We did so, and dad was good enough to pay the fine,
which, as I said before, was not much. I've had less fun for more money,
often.

Dad didn't say anything at the time, so I was not looking for the roast
I was getting. It appeared, from his view-point, that I was about as
useless, imbecile, and utterly no-account a son as a man ever had, and if
there was anything good in me it was not visible except under a strong
magnifying-glass.

He said, among other things too painful to mention, that he was getting
old--dad is about fifty-six--and that if I didn't buck up and amount to
something soon, he didn't know what was to become of the business.

Then he delivered the knockout blow that he'd been working up to. He was
going to see what there was in me, he said. He would pay my bills, and, as
a birthday gift, he would present me with a through ticket to Osage, in
Montana--where he owned a ranch called the Bay State--and a stock-saddle,
spurs, chaps, and a hundred dollars. After that I must work out my own
salvation--or the other thing. If I wanted more money inside a year or
two, I would have to work for it just as if I were an orphan without a dad
who writes checks on demand. He said that there was always something to
do on the Bay State Ranch--which is one of dad's places. I could do as I
pleased, he said, but he'd advise me to buckle down and learn something
about cattle. It was plain I never would amount to anything in an office.
He laid a yard or two of ticket on the table at my elbow, and on top of
that a check for one hundred dollars, payable to one Ellis Carleton.

I took up the check and read every word on it twice--not because I needed
to; I was playing for time to think. Then I twisted it up in a taper,
held it to the blaze in the fireplace, and lighted a cigarette with it.
Dad kept his finger-tips together and watched me without any expression
whatsoever in his face. I took three deliberate puffs, picked up the
ticket, and glanced along down its dirty green length. Dad never moved a
muscle, and I remember the clock got to ticking louder than I'd ever heard
it in my life before. I may as well be perfectly honest! That ticket did
not appeal to me a little bit. I think he expected to see that go up in
smoke, also. But, though I'm pretty much of a fool at times, I believe
there are lucid intervals when I recognize certain objects--such as
justice. I knew that, in the main, dad was right. I _had_ been leading
a rath