"I came back to see if that Ryan was goin' to wipe you out, you and yo' people. I came to see you die."
"And saved my life!"
"I reckon," says Curly, "I ain't quite responsible anyways for my life—'cause I'm only a mistake—jest a mistake. I feels one way, and acts the contrary; I whirl in to kill, and has to rescue; I aims to hate—and instead of that I——"
"What?"
"I dunno," she laughed. "Up home at Robbers' Roost we got a lil' book on etiquette what tells you how ladies and gentlemen had ought to act in heaps big difficulties. It shorely worries me to know whether I'm a lady or a gentleman, but it's mighty comfortin' the way that book is wrote. I done broke all my wolves outer that book to set up on their tails and act pretty. Now, if I had the book I'd know how I'd ought to act in regard to you-all."
Jim looked mighty solemn, being naturally about as humorous as a funeral. "Am I nothing to you?" he asked, feeling hurt; but she just opened one eye at him, smiling, and said nothing.
Presently the pain got so bad that she began to roll from side to side, scratching with her free hand at the face of the rock overhead.
"Can't I do something?" says Jim. "It's awful to sit and watch that pain. I must do something."
"If you climb to the top of this rock," she said between her teeth, "you'd see La Soledad. My father's thar."
"I'll run."