Lines were deeper drawn, and the kind old eyes were a shade
more sunken.
"What's that amount to?" grumbled the Old Man, looking from
one to the other under his graying eye brows. "You can't stop
them dry-farmers from taking the country. Yuh might as well
try to dip the Missouri dry with a bucket. They'll flood the
country with stock--"
"No, they won't," put in Big Medicine, impatient for the real
meat of their errand. "By cripes, we got a scheme to beat
that--you tell 'im, Weary."
"We want to buy a bunch of cattle from you," Weary said
obediently. "We want to graze our claims, instead of trying
to crop the land. We haven't any fence up, so we'll have to
range-herd our stock, of course. I--don't hardly think any
nester stock will get by us, J. G. And seeing our land runs
straight through from Meeker's line fence to yours, we kinda
think we've got the nesters pretty well corralled. They're
welcome to the range between Antelope coulee and Dry Lake,
far as we're concerned. Soon as we can afford it," he added
tranquilly, "we'll stretch a fence along our west line
that'll hold all the darn milkcows they've a mind to ship out
here."
"Huh!" The Old Man studied them quizzically, his chin on his
chest.
"How many yuh want?" he asked abruptly.
Pages:
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135