At last he says:
"Curly, we're shore up against it!" He sighed then, like he'd lost a whole trainload of cows.
"What's up, Colonel?" says I. "Range thieves?"
"Hell, no!" says he. "I wish 'twas that—I'd like it."
"Well," says I, "we got plenty of this water, and we branded more than our average per cent of calves this spring." For such was so that year—everything was going fine. We stood to sell eighty thousand dollars' worth of beef cows that fall.
He didn't say a word, and I ast him if there was any nesters coming in; and he shook his head.
"I seen about that when I taken out my patents years ago. No; the range is safe. That's what's the matter with it; the title is good—too good."
"Well, Colonel," says I, some disgusted and getting up to walk away, "if ever you want to talk to me any send somebody to where I'm at. I'm busy."
"Set down, Curly," says he, not looking at me.
So I done so.