There was a curtain acrost the door between the hall and the room beyond. Old Man Wright made one sweep and throwed open the whole room before us. We stood there in the door, neither of us making any move. Everything stopped then. There wasn't nobody talking no more. What we seen before us was something you couldn't hardly of figured on seeing at all.

They was all setting at the dinner table and they was all dressed up. There was Old Man Wisner and the old lady, and Bonnie Bell—she was setting next to the old lady. Just beyond, and square acrost the table from us, facing us, was the hired man—the man on whose account we'd come to square things now and leave them signed, sealed and delivered.

I thought it was right funny for their hired man to be eating with them, and him all dressed up just like them. Then I remembered how fresh he'd always been and how he'd bragged about the pull he had with them people. And I remembered the talk I'd heard between him and Old Lady Wisner too. Anyways, there he was setting, big as life; and if they was having any trouble over anything you couldn't see it. No one was shedding no tears and there didn't seem to be no war going on.

I felt like I was up in the air. I felt like I'd been dreaming about something and hadn't woke up. I couldn't figure out what it was I seen. No one spoke a word.

You must remember that Old Man Wright didn't know yet Bonnie Bell was anywhere within three thousand miles of him. And when he pulled aside the curtain there she was, setting right at their table! And right acrost was a young man setting, too—a young man who he don't know none.

You see, he never had saw that hired man at all, so as to know him. I hadn't told the old man about Bonnie Bell being there, because I allowed he'd find it out anyways. Now he had.

It was Bonnie Bell that moved first—for she knew what might happen. She made one jump for her pa and threw her arms round him—not around his neck, but down around his arms. She didn't try to kiss him—she didn't say a word; she was scared. She knowed where he carried his gun—up under his shoulder. I never knowed whether she found it or not.

"No!" says she, quick; and she locked her hands behind his back so he couldn't get his arms loose. "No! No; you can't—you shan't! No, no!" she says. "Dad! Dad!"

Ordinary she would of been no more than a straw to him, he was that strong. But, you see, he wasn't expecting to see her—and a lot of things come over him all at once. Here she was, with her arms around him anyways, no matter what for.

For once Old Man Wright forgot. His hand only kind of went out to hers where they was, and he says, trembly:

"Bonnie, girl! I didn't know you was here!"

By that time everybody was on their feet. The hired man starts for us, but I stopped him.

"Not yet," says I. "I'm working for the old boss till midnight tonight. You stay where you are."

When I said that Old Man Wisner and Old Lady Wisner they just froze right where they was. But Bonnie Bell didn't. She turns to me now and I felt her hand on my arm.

"What do you mean, you men? Are you crazy?" says she. "I'll not have this! Set down! You, Curly—you make any break here and I'll slap you in the face," says she. "You hear me? Don't you start anything here!"

Well, now, you wouldn't think we'd all been broke up thataways just by a girl, would you? But she had us on the run before we got started. It was mostly because of all this being so unexpected. I didn't expect to see the hired man at their table and Old Man Wright didn't expect to see Bonnie Bell at all; so the whole herd begun to mill round.

She pushed her pa down into a seat, and me too.

"So that's the way you act when I'm not here!" says she. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," says she. "I won't have any more of this."

Their hired man set down now, right serious. He didn't laugh none nor try to pass it off. We all knew that it was a show-down, that it was a settlement, and that it had to go through.

Old Man Wright he didn't seem to look at anyone but Bonnie Bell. If you can say a man can look hungry with his eyes, that's the way he looked then. By this time she was crying, and she puts her arms around his neck now.

"Dad!" says she. "Pore old dad! Pore old foolish, unhappy dad!" Now she begins to kiss him some; but he can't talk none—only pats her shoulders.

"I'm the wretchedest, wickedest girl on earth," says she to him, pushing back his hair, "and I'm the happiest too! Dad, listen to me. You mustn't sit in judgment. Don't take things so hard. Wait—try to see. Try to see if maybe there isn't some other will in the world besides your own, dad—maybe some will bigger than all of ours. I couldn't help it, dad—I couldn't! I'm so happy," says she, "so foolish happy now!"

"Happy?" says he at last; and he pushes her away from him. "With him, there?" He nods now at the hired man, having got him placed. "What's he doing here?" says he.

"Why shouldn't he be here?" says Old Man Wisner right then, speaking for the first time. "He's my son!"

"What's that?" says Old Man Wright. "Your son!"

"Shore!" says he. "Who'd you think he was? He can eat at my table. He's done well; he's married the best girl I ever seen!" says he. Then he gets so he can't talk worth a cent too.

