II. How Tom Stacked Up 185
XIX. Them and Bonnie Bell 194
XX. What Our William Done 201
XXI. Her Pa's Way of Thinking 212
XXII. Me and Their Line Fence 216
XXIII. Tom and Her 220
XXIV. How Bonnie Bell Left Us All 234
XXV. Me and Them 253
XXVI. How I Went Back 260
XXVII. How I Quit Old Man Wright 267
XXVIII. The Hole in the Wall 273
XXIX. How the Game Broke 277
XXX. How It Come Out After All 289

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Facing Page
"'Well,' says she, 'we never played anything for pikers,
did we, dad?'" _Frontispiece_
"'Well,' says he, 'our dog is more of a trench fighter.'" 74
"'I know now what it means to be a woman and in love.'" 230
"She knowed where he carried his gun." 290

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

I

HOW COME US TO MOVE

Bonnie Bell was her real name--Bonnie Bell Wright. It sounds like a race
horse or a yacht, but she was a girl. Like enough that name don't suit
you exactly for a girl, but it suited her pa, Old Man Wright. I don't
know as she ever was baptized by that name, or maybe baptized at all,
for water was scarce in Wyoming; but it never would of been healthy to
complain about that name before Old Man Wright or me, Curly. As far as
that goes, she had other names too. Her ma called her Mary Isabel
Wright; but her pa got to calling her Bonnie Bell some day when she was
little, and it stuck, especial after her ma died.

That was when Bonnie Bell was only four years old, that her ma died, and
her dying made a lot of difference on the ranch. I reckon Old Man Wright
probably stole Bonnie Bell's ma somewhere back in the States when he was
a young man. She must of loved him some or she wouldn't of came to
Wyoming with him. She was tallish, and prettier than any picture in
colors--and game! She tried all her life to let on she liked the range,
but she never was made for it.

Now to see her throw that bluff and get away with it with Old Man
Wright--and no one else, especial me--and to see Old Man Wright
worrying, trying to figure out what was wrong, and not bein