m I," says I.

"What do you mean?" says he. "I ain't right clear about some things."

"No; you ain't," says I. "So long as it's fair war I'm in with you; but
when it comes to making war on women and children--I ain't in."

"Children! Curly, what do you mean?"

"Children," says I, "is all there is to things. Buck the game the way
you want to, Colonel," says I; "but when you buck the child game you're
bucking God Almighty His own self. He's got it framed up so He can't
lose. Them two couldn't help theirselfs. I've got to finish some day,
same as you. All right; I'll finish with them."

Then I shooked hands with him and he done so with me. He looks me keen
in the eyes and I looks him keen back. We didn't neither of us weaken.
This was a heap the hardest thing we'd ever faced together, but we
didn't neither of us flicker. We'd both decided what we thought was
right.

"Son," says he after a while, "you're some man after all." And he puts
his hand on my shoulder; like he used to.

"She ain't got no ma," says I to him the last thing. "I'm half her pa,
the only half she's got left; and I'll stick if her father don't. But
she ain't got no ma. That's what makes me so sorry for the kid," says I.

He looks at me, with his eyes wide open, but he don't talk none.

"I seen her setting right there, Colonel," says I, "in this room, on our
old hide lounge--her wringing her hands like she'd tear 'em apart. She
was bucking a hard game then, and doing her best to play it fair--her
just a kid, with no special chance to be so very wise, and not having no
ma. She didn't have a soul to go to, and all that was worrying her was
which side of the game she really was on. For she knowed, even if we
didn't, like I told you just now--she must of knowed it somehow--there's
one particular game that God Almighty plays so He can't lose."

He groaned like I hated to hear. But he didn't weaken. I knowed he
couldn't quit.

XXIX

HOW THE GAME BROKE

Today was the day Old Man Wisner was to get home; and that evening me
and Old Man Wright laid out to go over there and have a talk with him.
So a lot of things had to be done that day.

Old Man Wright he got up at sunup, and almost all day he was busy in the
room he used for a office at the house; he hadn't hardly went downtown
at all since Bonnie Bell run away. He had a desk full of papers here,
and now he sent for his lawyer and his barber to come over early in the
day.

"Why, Alderman