d S.F. Timmins he could take away for a hundred a head--or
even ninety-five. And Safety hadn't laughed!

And would you have wondered when he sifts in a couple days later and
makes me a cold offer of sixty dollars a head for this choice livestock?
Yes, sir! He says "Live and let live" is his motto, and he wants to prove
that I have wronged him in the past if I ever had the faintest suspicion
that he wasn't the ideal party to have in on a deal that was going to net
everyone concerned a handsome fortune. He says the fact is money goes
through his fingers like water if you come right down to it; and sixty or
even sixty-five if I want to push him to extremes, because he's the last
man on God's green earth to let five dollars split up old neighbours
that ought to be hand and glove in any new deal that come up.

It like to of keeled me over, but I recovered and become busier than ever
and got out my bank book and begun to figure over that. I said Sandy
Sawtelle had the handling of this particular bunch of my assets and
I couldn't be bothered by it.

So he mooches down to the barn till Sandy come in with Buck Devine.
They was chattering about three hundred thousand dollars in round numbers
when they got near enough for him to overhear their private conversation.
They wondered why they had wasted so much of their lives in the cattle
business, but now them old hard-working days was over, or soon would be,
with nothing to do but travel round in Pullman palace cars and see
America first, and go to movies, and so forth. Safety wished to haggle
some about the mules, but Sandy says he's already stated the price in
clear, ringing tones, and he has no time to waste, being that I must
send him down that night to get an order on the wire for two carloads
of the Little Giant peanut. Safety just blinked at this, not even asking
why the peanuts; and the boys left him cold.

When I told 'em about the offer to me of sixty or a possible sixty-five,
they at once done a medicine dance.

"This here will be the richest coop ever pulled off west of Cheyenne,"
says Buck; and Sandy says he guesses anybody not blind can now see that
well-known street in New York he ought to have his office on. He says
he hopes Safety don't fall too easy, because he wants more chance to
work it up.

But Sandy is doomed to disappointment. Safety holds off only two days
more. Two days he loafs round at mealtimes, listening to their rich
converse and saying he'd like