Shucks! I wisht I was most any place else. His son! How could his son be his hired man, and where was the hired man if this wasn't him? I felt myself begin to get sweaty on my face and all over. I'd been one awful fool, me.

"Dave Wisner," says Old Man Wright, "I come acrost to settle things with you. Our account is some long. You've made it hard for me—awful hard!—when you made your hired man run off with my girl. Your son! What kind of talk is this? What do you mean?"

"But he is our son!" says Old Lady Wisner right then, her speaking for the first time. "In heaven's name, who did you think he was? Hired man! What do you mean?"

"It's what I been trying to tell you and Curly," says Bonnie Bell now, holding to her pa's coat with one hand and patting him hard on the shoulder with the other. "I told you it was all a mistake—everything was all mixed up. Except for Gawd's mercy sending me here right now, somebody might of been killed, for all I know," says she. "You men ain't got no more brains than a rabbit. It's time I come!"

"Your son!" says Old Man Wright. "Son! And Curly said he was your hired man!"

Old Man Wisner laughs right out loud at that.

"Hired man! Oh, I see how you thought that! You maybe seen him pottering around in the flowers like—he was always dotty about them things—but no hired man; he wasn't hardly worth a salary."

"And what do you think?" laughs Bonnie Bell at Old Lady Wisner then. "His mother thought once I was a hired girl!"

Old Lady Wisner for quite a while she'd been playing a sort of accompaniment, talking to herself. First, she starts in and says: "Oh, my laws! Oh, my laws sakes! Oh my laws sakes alive!"—over and over again, she was that scared. And now she begun to say: "Bless my soul! Gawd bless my soul! Oh, Gawd bless my soul!" And she says that right over and over again too.

"I told you, Curly," says Bonnie Bell now, "that there'd been a mistake all around. Why didn't you tell my dad I was here?"

"Well," says I, "I allowed he'd find it out after a while. Ain't he?"

I was sweating awful now and I felt how red my hair was. I toed in so bad my legs was crossed.

"I've found out a lot of things," says Old Man Wright now, right sudden and swift. "I been making some mistakes my own self; but you"—and he faces their hired man now—"you passed yourself off for a servant."

"That's true, sir," says he. "I was under false colors for a long while and I hated it as much as anyone could. But what could I do? I couldn't find any way to meet her. I didn't want her money and I didn't want her to want mine. Well, that's how it happened. I deceived you all, that's true. I deceived her too—she didn't really know who I was until less than a week ago. Then she came home."

"Why didn't you come and tell me at first?" says Old Man Wright.

"How could I?" says he. "I knew what that would mean, from all Curly said. Besides, I wanted to win her just for what I was—just for what she was. I wanted to be sure she'd love me the way I wanted, for just what I was. I'm sure now.

"But I was going to come and tell you; we came on now for that very thing—the two of us, as you see. It wasn't any pleasure for me to deceive either you or her—I never liked that any more than you did."

Old Man Wright he just set looking at him, and he couldn't talk. The young fellow went on.

"I loved her the first time I saw her, sir," says he. "I resolved, the first time I ever saw her, that sometime I'd marry her. I did. And we're happy—we're happier than I ever thought anybody could be. How can you bear a grudge against a girl like that—your own girl? She's only done what she thought was right. And it was right too! And it goes!"

"So you're the son of this family!" says Old Man Wright, slow. "That can't be helped, neither. I—well, I didn't know. I—I thought you wanted her for her money. I'll go so far as to say that."

"It wouldn't of made any difference," says Bonnie Bell then. "I'd of married him anyway. It's just like he says—he never told me about it until just a little while ago. I thought he was some sort of a distant relative of the Wisner family. If you stop to think you can see how all these things happened easy enough. Especially you can when you stop to think that, on foot and off a horse, Curly is apt to do more fool things than a cageful of white rats—God bless him! Because nobody else but him could of done just what he's done!"

"Well, it does seem to me," says I then, "that most of this happened account of me. I reckon I made about as many fool breaks as any fellow could," says I. "Like I told your pa, I couldn't see a load of hay. But here's where I quit. It don't look like you need me no more, for things is mixed up now as bad as they can get," says I.

"Keep still, Curly," says Bonnie Bell to me. "Set down!"

About then I seen them two old men looking at each other. Without saying nothing, they both got up and went out into the parlor together. We couldn't hear what they said. For that matter, we couldn't hear what we said ourselfs, because of something that happened around in there.

