He nods, for what I said was true, and he knowed it.
"Colonel," I ast him, "have you been playing poker?"
"Some," says he. "Down to the Cheyenne Club."
"How much did you lose?"
"I didn't lose nothing—I won several thousand dollars and eight hundred head of steers last week," says he.
"Well, then, what in hell is wrong?" says I.
"It goes back a long ways," says he after a while, and now his face looked more than ever like it did when he was there a-going through them trunks. I turns my own face away now, so as not to embarrass him, for I seen he was sort of off his balance.
"It's her," says the old man at last.
I might have knew that—might have knew it was either Bonnie Bell or her ma that he had in his mind all the time; but he couldn't say a damn word. He went on after a while:
"When she was sick I begun to get sort of afraid about things. One day she taken Bonnie Bell by one hand and me by the other, and says she to me: 'John Willie'—she called me that, though nobody knew it maybe—'John Willie,' says she, 'I want to ask something I never dared ask before, because I never did know before how much you cared for me real,' says she. Oh, damn it, Curly, it ain't nobody's business what she said."