It was such a plausible story that Scott wavered for a moment, but he remembered the ugly looks the cowboy had given him when he opened the conversation, and contented himself with a dry, “Thanks.”
“Looking over your grazing land?” the cowboy continued by way of casual conversation.
“Yes,” Scott replied shortly.
“Lucky for you fellers that the range will always support about twice as many as the government estimates.”
“Will they?” Scott asked innocently. He was interested about anything he could learn of the grazing industry.
“Sure they will. How could you feed them extras if they didn’t?”
“There will not be any extras on here,” Scott answered firmly.
“No?” said the cowboy inquiringly. “It’s pretty easy money,” he insinuated.
“Did you come up here to bribe me?” Scott asked indignantly.
“Bribe you?” exclaimed the cowboy in injured surprise. “Who, me? Gosh, no. I don’t own no sheep. Never liked the smellin’ critters. But there’s lots of places where the sheep men do work in thousands of head that way and the patrolmen make good money on it.”