“‘Decree of ab-so-lute divorce with cus-to-dy of the child.’
“‘Skipping over much what has happened of which I know nothing,’ says I, ‘it looks to me like a split. Couldn’t the lawyer man have made it a strike for you?’
“‘Bud,’ says he, in a pained style, ‘that child is the one thing I have to live for. She may go; but the boy is mine!—think of it—I have cus-to-dy of the child.’
“‘All right,’ says I. ‘If it’s the law, let’s abide by it. But I think,’ says I, ‘that Judge Simmons might have used exemplary clemency, or whatever is the legal term, in our case.’
“You see, I wasn’t inveigled much into the desirableness of having infants around a ranch, except the kind that feed themselves and sell for so much on the hoof when they grow up. But Luke was struck with that sort of parental foolishness that I never could understand. All the way riding from the station back to the ranch, he kept pulling that decree out of his pocket and laying his finger on the back of it and reading off to me the sum and substance of it. ‘Cus-to-dy of the child, Bud,’ says he. ‘Don’t forget it—cus-to-dy of the child.’
“But when we hits the ranch we finds our decree of court obviated, nolle prossed, and remanded for trial. Mrs. Summers and the kid was gone. They tell us that an hour after me and Luke had started for San Antone she had a team hitched and lit out for the nearest station with her trunks and the youngster.
“Luke takes out his decree once more and reads off its emoluments.
“‘It ain’t possible, Bud,’ says he, ‘for this to be. It’s contrary to law and order. It’s wrote as plain as day here—“Cus-to-dy of the child.”’
“‘There is what you might call a human leaning,’ says I, ‘toward smashing ’em both—not to mention the child.’
“‘Judge Simmons,’ goes on Luke, ‘is a incorporated officer of the law. She can’t take the boy away. He belongs to me by statutes passed and approved by the state of Texas.’