“Theh! That shows how much yo’ don’t know about women. Never had no woman yo’ ’lowed to marry?”
“Huh! Catch me gittin’ married—co’se not.”
“Sonny, lemme tell yo’; hit ain’t yo’ll do the catchin’, an’ hit won’t be yo’ who’ll be decidin’ will yo’ git married. An’ hit won’t be yo’ who’ll decide how long yo’ll stay married, no, indeed.”
“Peah’s like yo’ got an awful grouch ag’in women, Buck.”
“Why shouldn’t I have?” Buck started up from shuffling and throwing a book of cards. “Look’t me. If Jest Prebol’s shot most daid by a woman, look’t me. Do you know me—where I come from, where the hell I’m goin’? Yo’ bet you don’t. I’ve been shanty-boatin’ fifteen years, but I ain’t always been a shanty-boater, no, I haven’t. Talk to me about women. When I think what I’ve took from one woman—Sho!”
He stared at the floor, his teeth clenched and his 62 strong face set. Slip stared. His pal had disclosed a new phase of character.
Buck turned and glared into Slip’s eyes.
“I’ll tell you, Slip, you’re helpless when it comes to women. They’ve played the game for ten thousand years, practised it every day, wearing down men’s minds and men never knew it. Read history, as I’ve done. Study psychology, as I have. Go down into the fundamentals of human experience and human activities, and learn the lesson. Fifteen years I’ve been up and down these rivers, from Fort Benton to the Passes, from the foothills of the Rockies to the headwaters of Clinch and Holston in the Appalachians. Why? Because one woman sang her way into my heart, and because she tied my soul to her little finger, and when she found that I could not escape—when she had—when she had—What do you know about women?”
Slip stared at him. His pal, partner in river enterprises, an old river man, who talked little and who played the slickest games in the slickest way, had suddenly emerged like a turtle’s head, and spoken in terms of science, education, breeding—regular quality folks’ talk—under stress of an argument about women. And they had argued the subject before with jest and humour and without personal feeling.
Buck turned away, bent and shivering.