'em they can send for a whole whale if they want to pay for it,
but none of my money goes that way so long as stall-fed beef retains its
present flavour; and furthermore I expect to be doing business right here
for years after the whale fad has died out--doing the best I can with
about ten silly cowhands taking the rest cure at my expense the minute I
step off the place. I said there was no doubt they should all be added to
the ranks of the unemployed that very minute--but due to other well-known
causes than the wiping out of the cattle industry by cold whale hash in
jelly, which happened to be the dish this French chef was going crazy
over.

They chewed over that pointed information for a while, then they got to
making each other bets of a thousand dollars about what whale meat would
taste like; whether whale liver and bacon could be told from natural
liver and bacon, and whether whale steak would probably taste like
catfish or mebbe more like mud turtle. Sandy Sawtelle, who always knows
everything by divine right, like you might say, he says in superior tones
that it won't taste like either one but has a flavour all its own, which
even he can't describe, though it will be something like the meat of the
wild sea cow, which roams the ocean in vast herds off the coast of
Florida.

Then they consider the question of a whale round-up in an expert manner.
It don't look none too good, going out on rodeo in water about three
miles too deep for wading, though the idea of lass'ing a whale calf and
branding it does hold a certain fascination. Sandy says it would be the
only livestock business on earth where you don't always have to be
fearing a dry season; and Buck Devine says that's so, and likewise
the range is practically unlimited, as any one can see from a good map,
and wouldn't it be fine riding herd in a steam yacht with a high-class
bartender handy, instead of on a so-and-so cayuse that was liable any
minute to trade ends and pour you out of the saddle on to your lame
shoulder.

They'd got to kidding about it by this time, when who should ride up but
old Safety First Timmins. They spring the food whale on Safety with much
flourish. They show him the pictures and quote prices on the hoof--which
are low, but look what even a runt of a yearling whale that was calved
late in the fall would weigh on the scales!--and no worry about fences or
free range or winter feeding or water holes; nothing to do but ride round
on your p