Billy, he'd allus liked Rose. And Rose'd allus liked Billy. Wal, after Andrews's s-a-d endin', you bet I made up my mind that Billy'd be ole man Sewell's next son-in-law. Billy was smart as the dickens, and young, and no drunk. He hadn't never wore no hard hat, neither, 'r roached his mane pompydory, and he was one of the kind that takes a run at they fingernails oncet in a while. Now, mebbe a puncher 'r a red ain't par-_tic_ular about his hands; but a _pro_feshnal gent's _got_ to be. And with a nice gal like Rose, it shore do stack up.
But it didn't stand the chanst of a snow-man in Yuma when it come to ole man Sewell. Doc Simpson was new in town, and Sewell'd ast him out to supper at the Bar Y ranch-house two 'r three times. And he was clean stuck on him. To hear the ole man talk, Simpson was the cutest thing that'd ever come into the mesquite. And Billy? Wal, he was the bad man from Bodie.
Say! but all of us punchers was sore when we seen how Sewell was haided!--not just the ole man's outfit at the Bar Y, y' savvy, but the bunch of us at the Diamond O. None of us liked Simpson a _little_ bit. He wore fine clothes, and a dicer, and when it come to soothin' the ladies and holdin' paws, he was there with both hoofs. Then, he had all kinds of fool jiggers fer his business, and one of them toot surreys that's got ingine haidlights and two seats all stuffed with goose feathers and covered with leather--reg'lar Standard Sleeper.
It was that gasoline rig that done Billy damage, speakin' financial. The minute folks knowed it was in Briggs City, why they got a misery somewheres about 'em quick--just to have it come and stand out in front, smellin' as all-fired nasty as a' Injun, but lookin' turrible stylish. The men was bad enough about it, and when they had one of Doc Simpson's drenches they haids was as big as Bill Williams's Mountain. But the women! The _hull_ cavvieyard of 'em, exceptin' Rose, stampeded over to him. And Billy got such a snow-under that they had him a-diggin' fer his grass.
I was plumb crazy about it. "Billy," I says one day, when I met him a-comin' from 'Pache Sam's hogan on his bi_cy_cle; "Billy, you got to do somethin'." (Course, I didn't mention Rose.) "You goin' to let any sawed-off, hammered-down runt like that Simpson drive you out? Why, it's free grazin' here!"