"There ain't no West," says he. "Besides, what do you mean? What are you talking about, going anywheres?"
"You said you was going to sell the range," says I. "That ends my work, don't it? I filed on eight or ten homesteads, and so did the other boys. It's all surveyed and patented, and it's yours to sell."
He didn't say nothing for a while, his Adam's apple walking up and down his neck.
"You been square to me all your life, Colonel," says I, "and I can't kick. All cowpunchers has to be turned out to grass sometime and it's been a long time coming for me. I'm as old as you are, Colonel, and I can't complain."
"Curly," says he, "what you're saying cuts me a little more than anything ever did happen to me. Ain't I always done right by you?"
"Of course you have, Colonel. Who said you hadn't?"
"Ain't you always been square with me?"
"Best I knew how," says I. "I never let my right hand know what my left was doing with a running iron—and I was left-handed."
"That's right; you helped me get my start in the early days. I owe a lot to you—a lot more than I've ever paid; but the least I could do for you would be to give you a home and a place at my table as long as ever you live, and more wages than you're worth—ain't that the truth?"
"I don't know how you figure that," says I.