e. "You've got to git right down to
p'ticklers t' know about it, so's to know. It's seventy-five miles from
a post-office an' twenty-five to the nearest house. How would you like
to hev a girl o' yourn thet you'd sent t' Chicago an' New York and the
ol' country, an' spent all colors o' money on so's t' give her all the
chanst in the world, go out to a place like that to spend her life?"

"I don't know," said I, for I was in doubt; "it might be all right."

"You wouldn't say that if it was up to you to decide the thing," said
he. "W'y it would mean that this girl o' mine, that's fit for to
be--wal, you know Josie--would hev to leave this home we've built--that
she's built--here, an' go out where there hain't nobody to be seen from
week's end to week's end but cowboys, an' once in a while one o' the
greasy women o' the dugouts. Do you know what happens to the nicest
girls when they don't see the right sort o' men--at all, y' know?"

I nodded. I knew what he meant. Then I shook my head in denial of the
danger.

"I don't b'lieve it nuther," said he; "but is it any cinch, now? An'
anyhow, she'll be where she wun't ever hear a bit o' music, 'r see a
picter, 'r see a friend. She'll swelter in the burnin' sun an' parch in
the hot winds in the summer, an' in the winter she'll be shet in by
blizzards an' cold weather. She'll see nothin' but kioats, prairie-dogs,
sage-brush, an' cactus. An' what fer! Jest for nothin' but me! To git me
away from things she's afraid've got more of a pull with me than what
she's got. An' I say, by the livin' Lord, I'll go under before I'll give
up, an' say I've got as fur down as that!"

It is something rending and tearing to a man like Bill, totally
unaccustomed to the expression of sentiment, to give utterance to such
depths of feeling. Weak and trembling as he was, the sight of his
agitation was painful. I hastened to say to him that I hoped there was
no necessity for such a step as the one he so strongly deprecated.

"I d' know," said he dubiously. "I thought one while that I'd never want
to go near town, 'r touch the stuff agin. But I'll tell yeh something
that happened yisterday!"

He drew up his chair and looked behind him like a child preparing to
relate some fearsome tale of goblin or fiend, and went on:

"Josie had the team hitched up to go out ridin', an' I druv around the
block to git to the front step. An' somethin' seemed to pull the nigh
line when I got to the cawner! It wa'n't