This was his critic, name of Bunyan.
“Hello, my man.” Mr. Bunyan paused “Stock-tender, eh? Did you decide to stay on for another try?”
“No sir,” said Laramie, holding himself in stern check. “It happens yore stock-tenders don’t travel on passenger cars. They travel caboose, if they’re lucky. Besides, yore cows are old enough to travel alone, and so am I. I’ve quit; I’ve drawed my pay and I’m headin’ for Kansas City, never more to roam.”
Mr. Bunyan smiled with smile exasperating.
“You are, are you? Hunting a job there?”
“I suppose I’ll have to earn my keep, after I’ve been fed up and to a thee-ater. Reckon I’ll enjoy life a little, fust.”
Mr. Bunyan laughed.
“That’s it! Easy come, easy go! Can’t spend your money fast enough in this town, eh? Those other boys don’t seem to have any difficulty, judging by what I’ve seen and heard. You men are all of the same stamp. You lack good sense. What you earn in one month, you guzzle and gamble away in half an hour. I suppose that’s being a cowboy!”
Laramie recognized that in this ironical diatribe there might be a grain of truth.
“As for ‘easy come,’ I dunno,” said he, out of memories of the thirty years’ wind and weather, round-up and trail. “But I’ve ree-formed. If I hadn’t, I’d take no such talk from you.”