"Didn't I tell you that every sort of animal is susceptible to kindness?"
"Why, do you mean to call Mr. Fearnot an animal?"
"Certainly. Every man and woman is just as much an animal as a horse or cow is."
Both the girls opened their eyes wide and Evelyn and Fred and Terry laughed heartily at them.
"Why, didn't you know that man is an animal?" Fred inquired.
"No, indeed. Never heard of such a thing before in my life," and then both Fred and Terry fell to explaining the matter to them. The younger of the two sisters said they made her feel "cheap" by proving to her that she was a mere animal.
"Oh, be careful with your words. Neither of us have said that you were a mere animal," said Terry. "Man belongs to the animal kingdom just as any four-footed beast does. Generally the things that will kill any brute will also kill a man. Both have flesh and blood, eat and drink; but man is, of course, the highest grade of the animal kingdom. They are divided into different tribes, just as animals are into different species. The Caucasian is the highest type, and the grades go down from this point until we reach the bushmen of Australia, who are said to be the lowest type of mankind."
The girls were highly interested in his talk, and on the piazza and on the front steps cowboys were listening with the deepest interest.
They, too, had never thought of the subject; but Fred and Terry were very familiar with it, for they had both studied it very deeply.
A few days after Fred's return from his trip, during which he had bought another thousand head of cattle, the cattle began arriving.