Chapter IV. Some Hopes - Page 2

into her shrinking, amazed palm.

"Paw's got more money'n that," Sybilly announced proudly. "Paw's got a million dollars. A man bought our ranch and gave him a lot of money. We're rich now. Maybe paw'll buy us a phony-graft. He said maybe he would. And maw's goin' to have a blue silk dress with green onto it. And--"

"Better haze along and buy that grub stake," Slim interrupted the family gift for profuse speech. He had caught the boys grinning, and fancied that they were tracing a likeness between the garrulity of Sybilly and the fluency of her aunt, the Countess. "You don't want that train to go off and leave yuh, by golly."

"Wonder who bought Denson out?" Cal Emmett asked of no one in particular, as the children went strutting off to the store to spend the dollar which little Sary clutched so tightly it seemed as if the goddess of liberty must surely have been imprinted upon her palm.

When they went inside and found Denson himself pompously "setting 'em up to the house," Cal repeated the question in a slightly different form to the man himself.

Denson, while he was ready to impress the beholders with his unaccustomed affluence, became noticeably embarrassed at the inquiry, and edged off into vague generalities.

"I jest nacherlly had to sell when I got m' price," he told the Happy Family in a tone that savored strongly of apology. "I like the country, and I like m' neighbors fine. Never'd ask for better than the Flyin' U has been t' me. I ain't got no kick comin' there. Sorry to hear the Old Man's hurt back East. Mary was real put out at not bein' able to see Louise 'fore she went away"-- Louise being the Countess' and Mary Denson's sister--"but soon as I sold I got oneasy like. The feller wanted p'session right away, too, so I told Mary we might as well start b'fore we git outa the notion. I wouldn't uh cared about sellin', maybe, but the kids needs to be in school. They're growin' up in ign'rance out here, and Mary's folks wants us to come back 'n' settle close handy by--they been at us t' sell out and move fer the last five years, now, and I told Mary--"

Even Cal forgot, eventually, that he had asked a question which remained unanswered; what interest he had felt at first was smothered to death beneath that blanket of words, and he eagerly followed the boys out and over to Rusty Brown's place, where Denson, because of an old grudge against Rusty, might be trusted not to follow.

"Mamma!" Weary commented amusedly, when they were crossing the street, "that Denson bunch can sure talk the fastest and longest, and say the least, of any outfit I ever saw."

"Wonder who did buy him out?" Jack Bates queried. "Old ginger-whiskers didn't pass out any facts, yuh notice. He couldn't have,got much; his land's mostly gravel and 'doby