Their collie dog, CÆsar, was barking at us when we come in. He'd sort of got under the table. But now we heard another dog barking plumb crazy. And now in comes from somewhere, out in the garridge or the car maybe, that Boston dog, Peanut, of Bonnie Bell's!

He was looking for a settlement too. He don't hesitate, but he goes straight for this collie under the table, and they mix it plenty right then and there, till most of us was glad enough to get up on the chairs. I tried to stop them and the old lady and Bonnie Bell was both hollering at them; but the hired man he raised his hand.

"Let them alone!" says he. "They got almost human intelligence someways," says he. "Let 'em alone, so they can have it out."

So they had it out for quite a while there in the dining-room, under the table and among the chairs, and under the sofa, and pretty much everywhere, both of 'em enjoying of theirselfs plenty. Their dog, CÆsar, had got older now and Peanut he had his hands full; but he was shore industrious and sincere.

By and by, after quite a while, they hauled apart and set looking at each other, their tongues hanging out, happy and smiling. Peanut he goes over to his mistress, and he was shaking a ear that was loose. CÆsar he goes over to the old lady, limping and holding up his foot, him looking plumb contented.

"They'll get along all right now," says the hired man—James, or Jimmie, or Jim, whatever you ought to call him.

I couldn't believe he was young Mr. James Wisner. Sometimes I don't hardly even yet.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," says Bonnie Bell. "I declare, men are brutes anyhow!"

"I know it, Bonnie Bell," says I. "I've made plenty of trouble, but not no more. I'm taking the morning train West," says I.

"Where to?" she ast me; and I can't answer—for me the whole world was upside down, same as this room here.

About then the two old men come back into the room, both of them serious; but you could see easy that they hadn't had no war—only some kind of a squaring and settling up; I reckon because of Bonnie Bell and this James, or Jimmie, or Jim, not being no hired man none after all, which maybe he had a strawberry mark on his arm—I don't know how they proved it.

Old Man Wright he stood up, with his hand on top of a chair; and he made a little after-dinner talk that cost him, maybe, several million dollars—not that he cared!

"I come here tonight," says he, "to maybe take the law into my own hands—anyways I reckon I come here to set in judgment; but I wasn't no good judge, because I was trying the case without having all of the facts. But I'm this kind of man," says he, "that when I've made a mistake, and know it, I'm game to stand up and say so. That's what I'm doing now. I reckon I been wrong. Some things you can't help. I ain't going to try to help this no more.

"The fact is, I reckon, maybe it's the best thing that could of happened. It didn't happen through me. I done my best to keep it from happening. That's where I was wrong. I'm glad of all this now and I take back what I said. I've been a twenty-two carat, pink-eyed, black-striped wild ass of the desert, though not halfway as big a fool as Curly. It was him that got us all in wrong."

Old Man Wisner he stands up too; and he makes his confession that's good for his soul. His Adam's apple kind of walked up and down his neck, but he come through.

"Don't say no more, Colonel," says he. "I'm to blame for all this myself. I was the biggest fool that ever was. That fence—why, that fence now——"

James, or Jimmie, or Jim, and Bonnie Bell they looks at each other then and laughs right out.

"You didn't build it high enough," says he; "you couldn't!"

"I'm glad I couldn't," says Old Man Wisner. "Things are going to come out all right, the way they ought to come. I've learned a lot tonight—a lot about being neighbors. Son, we had a neighbor and we didn't know it. Maybe it's that way plenty times. We had one neighbor that has saved your father from being broke and disgraced before all the world—before tomorrow night. That's what kind of neighbors we had all along," says he; "and we tried to build a fence and keep them away from us! Yes; thank Gawd, I couldn't build the fence high enough," says he.

"I knew something about this, dad," says James, or Jimmie, or Jim, then. "I could of told you long ago that ranch deal couldn't win. Scale it down, get at the real business and human values, and it ought to win—and win big!"

Old Man Wisner he's always rather strong for organization. He looks over at Old Man Wright and they both look at this young man; and they both nod.

"That's a good idea," says Old Man Wright—"a damn good idea! Now then, we're beginning to talk. Why can't we throw the two businesses in together and make one hand wash the other, and let this young gentleman take care of the reorganization on the spot?"

"That's the idea!" breaks in Bonnie Bell right then. "There ain't any better cow country out-of-doors than the Yellow Bull Valley. I know that. Give us a chance and we'll pull this whole business out of the hole," says she.

"James," says Old Man Wright, and he walks around and holds out his hand, playing the game wide open, like he always done—"James," says he, "will you shake hands with the worst old fool there is in the whole world—except Curly?"

