u, why, name
it an' it's yours; but you can see for yourself that we can't go on
this way. I haven't asked you to do anything unreasonable and you have
refused point blank. I don't intend to explain myself to one of my own
men, and I don't intend to have an argument with him every time I want
anything done my way. This is my ranch and as long 's my own way suits
me, that's the only man it has to suit."

"Yes, you own this ranch," sez I; "but you don't own the earth, so I'll
move on."

"I haven't fired you," sez Jabez. "You're welcome to work here as long
as you want to; but you'll have to be like the other men from this on.
You've been like one of the family so long 'at we don't pull together
any more, and so if you stay I'll have to send you out with the riding
gangs."

I looked into his face and laughed, though even then I was sorry for
him. He led a lonely life, an' I knew 'at he'd miss me; but we was both
as we was, so I rolled up my stuff, loaded up Starlight, an' said
good-bye to little Barbie. That was the hard part of it. She didn't cry
when I told her I was goin'--that would 'a' been too girlish-like for
her; she just breathed hard an' jerky for a couple o' minutes while we
looked in opposite directions, an' then she said, "How'll you come back
next time, Happy? It's over three years ago since you left that other
time, an' you came back just as you said, ridin' on a black hoss with
silver trimmed leather. How'll you come back next time?"

"I don't know, Barbie," I said, "but I'll sure come back, true to you."

"Yes," she said, "an' I'll sure be true to you, all the time you're
away and when you come back."

"Barbie," I said, "you haven't treated your father right. You've let
him see that you're worryin' about somethin', an' it bothers him."

"I ain't made out o' wood," she snaps out fierce. "I try to be
contented, but I get tired o' bein' a girl. I've half a mind to go with
you, Happy."

"Yes, but the other half of your mind is the best half, Barbie," I
said. "Now I'm goin' to tell you a secret; your daddy is twice as
lonesome as you are, and he's been through a heap of trouble sometime.
You miss the mother that you never did see, but he misses the mother
that he knew and loved; and I want you to promise to do all you can to
cheer him up and make him happy."

"I never thought o' that before," said she, "I'll do the best I
can--but you'll come back to me sometime, won't you, Happy?"

"I sure will,"