Part 22 (2/2)

”Rave on!” Pinkey looked at him mockingly. ”It's pitiful to hear you.

You read them bulletins awhile and you won't know nothin'. I seen a feller plant some corn his Congressman sent him and the ears was so hard the pigs used to stand and squeal in front of 'em. But of course I'm glad you're feelin' so lucky; I'm scairt of the feelin' myself for it makes me take chances and I always git a jolt for it.”

Wallie's face was sober as he confided:

”If anything went wrong I'd be done for. I'm so near broke that I count my nickels like some old woman with her b.u.t.ter-and-egg money.”

”I guessed it,” said Pinkey, calmly, ”from the rabbit fur I see layin'

around the dooryard.”

”Nearly everything has cost double what I thought it would, but if I get a good crop and the price of wheat holds up I'll come out a-flying.”

”If nothin' happens,” Pinkey supplemented.

”I want to show you one of those bulletins.”

”I've seen plenty of 'em. You can't stop 'em once you git 'em started.

Them, and pamphlets tellin' us why we went to war, has killed off many a mail-carrier that had to fight his way through blizzards, or be fined fer not deliverin' 'em on schedule. I ain't strong fer gover'mint literature.”

Wallie stepped inside the cabin and brought out a pamphlet with an ill.u.s.tration of twelve horses. .h.i.tched to a combined harvester and thresher, standing in a wheat-field of boundless acreage.

”There,” he said, proudly, ”you see my ambition!”

Pinkey regarded it, unexcited.

”That's a real nice picture,” he said, finally, ”but I thought you aimed to go in for cattle?”

”I did. But I've soured on them since that calf came and I've been milking.”

Pinkey agreed heartily:

”I'd ruther 'swamp' fer a livin' than do low-down work like milkin'.”

”When I come in at night, dog-tired and discouraged, I get out this picture and look at it and tell myself that some day I'll be driving twelve horses on a thresher. A chap thinks and does curious things when he has n.o.body but himself for company.”

”That's me, too,” said Pinkey, understandingly. ”When I'm off alone huntin' stock, I ride fer hours wonderin' if it's so that you kin make booze out of a raisin.”

”Let's walk out and look at the wheat,” Wallie suggested.

Pinkey complied obligingly, though farming was an industry in which he took no interest.

Wallie's pride in his wheat was inordinate. He never could get over a feeling of astonishment that the bright green grain had come from seeds of his planting--that it was his--and he would reap the benefit. Nature was more wonderful than he had realized and he never before had appreciated her. He always forgot the heart-breaking and back-breaking labour when he stood as now, surveying with glowing face the even green carpet stretching out before him. In such moments he found his compensation for all he had gone through since he arrived in Wyoming, and he smiled pityingly as he thought of the people at The Colonial, rocking placidly on the veranda.

”Did you ever see anything prettier?” Wallie demanded, his eyes s.h.i.+ning.

”It's all right,” Pinkey murmured, absently.

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