“Well, that’s all you agreed to do,” said Hinman. “And I guess I’d better pay you off and have it over with, even if you did get me into considerable of a snarl. Only one thing I can do now, since you made all those arrangements, and that’s to back up anything you told Nate. I never figured you’d let me in for anything like this.”
“I’d prefer to take my pay in some other form than cash,” Carver announced as Hinman produced his check book. “Suppose you give me a bill of sale for a hundred head of coming yearlings instead of nine hundred cash and let ’em range with your stuff up on the west place till November.”
“You can’t spend calves,” said Hinman.
“I could borrow against them if I was needing money,” Carver explained.
“But coming yearlings are worth twelve dollars a head,” Hinman objected.
“I’ll owe you the rest,” Carver offered.
“And when I deliver in November they’ll be worth more’n that. They’ll bring round sixteen dollars a head by then.”
“That’s what I was counting on,” said Carver. “I like to feel every morning that I’m worth just a little more than I was the night before.”
Hinman laid down the check book and regarded him.
“Now it’s always struck me that you put yourself out to be worth just a mite less each morning than you was the night before,” he stated. “Surely you haven’t gone and deserted the ranks of the tumbleweeds in favor of the pumpkins. I never knew you to set a value on a dollar.”