rietor, wiping his hands on his trousers, made his way to Buck's end
of the bar.

"Mornin', Buck. How's things?"

The foreman, lost in his reverie, continued to stare out the door.

"Mornin'," repeated the man behind the bar. "How's things?"

"Oh!" ejaculated the foreman, smiling, "purty cussed."

"Anything flew?"

"Th' C-80 lost another herd last night."

His companion swore and placed a bottle at the foreman's elbow, but
the latter shook his head. "Not this mornin'--I'll try one of them vile
cigars, however."

"Them cigars are th' very best that--" began the proprietor, executing
the order.

"Oh, heck!" exclaimed Buck with weary disgust. "Yu don't have to palaver
none: I shore knows all that by heart."

"Them cigars--" repeated the proprietor.

"Yas, yas; them cigars--I know all about them cigars. Yu gets them for
twenty dollars a thousand an' hypnotizes us into payin' yu a hundred,"
replied the foreman, biting off the end 'of his weed. Then he stared
moodily and frowned. "I wonder why it is?" He asked. "We punchers like
good stuff an' we pays good prices with good money. What do we get? Why,
cabbage leaves an' leather for our smokin' an' alcohol an' extract for
our drink. Now, up in Kansas City we goes to a sumptious layout, pays
less an' gets bang-up stuff. If yu smelled one of them K. C. cigars yu'd
shore have to ask what it was, an' as for the liquor, why, yu'd think
St. Peter asked yu to have one with him. It's shore wrong somewhere."

"They have more trade in K. C.," suggested the proprietor.

"An' help, an' taxes, an' a license, an' rent, an' brass, cut glass,
mahogany an' French mirrors," countered the foreman.

"They have more trade," reiterated the man with the cigars.

"Forty men spend thirty dollars apiece with yu every month." The
proprietor busied himself under the bar. "Yu'll feel better to-morrow.
Anyway, what do yu care, yu won't lose yore job," he said, emerging.

Buck looked at him and frowned, holding back the words which formed in
anger. What was the use, he thought, when every man judged the world in
his own way.

"Have yu seen any of th' boys?" He asked, smiling again.

"Nary a boy. Who do yu reckon's doin' all this rustlin'?"

"I'm reckonin', not shoutin'," responded the foreman.

The proprietor looked out the window and grinned: "Here comes one of
yourn now."

The newcomer stopped his horse in a cloud of dust, playfully kicked the
animal in the ribs and entered, dusti