s hat and lifting a knee to snap a dry
stick over it. "Mother'd know, I bet. I kinda wish we'd brought her and
dad along with us. That's about eighteen years ago they trailed a herd
north--and here we are, taking our trail--herd north on the same trail!
I kinda wish now I'd picked up a bunch of yearling heifers along with
our two-year-olds. We could have brought another hundred head just as
well as not. They sure drive nice. Mother would have enjoyed this trip."

"You think so, do you?" Marian gave him a superior little smile along
with the coffee-boiler. "If you'd heard her talk about that trip north
when there weren't any men around listening, you'd change your mind.
Bud Birnie, you are the SIMPLEST creature! You think, because a woman
doesn't make a fuss over things, she doesn't mind. Your mother told me
that it was a perfect nightmare. She taught you music just in the hope
that you'd go back to civilization and live there where there are some
modern improvements, and she could visit you! And here you are--all
rapped up in a bunch of young stock, dirty as pig and your whiskers--ow!
Bud! Stop that immediatly, or I'll go put my face in a cactus just for
relief!"

"Maybe you're dissatisfied yourself with my bunch of cattle. Maybe you
didn't go in raptures over our aim and make more plans in a day than
four men could carry out in a year. Maybe you wish your husband was a
man that was content to pound piano keys all his life and let his hair
grow long instead of his whiskers. If you hate this, why didn't you say
so?"

"I was speaking," said Marian as dignifiedly as was possible, "of your
mother. She was raised in civilization, and she has simply made the best
of pioneering all her married life. I was born and raised in cow-country
and I love it. As I said before, you are the SIMPLEST creature! Would
you really bring a father and mother a honeymoon trail--especially when
the bride didn't want them, and they would much rather stay home?"

"Hey!" cried Eddie disgustedly, coming up from a shallow creek with a
bucket of water and a few dry sticks. "The coffee's upset and putting
the fire out. Gee whiz! Can't you folks quit love-makin' and tend to
business long enough to cook a meal?"

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cow-Country, by B. M. Bower

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