He
could have gone East any time and "been somebody" on the road under his
father.
Finally, Billy missed a week in writing. At once there was a cog gone
from the answering wheel to match. Billy shortened his letters; the
answers were shortened. Then he quit writing, and his Thursday letter
ceased to come. He had thought the matter all over, and decided, no
doubt, that he was doing what was best--both for himself and the girl;
that his family's high ideas should not be outraged by a Mexican
marriage. He had put a piece of flesh-colored court-plaster over his
wound, not healed it.
Early in the winter the old Don wrote, urging us to come down and hunt
antelope, but Billy declined to go--said that the road needed him, and
that Josephine might come home from school and this would make them both
uncomfortable. But Henry, his older brother, was visiting him, and he
suggested that I take Henry; he would enjoy the hunt, and it would help
him drown his sorrow over the loss of his aristocratic young wife, who
had died a year or two before. So Henry went with me, and we hunted
antelope until we tired of the slaughter.
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