nd of
sorrowful: 'Is this the only place in town where they serve liquor?' I
told him it was. 'Let's go over and tackle the pump,' he says. But we
had our drink. I told him just to turn his back on that picture when he
took his."

"I might be anything but a writer," said Bartley.

"That's correct. But you ain't."

"You hit the nail on the head. However, I can't just follow your line of
reasoning it out."

"Easy. Elimination. Now a tourist, regular, stares at folks and things.
But a painter or writer he takes things in without starin'. There's some
difference. I knew you were a man who did things. It's in your eye."

"Well," laughed Bartley, "I took you for a cattleman the minute I saw
you."

"Which was a minute too late, eh?"

"I don't know about that. Since I've been sitting here looking at the
mesa and those wonderful buttes over there, and watching the natives
come and go, I have begun to feel that I don't care so much about that
train, after all. I like this sort of thing. You see, I planned to visit
California, but there was nothing definite about the plan. I chose
California because I had heard so much about it. It doesn't matter much
where I go. By the way, my name is Bartley."

"I'm Steve Brown--cattle and politics. I tell you, Mr. Bartley--"

"Suppose you say just Bartley?"

The Senator chuckled. "Suppose I said 'Green River'?"

"I haven't an objection in the world," laughed Bartley.

"Wishful, here, don't keep liquor," explained the Senator. "And he's
right about that. Folks that stay at this hotel want to sleep nights."

The Senator heaved himself out of his chair, stood up, and stretched.

"I reckon you'll be wantin' to see all you can of this country. My ranch
lays just fifty miles south of the railroad, and not a fence from here
to there. Then, there's them Indians, up north a piece. And over yonder
is where they dig up them prehistoric villages. And those buttes over
there used to be volcanoes, before they laid off the job. To the west is
the petrified forest. I made a motion once, when the Legislature was in
session, to have that forest set aside as a buryin'-ground for
politicians,--State Senators and the like,--but they voted me down. They
said I didn't specify _dead_ politicians.

"South of my place is the Apache reservation. There's good huntin' in
that country. 'Course, Arizona ain't no Garden of Eden to some folks.
Two kinds of folks don't love this State a little bit'--homesteade