"Do I! There's so much in it that I know I'm a fool not to give up my job in the service and get me a herd. I would, too, if I hadn't rented my eighty down on the South Side on shares to Pablo Carriero, a Portagee. He's got it up to November, and you bet I'm not going to lease again."
"But you could buy a few head, couldn't you?" Harry asked quickly. "You'll have one third of your hay."
"Not this year. I told Carriero to sell it if he could, and he's given an option on it to that fellow Biane. But for you two! Why, it's as easy as counting your fingers to coin money this year."
"It is!" said Rob skeptically. "With steers selling at thirty and calves at fifteen, and me with only three hundred cash in the bank? Guess again, Christopher Garnett."
"He isn't guessing at all," Harry said quickly. "I heard—some one told me the very same thing this morning. If we bought only a hundred head now, part cash, part time——"
"Oh, time!" Rob echoed. "None of that for me, thank you."
"Wait, please. You haven't heard it all," Harry broke in, and then hurried on to give him the gist of what Ludlum had said. "With the eight hundred cash we have between us," she ended, "there's no reason why we should not borrow the rest, buy cattle and succeed, just as thousands of men have done before us."
"Yes, and other men who didn't know any more about it than we do have gone into cattle and been ruined."
"Say, Rob," Garnett drawled, "ain't you ever heard of a man with one pet cow havin' her die on him?"