or cattle?"

"I did. But I've soured on them since that calf came and I've been
milking."

Pinkey agreed heartily:

"I'd ruther 'swamp' fer a livin' than do low-down work like milkin'."

"When I come in at night, dog-tired and discouraged, I get out this
picture and look at it and tell myself that some day I'll be driving
twelve horses on a thresher. A chap thinks and does curious things when
he has nobody but himself for company."

"That's me, too," said Pinkey, understandingly. "When I'm off alone
huntin' stock, I ride fer hours wonderin' if it's so that you kin make
booze out of a raisin."

"Let's walk out and look at the wheat," Wallie suggested.

Pinkey complied obligingly, though farming was an industry in which he
took no interest.

Wallie's pride in his wheat was inordinate. He never could get over a
feeling of astonishment that the bright green grain had come from seeds
of his planting--that it was his--and he would reap the benefit. Nature
was more wonderful than he had realized and he never before had
appreciated her. He always forgot the heart-breaking and back-breaking
labour when he stood as now, surveying with glowing face the even green
carpet stretching out before him. In such moments he found his
compensation for all he had gone through since he arrived in Wyoming,
and he smiled pityingly as he thought of the people at The Colonial,
rocking placidly on the veranda.

"Did you ever see anything prettier?" Wallie demanded, his eyes shining.

"It's all right," Pinkey murmured, absently.

"You're not looking," Wallie said, sharply.

"I was watchin' them cattle."

"I don't see any."

Pinkey pointed, but Wallie could see nothing.

"If they got cows on Mars, I'll bet I could read the bran's," Pinkey
boasted. "Can't you see them specks movin' off yonder?"

Wallie admitted he could not.

"It's cattle, and they act like somebody's drivin' 'em," Pinkey
declared, positively. "Looks like it's too early to be movin' 'em to the
mountain."

His curiosity satisfied, he gave the wheat his attention.

"It looks fine, Wallie," he said with sincerity.

Wallie could not resist crowing:

"You didn't think I'd last, did you? Miss Spenceley didn't, either.
She'll be disappointed very likely when she hears I've succeeded."

"Don't cackle till you've laid your aig, Gentle Annie. When you've
thrashed and sold your grain and got your money in the bank, then I'll
help you. We'll git drunk if I have to ro