oody, Heart's Desire sat in the sun, and
for two months did not mention the subject which weighed upon its mind.
Curly broke the silence one morning at a plebiscite of four men who
gathered to bask near Whiteman's corral.

"I hit the trail of them surveyors," said he, "other side of Lone
Mountain, day before yestiday. They've got a line of pegs drove in the
ground. Looks like they was afraid their old railroad was goin' to git
lost from 'em, unless they picketed it out right strong."

Reproachful eyes were turned on Curly, but he went on.

"It's goin' to run right between Carrizoso ranch and the mouth of our
canon," said he. "You'll have to cross it every time you come to town,
McKinney. When she gits to runnin' right free and general, there'll be
a double row of cow corpses from here to Santa Rosa. What this here
new railroad is a-goin' to do to your English stockholders, Mac, is a
deep and abidin' plenty."

McKinney made no reply, but looked stolidly out across the valley.

"Them fellers come up into town for tobacco, Doc." Curly threw out the
suggestion cheerfully.

"Tobacco ain't _drugs_," said Doc Tomlinson, annoyed. He was
sensitive about allusions to his stock of drugs, which had been
imported some years before, and under a misapprehension as to Heart's
Desire's future.

"We might shoot up the surveyors," said Curly, tentatively. But Dan
Anderson shook his head.

"That's the worst of it," he answered, "We might shoot any one of us
here, and the world wouldn't care. But if we shot even a leg off one
of the least of these, them States folks would never rest content. For
me, I'm goin' in with the railroad. Looks like I'd have to be
corporation counsel."

"Well, I reckon we won't have to drive our cows quite so far to
market," apologized McKinney, striving to see the silver lining.

"Oh, drop it," snapped Doc Tomlinson. "I might as well say I could get
in my drugs easier. Cows can walk; and as for importin' things,
everybody knows that Tom Osby can haul in everything that's needed in
this valley."

The members of the plebiscite fell silent for a time, willing to wait
for Tom Osby's arrival, whenever that might be.

"Now, we ain't downtrod none in this country," finally began Doc
Tomlinson, who had made political speeches in Kansas.

"Is _any_body?" asked Curly, who had never lived anywhere but on the
free range.

"We've had three squares a day," said McKinney. "This country's just
as g