And then I
seemed to see my own self like I was--Curly, a bow-legged cowpuncher
offen the range, with no use for him in the world but just to get things
mixed up, like I had. And Old Man Wright--that used to be our sher'f and
the captain of the round-up, and the best cowman in Wyoming--what had
come to him here at this place?

I turned around to look back. Just then he come out the room where I'd
pushed him in.

He was a tall man, but now he stood stooped down like. His red mustache
was ragged where he'd gnawed the ends for the last half hour. His face
seemed different colors and wasn't red like usual. He seemed to have got
leaner all at once. His knees didn't seem to keep under him good and his
back was bowed. He'd changed a lot in less than a hour. He seemed to be
thinking of what I was thinking of, and he sort of taken a look around
at the house too.

"I made it, Curly," says he, and his voice was sort of loose and
trembling, like he was old. "I made it for her. I made a lot of money
for her. I tried to make her believe I was happy here, but I never was.
I ain't been happy here, not a hour since we come. It's all been a
mistake."

He hammers his fist on the wall by the door where he stood.

"Brick on brick," says he, "I built it for her. I pretended I liked all
these things, but I didn't care a damn for 'em. It's all been a bluff;
we've bluffed to each other and we've all been wrong. It's been a
failure; all we tried to do for her has been no good. She's throwed us
down. Curly, I don't count for nothing no more."

It was true, all he'd said. We'd played our little game and lost it. I
never felt so bow-legged in my life, or so red-headed, as I did when I
turned to walk down from our house to Wisner's. I looked back just once.
There was Old Man Wright standing in the door, tall and bent over, a
hand against each side of the door frame.

I left him there, holding onto the frame of the front door of what he
called our home, that he'd worked so hard for--that we'd both tried so
hard to make her happy in. He'd found one game at last where he couldn't
win.

And she'd shook us now--our girl--shook us for a man that never had
knocked at our front door!

XXV

ME AND THEM

I was almost down to our front gate, with half a notion to go over and
have a talk with them Wisner people, when I heard our William calling to
me; he'd got out of the room where we locked him up and run around the
back of the house.