fore
acceptin' Jack, an' that now if he was still sure he wanted her, she
would accept him; but she could never live near the Creole Belle. She
closed with love, an' signed herself Barbara.

I kept on lookin' at the page a long time after I had read it. I
remembered what Monody had said when I thought he was out of his
head--about George Jordan an' Jack Whitman, an' the Creole Belle. I
knew 'at Barbie was studyin' my face, an' I pertended to spell out the
words a letter at a time until I could get full control o' myself.

"What kind of a bell is a Creole Bell?" sez I. "She ain't got it
spelled right neither."

"A Creole Belle is a beautiful woman of French an' Spanish blood who
lives in New Orleans," sez Barbie. "What do you make out about it?"

I was thinkin' fast as I could, but I still pertended to read the
letter. So Jabez had been in a scrape with some cross-breed woman, an'
he an' this Jack Whitman had loved the same girl, an' the' was a bad
mix-up somewhere.

"Little girl," I sez, "the' 's a lot o' wickedness in this world you
don't know about--"

"An' the' a lot o' wickedness I do know about 'at I ain't supposed to,"
she snaps in. "Do you reckon I could knock around this ranch the way I
have an' not know nothin' except about flowers an' moonlight? You cut
out the little girl part an' play square."

"Well, you look here," I sez. "I don't know what you do know an' I
don't know what you don't know; but I do know 'at lots of the things
you think you know ain't so, if you picked it up from the fool stories
some o' these damn cow punchers tell; an' you ought to be ashamed to
listen to 'em."

"Oh, yes, of course!" she fires up. "I am the one what ought to be
ashamed of the stories the cow punchers tell! That's the way from one
end to the other; somebody else says somethin' an' I ought to be
ashamed 'cause I ain't too deaf to hear it. Now the' 's a lot of
questions I'm goin' to ask you as soon as I get time. I want to know
why--"

"No, you don't!" I yells, jumpin' to my feet an' blushin' clear to my
ears. "I ain't neither one o' your parents an' I ain't your teacher. If
you want to know things you ask Melisse. If you don't put a curb on
yourself I'm goin' to flop myself on Starlight an' streak for the Lion
Head this very minute, an' I won't stop before reachin' the Pan Handle."

She knew enough to stop bettin' up a pair o' tens when she see the
other feller wasn't to be bluffed; so she sez, "Well, I'm goin'