Now James he's been doing pretty well up to now, but this about knocks him out. He gets up, kind of red and startled, and he shakes hands with the Old Man; but he couldn't say nothing and didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. So he puts his hand in his pocket, like a man will, and he seems to feel something there; and all at once, not being able to think of nothing else, he pulls out what he found and holds it out to Old Man Wright.

"Colonel," says he, "will you have a chew? It's Arrow Head—same name as our home spring out there," says he. "I've used no other since. I just heard you own most of the stock in the Arrow Head Tobacco Company; but I ain't surprised. You ain't overlooked much!"

I reckon that was the luckiest accident ever happened to him—when he found that piece of plug. Old Man Wright taken a bite of it liberal, and says he:

"Son, do you wear garters?"

Everybody fell to laughing then, excepting me and Old Man Wright. It was serious for us. We was figuring on cowmen now. Bonnie Bell, she goes up to her pa once more and hugs him, and looks at the hired man.

"Don't mind him, Jim," says she. "He's awful sometimes; but he means all right and he has his own ways of figuring. I've got the best dad in the world!" says she.

"You had the best ma in the world," says Old Man Wright. "Seems to me sometimes you favor your ma," says he.

Then they kissed each other; fact is, most everybody got kissed around there excepting me. Yet, when you come to figure about it, I'd been responsible for a good many of those things and the way they come out, and I didn't get no credit for it. No foreman ever does.

Old Lady Wisner, like I said, she was setting there and saying mostly: "Gawd bless me!" and "Gawd bless my soul!"—nobody paying much attention to her. But now Bonnie Bell she sidles over to her and sort of puts out her hand, shy. The old lady she puts a arm around her, and she begins to cry too. They was both right happy. Dogs has to fight and women has to cry; then they're happy. I reckon them two had some sort of understanding.

"Son," says Old Man Wright after a while to James, or Jimmie, or Jim, "where have I saw you before?" He'd been looking at him for some time.

"The first time you ever seen me, Colonel," says he, "was when I fell in love with your daughter, sir," says he. "That was when I drove you home to your house on Christmas Eve."

"You drove—when you drove us home!" says Old Man Wright. "What do you mean about that? We had our own car; and I give the driver a ten-dollar gold piece that night because it was Christmas Eve. He got lit up; so he was wabbly next day too. I remember that."

"So do I," says James, laughing. "I've got that money now. But it was your real driver that got lit up, not me. You see, when Bonnie Bell come out in the storm that night she didn't notice that it wasn't her car. Hers looked a good deal like it—both the same make and right new. Maybe she wasn't very well acquainted with her new chauffore yet; so she says to me to take her home. So I had to do that."

"How did you know where to go?" ast Bonnie Bell then, laughing.

"I knew all about you!" says he. "I'd been busy for over a hour there in the hotel dining-room with Henderson, and that was long enough to learn all I ever wanted to know. I knew how rich you were. That was why I drove you home and didn't let you know who I was; that was why I never tried to call; that was why a lot of things happened right the way they did. I had some fool theories of my own, maybe; maybe I did get a touch of socialism or something of that kind when I was in college.

"But anyway, Colonel Wright," he goes on, "I want to say to you, sir, that I've known you and admired you a lot more than you ever knew. I voted for you for alderman—though my own dad was running against you. I thought you stood for what I thought was right. All the world is really neighbors," says he, "and the human democracy is good enough for me. I voted for you then—and I do now. My dad has a lot to learn."

He turns to his pa then, and the old man like to of blew up, he was so mad; but we all ended by laughing at this too.

"Son," says Old Man Wright, "did you say to me that you used one of them old-fashioned razors? I'm this sort of man that sometimes they say has got prejerdices. Now I always hone my own razors."

"So do I," says James, or Jimmie, or Jim.

The old man he hesitates a while and looks at him right sad; and he says, like he was talking to hisself:

"Well, well! I do wonder how I was such a hand-painted idiot all the time! I believe we shore can make a cowman out of you yet," says he.

"It's in sixes and sevens," says James, or Jimmie, or Jim, "but there's a chance there on that ranch. Maybe I can learn. And it's so fine out there—with the mountains, and the skies, and the wind blowing in the sage, and the——"

"Hush, man!" says Old Man Wright to him. "You're making me so homesick I can't stand it. We'll all go out there to live. I'll tell you what we'll do," says he in his rushing way, sort of taking the lead of things. "We'll keep these two houses in here for both of us for our city homes, and we'll all of us have the old ranch for our country homes," says he. "And we'll all run the business plumb sensible on good business lines," says he, "with the peaches and cream out, and the ribs, chucks and plates all in. Why, we'll——"

"Oh, dad!" says Bonnie Bell, and she goes up to the old man, crying because she was happy. She'd seen him change right there before her—he'd got forty years younger in the last ten minutes. "Dad," says she—"dad, we will—when?"

