“Are you proposing to me, ‘Smooth’?”
“I shore am. What do you say? You an’ me could run this outfit together fine, an’ you wouldn’t never hev to worry no more about nothin’.”
“But I don’t love you, ‘Smooth.’ ”
“Oh, shucks, that ain’t nothin’. They’s a heap o’ women marry men they don’t love. They git to lovin’ ’em afterwards, though.”
“But you don’t love me.”
“I shore do, Chita. I’ve allus loved you.”
“Well, you’ve managed to hide it first rate,” she observed.
“They didn’t never seem no chance, ’til now,” he explained; “but you got a lot o’ horse sense, an’ I reckon you kin see as well as me thet it would be the sensible thing to do. You caint marry nothin’ but a cow man, an’ they ain’t no other cow man thet I knows of thet would be much of a improvement over me. You’ll larn to love me, all right. I ain’t so plumb ugly, an’ I won’t never beat you up.”
Wichita laughed. “You’re sure tootin’, ‘Smooth,’ ” she said. “There isn’t a man on earth that’s ever going to try to beat me up, more than once.”
Kreff grinned. “You don’t hev to tell me that, Chita,” he said. “I reckon that’s one o’ the reasons I’m so strong fer you—you shore would make one grand woman fer a man in this country.”