y. And you know onct I was just on the point of
starting out fer Arizony with that old miner, Pop Haynes--do you
suppose I'd struck anything if I'd of went down there?"

"Nobody can say if you would or you wouldn't," replied Wid. "Fact is,
you never got more'n half started."

"Well, you see, this old feller, Pop Haynes, he'd been down in Arizony
twenty years before, and he said there was lots of gold out there in
the desert. Well, we got a team hooked up, and a little flour and
bacon, and we did start--now, I'll leave it to you, Wid, if we didn't.
We got as far as Big Springs, on the railroad. What did we hear then?
Why, news comes up from down in Arizony that a railroad has went out
into the desert, and that them mines has been discovered. What's the
use then fer us to start fer Arizony with a wagon and team? Like
enough all the good stakes would be took up before we could get there.
Old Pop and me, we just turned back, allowing it was the sensiblest
thing to do."

"And you been in around here ever since."

"Yes, sir; yes, sir, that's what I been. Been around here ever since.
I told you the country kind of takes a holt on a feller. Ain't it the
truth? Well, I trapped a little since then in the winters, and killed
elk for the market some, like you know, and fished through the ice over
on the lakes, like you know. Some days I'd make three or four dollars
a day fishing. So at last when that Swede, Big Aleck, got run out of
the county, I fell into his ranch. There ain't a better in the whole
valley. Look at that hay land, Wid. You got to admit that this here
is one of the best places in Montany."

"Well, maybe it is," said his friend and neighbor. "Leastways, it's
good enough to run like you mean to run it."

"I'm a-going to run her all right. She's all under wire--the Swede
done that before I bought his quit claim. Can't no sheep get in on me
here. I'll bet you all my clothes that I'll cut six hundred ton of hay
this season--leastways I would if my horse hadn't hurt hisself in the
wire the other day. Now, you figure up what six hundred ton of hay
comes to in the stack, at prices hay is bringing now."

"Trouble is, your hay ain't in the stack, Sim. You'll just about cut
hay enough to buy yourself flour and bacon for next winter, and that'll
be about all. If you worked the place right you'd make plenty fer
to----"

"Fer to be human?"

"Well, yes, that's about it, Sim."

"That's right hard--