ginning. She's
at the limit of what the range will produce for her right now. We got to
move on."

I nodded to him. We both felt the same about it. It wasn't so much what
happened to us.

"Well," says he, "we got to pick out a place for her to live at after we
sell the range. I thought of St. Louis; but it's too hot, and I never
liked the market there. Kansas City is a good cowtown; but it ain't as
good as Chicago. I reckon Chicago maybe is as good a cowtown as there
is."

"Well, Colonel," says I, "I reckon here's where I go West."

"You go where?" says he to me, sharp.

"West," says I.

"There ain't no West," says he. "Besides, what do you mean? What are you
talking about, going anywheres?"

"You said you was going to sell the range," says I. "That ends my work,
don't it? I filed on eight or ten homesteads, and so did the other boys.
It's all surveyed and patented, and it's yours to sell."

He didn't say nothing for a while, his Adam's apple walking up and down
his neck.

"You been square to me all your life, Colonel," says I, "and I can't
kick. All cowpunchers has to be turned out to grass sometime and it's
been a long time coming for me. I'm as old as you are, Colonel, and I
can't complain."

"Curly," says he, "what you're saying cuts me a little more than
anything ever did happen to me. Ain't I always done right by you?"

"Of course you have, Colonel. Who said you hadn't?"

"Ain't you always been square with me?"

"Best I knew how," says I. "I never let my right hand know what my left
was doing with a running iron--and I was left-handed."

"That's right; you helped me get my start in the early days. I owe a lot
to you--a lot more than I've ever paid; but the least I could do for you
would be to give you a home and a place at my table as long as ever you
live, and more wages than you're worth--ain't that the truth?"

"I don't know how you figure that," says I.

"Yes; you do, too, know how I figure that--you know there ain't but one
way I could figure it. You stay with me till hell freezes under both of
us; and I don't want to hear no more talk about you going West or
nowheres else."

Folkses' Adam's apples bothers sometimes.

"We built this brand together," says he, "and what right you got to
shake it now?" says he; me not being able now to talk much. "We rode
this range, every foot of it, together, and more than once slept under
the same saddle blanket. I've trusted you to tally a thousand he