The Duke Of Chimney Butte Part 38

"If I could forget of her what no forgiving soul should remember, I'd feel more like a man," he said.

"I thought--I thought--" she stammered, bending her head, her voice soft and low, "you were grieving for her, Duke. Forgive me."

"Taterleg is leaving tonight," he said, overlooking her soft appeal. "I thought I'd go at the same time."

"It will be so lonesome here on the ranch without you, Duke--lonesome as it never was lonesome before."

"Even if there was anything I could do around the ranch any longer, with the cattle all gone and n.o.body left to cut the fence, I wouldn't be any use, dodging in for every blizzard that came along, as the doctor says I must."

"I've come to depend on you as I never depended on anybody in my life."

"And I couldn't do that, you know, any more than I'd be content to lie around doing nothing."

"You've been square with me on everything, from the biggest to the least. I never knew before what it was to lie down in security and get up in peace. You've fought and suffered for me here in a measure far in excess of anything that common loyalty demanded of you, and I've given you nothing in return. It will be like losing my right hand, Duke, to see you go."

"Taterleg's going to Wyoming to marry a girl he used to know back in Kansas. We can travel together part of the way."

"If it hadn't been for you they'd have robbed me of everything by now--killed me, maybe--for I couldn't have fought them alone, and there was no other help."

"I thought maybe in California an old half-invalid might pick up and get some blood put into him again."

"You came out of the desert, as if G.o.d sent you, when my load was heavier than I could bear. It will be like losing my right eye, Duke, to see you go."

"A man that's a fool for only a little while, even, is bound to leave false impressions and misunderstandings of himself, no matter how wide his own eyes have been opened, or how long. So I've resigned my job on the ranch here with you, Vesta, and I'm going away."

"There's no misunderstanding, Duke--it's all clear to me now. When I look in your eyes and hear you speak I know you better than you know yourself. It will be like losing the whole world to have you go!"

"A man couldn't sit around and eat out of a woman's hand in idleness and ever respect himself any more. My work's finished----"

"All I've got is yours--you saved it to me, you brought it home."

"The world expects a man that hasn't got anything to go out and make it before he turns around and looks--before he lets his tongue betray his heart and maybe be misunderstood by those he holds most dear."

"It's none of the world's business--there isn't any world but ours!"

"I thought with you gone away, Vesta, and the house dark nights, and me not hearing you around any more, it would be so lonesome and bleak here for an old half-invalid----"

"I wasn't going, I couldn't have been driven away! I'd have stayed as long as you stayed, till you found--till you knew! Oh, it will tear--tear--my heart--my heart out of--my breast--to see you go!"

Taterleg was singing his old-time steamboat song when Lambert went down to the bunkhouse an hour before sunset. There was an aroma of coffee mingling with the strain:

Oh, I bet my money on a bob-tailed hoss, An' a hoo-dah, an' a hoo-dah; I bet my money on a bob-tailed hoss, An' a hoo-dah bet on the bay.

Lambert smiled, standing beside the door until Taterleg had finished.

Taterleg came out with his few possessions in a bran sack, giving Lambert a questioning look up and down.

"It took you a long time to settle up," he said.

"Yes. There was considerable to dispose of and settle," Lambert replied.

"Well, we'll have to be hittin' the breeze for the depot in a little while. Are you ready?"

"No. Changed my mind; I'm going to stay."

"Goin' in pardners with Vesta?"

"Pardners."

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