At her approach Ludlum rose and held out his hand. "Wherever I see folks as willing to work as you and your brother, Miss Holliday, I'm willing to bet they'll succeed against any odds. Yes, ma'am."
"How about the fellow that is working against us?" asked Rob quietly. "Does he win, too?"
"O Bobby! You do think up such objections!" Harry said, with a laugh.
But Ludlum nodded approvingly. "Quite right, Holliday. A man's got to be cautious, especially in the cattle business. You'd ought to be thankful, young lady, that you've got such a level-headed partner to work with."
Ludlum commended impartially the opinions of both Rob and Harry. "Come down to the ranch and look things over," he said as he rose to go, "and get acquainted with the missus and our girls and boys. Pick out a bunch of critters, and make your own terms. You'll make twenty per cent on your money, all right."
"Hard work to come down to earth again after sailing round in Ludlum's airship," Rob commented as they watched their visitor ride away. "He'd make a fellow think that merely driving his critters on our land would start providence coining money to pay for them and making hay to feed them."
"I don't see that we need trust especially in providence for hay and cash!" Harry exclaimed. "We're sure of fifty tons of alfalfa of our own this year, besides the wheat straw from fifty acres for roughage; and as for the cash payment on a hundred head, haven't I five hundred in the bank and you have almost three hundred? And we can always buy extra hay on the flat."
"We're not sure we can buy hay; we're not sure we'll put up fifty tons of our own. It's a dry year, and the grazing may go early; and we're not past the chance of a late frost. It's pure gambling to take on a hundred head of cattle now."
"No more than taking the dozen you bought that first year was. We'll simply never make a real cleanup, Rob, if we never take a chance. I'd rather do it and maybe lose something—lose my five hundred dollars—than mosey along forever on the safe side."