efinger. "You jess do whut
this yer man says. Ef they's any money to be made a-cookin', I kin do
all the cookin' ever you wants, ef you-all kin git anything to cook.
Yas, suh!"

"You ain't makin' no mistake," resumed Sam. "You go in and git your
land filed on, and put you up a sod house or dugout for the first
season, because lumber's awful high out here. It's pretty late to do
anything with a crop this year, even if you had any breakin' done, but
you can take your team and gether bones this fall and winter, and
that'll make you a good livin', too. You can git some young stock out
of the trail cattle fer a'most anything you want to give, and you can
hold your bunch in here on the White Woman when you git started. You
can cut a little hay a little lower down on the White Woman for your
team, or they can range out in here all winter and do well, just like
your cows can. You can git a lot of stock about you before long, and
what with keepin' a sort of eatin' station and ranchin' it a bit, you
ought to git along mighty well, I should say. But--'scuse me, have you
ever farmed it much?"

"Well, sir," said Buford, slowly, "I used to plant corn and cotton,
back in Kentucky, befo' the war."

"And you come from Kentucky out here?"

"Not precisely that; no, sir. I moved to Missouri from Kentucky after
the war, and came from Missouri here."

Sam looked at him, puzzled. "I allowed you'd never ranched it much,"
he said, vaguely. "How'd you happen to come out here?"

The quizzical smile again crossed Buford's face. "I think I shall have
to give that up, on my honour," he said. "We just seem to have started
on West, and to have kept going until we got here. It seemed to be the
fashion--especially if you'd lost about everything in the world and
seen everything go to pieces all about you." He added this with a slow
and deliberate bitterness which removed the light trace of humour for
the time.

"From Kentucky, eh?" said Sam, slowly and meditatively. "Well, it
don't make no difference where you come from; we want good men in here,
and you'll find this a good country, I'll gamble on that. I've
followed the front clean acrost the State, the last ten years, and I
tell you it's all right here. You can make it if you take hold right.
Now I must be gittin' along again over toward Plum Centre. See you
again if you stop in here on White Woman--see you several times a week,
like enough. You must come up to Ellis soon a