"I was thinkin' that maybe, sometime,
you'd get to care enough about me to marry me. Sounds kind of abrupt
an' off-hand, don't it? But it ain't. I've been thinkin' about it a
lot. You're the first woman I've seen since--well, since way back
yonder, that I'd ever marry. The only one that stacks up to the kind
of people mine are, an' that I was back there. Of course, there'd be a
lot of readjustin' but that would work out--it always does when the
right kind of folks takes holt to put anything through. I've got some
recreations an' pastimes that ain't condoned by the pious. I gamble,
an' swear, an' smoke, an' lie, an' drink. But I gamble square, swear
decent an' hearty, lie for fun, but never in earnest, an' drink to a
reasonable degree of hilarity. My word is good with every man, woman,
an' child in the cow country. I never yet went back on a friend, nor
let up on an enemy. I never took underhand advantage of man or woman,
an' I know the cow business. For the rest of it, I'll go to the old
man an' offer to take the Eagle Creek ranch off his hands an' turn
nester. It's a good ranch, an' one that rightly handled would make a
man rich--provided he was a married man an' had somethin' to get rich
for. I don't want you to tell me now, you won't, or you will. We've
got a week or so yet to get acquainted in.
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