"No," says I; "it's too much like work."
"Well, we could make other pictures," says he, smiling contented. "For instance, we could set up two or three cameras right acrost the street from Old Man Wisner's 'most any morning. Then, when Old Man Wisner come out we could take his picture and show him how he looks when he has got a grouch. Or we could take a picture of the old lady getting in her car or getting out. Neither one of 'em has got much girlish figure now.
"Why, there's loads of pictures that we could take. If you didn't like to work much riding or anything in the movies," says he, "you could be taken leaning kind of careless on our gate and looking over the Wisners' fence—for instance, talking to their hired man.... Don't you dig my head no more, kid," says he. "I ain't no bomb-proof, like you think."
"Dad," says Bonnie Bell, "I ain't going to comb your head no more."
"Why?" says he.
"You're a mean and revengeful old man," says she. "It ain't right for us to treat our neighbors thataway," says she, "and I won't have it."
"I'm living up to my laws," says he, calm. "I've got to hand Wisner what he's trying to hand to me. You know the law that's been good enough for us. That's the range law."
"This ain't the range," says she.
"Ain't it?" says he. "This looks like a ranch house some. If you'll run your comb along over my dome, too, you'll find, unless I'm awful mistaken, something like the head of a cowman. Feel with your thumb good, Bonnie Bell," says he. "See if you can find any soft spot in there, like in a melon. See if you can find any place where it feels like I was going to lay down and let any yellow-livered son-of-a-gun try to ride me, and me not resent it," says he. "They started this and it's got to be finished—that's the law. Believe me, one way or the other, that old white-face over there is going to be a good oxen sometime, and he'll come up and feed outen my hand."
Bonnie Bell she quits combing and goes over and sets down on the lounge, and don't say nothing; nor me neither. We both knew about the old man when he started after anybody. He was that kind of a sher'f. It didn't look peaceful none to me what might happen now.