"Too late? Too late? Why, what do you mean, Curly? I've—I've come back! I want to see my dad! I've got to see my dad. There's lots I must tell him. He don't know—I didn't know."
"You can't see your dad no more, kid," says I. "That time has went by. I'm foreman here till midnight of today; and while I am there ain't nobody going to bother him. He's had trouble enough already."
She stood sort of shaking. I had her wrists in my hands now.
"When it's all over," says I—"meaning a few things we're going to settle tonight—I'll come out to you in Wyoming. I won't be foreman here no more. I'm going to go and throw in with you, even against the old man."
She begun to cry now.
"What are you talking about? I want him!" says she. "I want to see my dad. I need him—and he needs me!"
"Yes; he does need you," says I. "He's needed you for a long time. But you wouldn't like to see him now; he's changed a heap. He ain't got a friend left on earth except me, and that ends at midnight. He's had it pretty rough, when you come to think it all over," says I.
"I must go in, Curly," says she.
"No; you can't," says I. "I'm foreman and I won't let you. He wouldn't want it; he's marked you off his books—we just been doing that today, with a lawyer and a barber."
"But, Curly, he doesn't know——"