"It's plumb ridiculous, but—there ain't no ransom."
"Yo're dreaming, Curly. This projeck of troops is sure death to Ryan. They'd risk the killin' of a common or'nary man—but a millionaire!"
"That's where the joke comes—he ain't a millionaire!"
I saw her quit her breakfast all untasted.
"Cayn't you be serious, child, for once?" I asked, but it made me ache to see her face that way.
"I daren't be serious, I daren't think, I daren't. Just you look at them papers."
I snatched at the nearest paper, opened it, and thought I must have been locoed. There were the headlines:—
"Ryan Combine Smashed. Collapse of the Trust."—"Panic on 'Change. The Kidnapped Millionaire, a Confessed Perjurer and Corrupter of Witnesses, admits that He swore away the Life of an Innocent Man."—"Behold thy Financial Gods, O Israel!"
I read on, dazed with the news. "Public Confidence at an End."—"Investors jump from Under."—"Ryan Debentures a Frost."—"Shares thrown on the Ash-heap."—"Petition in Bankruptcy."—"Mrs. Ryan abandons all Hope of a Ransom."—"Federal Government pledged to wipe out the Bandits."—"Movement of Troops."—"Sheriff Joe Beef interviewed on the Situation."—"Forces taking the Field."—"One of the Robbers offers Himself as a Guide."
Curly was pulling my sleeve. "Come here," she said, and there was surely something awful in her voice. "Look, see that dragon-fly," she whispered, "and all them flowers usin' the spring for a mirror, bendin' low. And hear the bull pines whisper, smell the great strong scent, look thar at the blue sky, and the cloud herds grazin'. That's like my home, ole Chalkeye—sech sounds, sech good smells, sech woods, and sech a heaven overhead. The boys air gentlin' hawsses in the big corral, or ridin' out to get a deer for supper. My fatheh sets in the doorway strummin' hymns on his old guitar, his dawgs around him, his lil' small cat pawin' around to help. And Jim is thar, my Jim—cayn't I be serious? Don't I think? Ain't I seein' that, all blackened ruins—bloody ground—daid corpses rotting down by the corrals—shadows of black wings acrost the yard? Oh, God of Mercy, spare 'em, spare my wolves, my home, my fatheh! And Jim is thar!"