"Daughter," says he, "we're going to begin right now to get them Better Things we started out for. You're going to have the place in life that your ma said you'd ought to have. You and Katherine," says he, "will have to fix it up about that house I was going to leave in my last will and testament. But, like I said, I'm going to give Katherine half a million when she marries—if she marries as good a man as you did. You see, Katherine kissed me—right here in a soft spot—on top of my old bald head."

He rubs the place then. Bonnie Bell she kisses him there too—for maybe sever'l million.

After a while I sort of moved over toward the door, it seeming like it wasn't no place for me no more.

"Where you going?" says Old Man Wright to me; and Old Man Wisner he says something, too, about my not being in a hurry.

"I don't know, but I reckon I'll be moving along now. Looks like I been some foreman. I done all this. But what thanks do I get for it?"

I starts away to get outside this kissing zone, so to speak. I didn't know but Old Lady Wisner'd try to kiss me. I didn't want that to happen.

"Ho, ho!" says Old Man Wright, laughing like he did years ago. "Hear that fool boy talk, won't you, Dave? You can't quit, Curly," says he; "there's too much for you to do out there on the old ranch. Do you suppose you could teach this kid to rope?" says he.

"I already got a start at it," says I. "Him and me used to practice some."

Well now, that was how come us to square it all up, both sides, and come to a understanding that didn't noways seem possible just a little while before. That was how we come to go back to the old Yellow Bull country, for part of the year anyways. It was how a right bad run-in was saved. It was how Old Man Wisner was kept from busting wide open the next day, and, like enough, a bank or so along with him. Likewise it was how them two fortunes, maybe fifty or ninety million or more between them when they got things cleaned up, was joined till death do them part. When them two old fellows got to pulling together something had to crack. We shore got a business now—sever'l of 'em.

I got Jimmie—we come to call him that on the ranch—so he could rope some inside his first year, though I had to show him how to spread his loop a little wide and not to depend on soaping his hondoo.

It was like old times to see a kid beginning on the range in the one man's game that's worth while on earth—raising cows in a good cow country. I was glad I hadn't shot Jimmie, or my boss hadn't shot his pa—I wouldn't of minded so about Old Lady Wisner, because I couldn't help remembering how she'd made trouble deliberate from the first. Of course I'd made trouble, too, but I hadn't went to.

What become of the old wall between them two houses? Nothing much; we left it stand, for someways it didn't seem so high no more when Bonnie Bell's ivy and them other plants begun to hang down on it. But, of course, I had to bust the hole in a little bit bigger after a while, so as the twins could get through right easy, as well as Peanut. One was named David Abraham and the other John William; but they couldn't help it.

The best time was when we all rounded up one spring out there at the station to go out on the ranch for the spring round-up, and to start things running for the year. Old Man Wisner and the old lady was there, and Old Man Wright and Jimmie and Bonnie Bell and me—me that was foreman now and, like enough, earning it, the way things had been let go to pieces.

We'd come down from Cody to that station where I found Jimmie—time I was out hunting for him. For a while we'd been quite considerable busy getting things packed, ready to go out to the ranch. We had two wagons, one full of groceries and things. They'd even put in fly screens out there now and had rocking chairs to set around in. Old Man Wright was as busy as a fiddler getting things pulled together. His sleeves was rolled up, and all at once Jimmie looks at him and says:

"Colonel, if I'm not mistaken your freckles is coming back again."

The old man roars laughing at that.

"Yes," he says; "I'm almost fit to run for sher'f oncet more. Ain't it all like the old times, Curly?" says he.

"It shore is, Colonel," says I; "and there ain't no better times than them."

The old man he gets into the buckboard on one side and he taken the two twins on his knees. On the seat back of him was Pa and Ma Wisner—me riding with Old Man Wright, in the middle. She was a three-seat buckboard, and the mules was full of oats and plunging some; but Jimmie didn't mind—he was driving, with Bonnie Bell, on the front seat.

"All set?" says he, turning his head around; and Old Man Wright nods.

"Giddap!" says Jimmie, and turns 'em loose.

Bonnie Bell, she turns around halfway, half looking at him and half at the twins, and says she:

"Home, James!"