes a long course for to learn how to understand a cow's mind," says I.
"That's what they call sikeology in Smith," says Bonnie Bell.
"Well," says I, "you can't get no course in cow sikeology in no four years; it takes more than that on the range, like your pa and me done. They can't raise nothing out there in the Yellow Bull but cows, and they don't know how to raise them. Colonel," says I, "ain't them deferred payments deferring all right?"
"Some," says he. "They didn't pay nothing this year yet and it's way past due. Looks like there might be some trouble in there, don't it?"
"Well then," says Bonnie Bell, "where does that leave us? Look at this place; look at all our expense." She stopped combing then.
"Don't worry about that," says her pa. "We've made plenty of money other ways than that. For instance, I got a offer right now to sell out all our land below here toward the park for about three times what we paid for it. The Second Calvary Regiment wants to put up a barracks, or a armory or something, in there. Also, a French milliner wants in, just below here."
"What!" says Bonnie Bell. "That would ruin the whole Row. What do you mean by that?"
"Huh!" says her pa. "That's what they all say. Old Man Wisner was crazy when he heard something about it--he was going to get out a injunction. I hope he'll try it; for he can't. Seems like most of the things he's been trying on us he couldn't make go."
"Well, dad, I don't believe I'd like that barracks on our land either. Suppose we all think it over a little bit."
"All right," says he. "There may be other ways of having fun with Dave. I just thought of that one. Oh, well, I bought the lot north of them, and I'm thinking of putting a Old People's Home in there," says he. "Across the street from there I'm thinking of putting up a statue of Kaiser Wilhelm; some of my constituents they would come there Sunday and hold services," says he.
"Anything else you got on your mind, Colonel?" I ast him.
"Well, I just seen a chance to make a little speculation in a moving-picture company," says he. "I didn't put in much--only two, three hundred thousand dollars; but I didn't know but what it might make some money after a while. How would you like to be a actor man in our company, Curly?" says he. "The worst it could do would be to spoil a puncher that never was much good anyhow."
"No," says I; "it's too much like work."
"Well, we could make other pictures," says he, smiling contented. "For instance, we could set up two or three cameras right acrost the street from Old Man Wisner's 'most any morning. Then, when Old Man Wisner come out we could take his picture and show him how he looks when he has got a grouch. Or we could take a picture of the old lady getting in her car or getting out. Neither one of 'em has got much girlish figure now.
"Why, there's loads of pictures that we could take. If you didn't like to work much riding or anything in the movies," says he, "you could be taken leaning kind of careless on our gate and looking over the Wisners' fence--for instance, talking to their hired man.... Don't you dig my head no more, kid," says he. "I ain't no bomb-proof, like you think."
"Dad," says Bonnie Bell, "I ain't going to comb your head no more."
"Why?" says he.
"You're a mean and revengeful old man," says she. "It ain't right for us to treat our neighbors thataway," says she, "and I won't have it."
"I'm living up to my laws," says he, calm. "I've got to hand Wisner what he's trying to hand to me. You know the law that's been good enough for us. That's the range law."
"This ain't the range," says she.
"Ain't it?" says he. "This looks like a ranch house some. If you'll run your comb along over my dome, too, you'll find, unless I'm awful mistaken, something like the head of a cowman. Feel with your thumb good, Bonnie Bell," says he. "See if you can find any soft spot in there, like in a melon. See if you can find any place where it feels like I was going to lay down and let any yellow-livered son-of-a-gun try to ride me, and me not resent it," says he. "They started this and it's got to be finished--that's the law. Believe me, one way or the other, that old white-face over there is going to be a good oxen sometime, and he'll come up and feed outen my hand."
Bonnie Bell she quits combing and goes over and sets down on the lounge, and don't say nothing; nor me neither. We both knew about the old man when he started after anybody. He was that kind of a sher'f. It didn't look peaceful none to me what might happen now.
"Lock, stock and barrel?" says he to himself. "Lock, stock and barrel--that's the way we done. I dislike the color of their hair and eyes. Lock, stock and barrel," says he, "they got to settle! I don't want no truck with Dave Wisner, nor his old lady, nor their ox, nor their ass, nor their manservant, nor their maidservant, nor the stranger inside their gates--everything north of that fence is hostile to us and everything south of it is hostile to them. There's no crossing."
"Their maidservant and their manservant, dad?" says Bonnie Bell.
"You heard me!"
"What's their maidservant or their manservant got to do with it, dad?" ast she. She was setting on the lounge now, with the fine-tooth comb in her hand.
"He'd better not have nothing to do with it," said Old Man Wright. "Curly, you're foreman--see to it that not one of them crosses the line."
"All right, Colonel," says I; "orders is orders." _