a couple of tunnels would have to be widened so the
bulls wouldn't be rasped going through, but that I have already taken
this up with the railroad company.

Safety says that may all be true, but, mark his words, the minute my herd
gets into inland waters it will develop some kind of disease like anthrax
or blackleg, and the whole bunch will die on me. Sandy says it will be a
simple matter to vaccinate, because the animals will be as affectionate
as kittens by that time through having been kindly handled, which is all
a whale needs. He says they really got a very social nature and are loyal
unto death. Once a whale is your friend, he says, it's for life, rain or
shine, just so long as you treat him square. Even do a whale a favour
just once and he'll remember your face, make no difference if it's fifty
years; though being the same, it is true, in his hatreds, because a whale
never forgives an injury. A sailor he happens to know once give a whale
he had made friends with a chew of tobacco just for a joke and the animal
got into an awful rage and tried to tear the ship down to get at him, and
then he followed the ship all over the world waiting for this sailor to
fall off or get wrecked or something, till finally the hunted man got so
nervous he quit the sea and is now running a news stand in Seattle, if
Safety don't believe it. It just goes to show that a whale as long as
you're square with him is superior in mind and morals to a steer, which
ain't got sense enough to know friend from foe.

Safety still shakes his head. He says "safe and sane" has been his motto
throughout a long and busy life and this here proposition don't sound
like neither one to him. The boys tell him he's missing a good thing by
not throwing in with us. They say I'm giving 'em each a big block of
stock, paid up and non-assessable, and they don't want him to come round
later when they're rolling in wealth and ask why they didn't give him a
chance too.

"I can just hear you talk," said Sandy. "You'll be saying: 'I knew that
whole fool bunch when not one ever had a dollar he could call his own the
day after he was paid off, and now look at 'em--throwing their hundreds
of thousands right and left; houses with pianos in every room; new boots
every week; silver-mounted saddles at a thousand each; choice wines,
liquors, and cigars; private taxicabs; and Alexander J. Sawtelle, the
wealthy banker, being elected to Congress by an overwhelming majority!'
Th