ook I wouldn't let him have hide nor hair of a beef, not since he
worked on my feelings in the matter of them bull calves two years ago.
Mules, yes. But the cow is too worthy a beast to be mixed up in anything
sinful I put over on that profiteer. Now I'll tell you what," I says,
very businesslike: "you boys tole him along till he gets hectic enough to
take that bunch of mule runts down in the south field, and anything you
get over fifty dollars a head I'll split with you."

Sandy hollers at this. He says this bunch ain't mules but rabbits, and
that I wouldn't refuse forty a head for 'em this minute. He says even a
man expecting to be let in on a sure-thing elephant ranch would know
something wicked was meant if asked to give even as much as fifty dollars
for these insects. I tell him all very true; but this is just the margin
for his lasting financial genius which he displays so little reticence
about that it'll get into the papers and make him a marked man from coast
to coast if he ain't careful. He says oh, all right, if I want to take it
that way, and he'll see what he can do. Mebbe he can get fifty-five a
head, which would not only give the boys a good laugh but provide a
little torch money.

I left 'em plotting against a man that had never been touched by any plot
whatever. I resolved to remain kind of aloof from their nefarious doings.
It didn't seem quite dignified for one of my standing to be mixed up in a
deal so crooked--at least no more than necessary to get my share of the
pickings.

Sure enough, the very next day here come the depraved old outcast
marauding round again at lunch time and et with the boys in the kitchen.
He found 'em full of suppressed excitement and secret speech and
careless talk about large sums of money. It must of been like sweetest
music to his ears. One says how much would it be safe to count on cutting
up the first year--how much in round numbers; and another would say that
in round numbers, what with the expense of getting started and figuring
everything down to the last cent, it wouldn't be safe to count on more
than a hundred thousand dollars; but, of course, for the second year,
now, why it would be nearer two hundred thousand in round numbers, even
figuring everything fine and making big allowance for shrinkage. After
that they handed money back and forth in round numbers till they got
sick of the sound of it.

They said Safety set and listened in a trance, only waking up now