“Why—what do you aim to do? You’re talking foolish!” Tex censured.
“Me?” said Laramie. “Well, I reckon I’ll go to little old K. C. I aint been in a city since—gosh, I don’t know when, Tex. It’s time I was learnin’ something.”
“You might have gone,” Tex snapped. “You’ve been started—I’ve started you, myself; but ’fore you got to the train, where were you? Plumb flat. But all right: I’ll send you in with the stock. Give you another chance.”
“No, sir!” said Laramie. “I don’t go as any stock-tender, Tex. I go civilized. I know I’ve fell by the way, on several occasions, Tex, but this time will be different. There don’t nary man call me a brute ag’in. I quit the range, and I live white. When I get to Kansas City, I’m goin’ to the swellest cafe in that town, and I order me the best feed on the hull mee-noo, regardless. I been livin’ so long on beef, I moo whenever I see a calf. I reckon I’ll put up at the best ho-tel, and I’ll take in the best thee-ater, and I’ll buy some store clothes. Wow! Hey?” And Laramie fairly licked his chops.
“Shorely,” agreed Tex in tone caustic. “I see yuh. Easy come, easy go. You fellows are alluz fools with your money. All right; what’ll you do then?”
“Well,” said Laramie, “lackin’ better while I was lookin’ round, I suppose I might get a job at the stockyards. I know cattle. But that wont be ridin’. It’ll be loafin’. Now,” he concluded, “you understand why I figger ahead on what’s comin’ to me. How much?”
“Very good,” Tex rapped. “Seeing you’re bound to know, I’ll give it to you straight. Close as I can calkilate, Laramie, at the pens you’ll have exactly thirty-three dollars and fifty cents due you. Want, cash or a gold bond?”
“What you sayin’, Tex?” Laramie gasped. “I got more than that!”
“No, you haven’t. You remember, Laramie, that last time you turned loose, after the calf round-up, you lost all your money, and your saddle, and bridle, and boots, and your four-gallon Texas hat, in a tin-horn poker-game. So I had to stake you to a new outfit. Those things cost. And you’ve been drawing a dollar or two, now and again, since. I can show you in black and white.”
“You needn’t, Tex. Yore word’s good.” But thirty-three dollars and fifty cents, after thirty years of dogging cows from the border to Montana! Shucks!