I nodded. I knew what he meant. Then I shook my head in denial of the danger.
"I don't b'lieve it nuther," said he; "but is it any cinch, now? An' anyhow, she'll be where she wun't ever hear a bit o' music, 'r see a picter, 'r see a friend. She'll swelter in the burnin' sun an' parch in the hot winds in the summer, an' in the winter she'll be shet in by blizzards an' cold weather. She'll see nothin' but kioats, prairie-dogs, sage-brush, an' cactus. An' what fer! Jest for nothin' but me! To git me away from things she's afraid've got more of a pull with me than what she's got. An' I say, by the livin' Lord, I'll go under before I'll give up, an' say I've got as fur down as that!"
It is something rending and tearing to a man like Bill, totally unaccustomed to the expression of sentiment, to give utterance to such depths of feeling. Weak and trembling as he was, the sight of his agitation was painful. I hastened to say to him that I hoped there was no necessity for such a step as the one he so strongly deprecated.
"I d' know," said he dubiously. "I thought one while that I'd never want to go near town, 'r touch the stuff agin. But I'll tell yeh something that happened yisterday!"
He drew up his chair and looked behind him like a child preparing to relate some fearsome tale of goblin or fiend, and went on:
"Josie had the team hitched up to go out ridin', an' I druv around the block to git to the front step. An' somethin' seemed to pull the nigh line when I got to the cawner! It wa'n't that I wanted to go--and don't you say anything about this thing, Mr. Barslow; but somethin' seemed to pull the nigh line an' turn me toward Main Street; an' fust thing I knew, I was a-drivin' hell-bent for O'Brien's place! Somethin' was a-whisperin' to me, 'Go down an' see the boys, an' show 'em that yeh can drink 'r let it alone, jest as yeh see fit!' And the thought come over me o' Josie a-standin' there at the gate waitin' f'r me, an' I set my teeth, an' jerked the hosses' heads around, an' like to upset the buggy a-turnin'. 'You look pale, pa,' says Josie. 'Maybe we'd better not go.' 'No,' says I, 'I'm all right.' But what ... gits me ... is thinkin' that, if I'll be hauled around like that when I'm two miles away, how long would I last ... if onst I was to git right down in the midst of it!"