n't know anything
more about making money than you did twenty years ago."

"Well, maybe I don't, and maybe I do, but I can pay my way, an' I can
go back t' Plainville when I like, too."

"Don't get hot," said Gardiner, with unshaken composure. "I'm just
trying to put you wise to yourself. Don't make any difference to me
if you spend your whole life sod-busting; it's your life--spend it
any way you like. But it's only men who don't know any better that go
on to the land nowadays. It's a lot easier to make a living out of
farmers than out of farming."

"Well, p'r'aps so, but that's more in your line. I never--"

"That's just what I say--you never learn. Now look at me. I ain't
wearing my last suit, nor spending my last dollar, either, and I
haven't done what you'd call a day's work since I came West. There's
other things so much easier to do."

"Meanin'?--"

"Oh, lots of things. Remittance men, for instance. These woods are
full of them. Chaps that never could track straight in the old ruts,
and were sent out here where there aren't any ruts at all. They're
not a bad bunch; brought up like gentlemen, most of 'em; play the
piano and talk in three or four languages, and all that kind of
stuff, but they're simply dangerous with money. So when it comes to
hand, in the public interest they have to be separated from it."

"Sounds interestin'," said Riles.

"'Tis, too, especially when one of 'em don't take to the treatment
and lays for you with a gun. But my hair's all there. That's what
comes of wearing a tall hat."

"Tell me," said Riles, his face lit up with interest, "how d'ye do
it?"

"'Twouldn't do you any good," said Gardiner. "You've steered too many
plough-handles to be very nimble with your fingers. But there's often
other game to be picked up, if a man knows where to look for it."

"Well, I wisht I knew," Riles confessed. "Not anythin' crooked, y'
know, but something like--well, something like you're doin'. I've
worked hard for ev'ry nickel I ever made, an' I reckon if there's
easy money goin' I've a right t' get some of it."

"Now you're beginning to wake up. Though, mind you, some of it isn't
as easy as it looks. You've got to know your business, just like
farming or anything else. But you can generally land something to
live on, even if it ain't a big stake. Take me now, for instance. I
ain't doing anything that a preacher mightn't do. Happened to fall in
with a fellow owns a ranch up the river here