“Somewhat,” Carver admitted. “But I someway can’t gather courage to shut them off. Half of them are still conversing about when work opens up in the spring, same as they’ve always talked in winters. They don’t realize yet that spring work won’t ever open up for their sort again.”
After breakfasting Carver rode up the trail that threaded the low saddle in the ridge back of the house and dropped down to the Lassiters’ claim on the far side of it. Bart, fired by the example of those around him, had worked steadily since the day of the run. Cowhands stopping at Carver’s place had helped Bart fence his claim. With two of Carver’s teams he had broken out a forty-acre piece and seeded it to winter wheat. Through the medium of the nightly poker game in the bunk house of the Half Diamond H he had accumulated enough cash to purchase the materials for the construction of a three-room frame house to supplement the sod hut in which he and Molly had been living since the run. But now his enthusiasm had waned and Carver found him seated on a pile of new lumber, gazing moodily off across the country.
“I’m needing relaxation bad,” Bart greeted. “Why, I wouldn’t be able to find my way around Caldwell, it’s been that long since I’ve been in town. Isn’t it about time you’re getting that hundred head of yearlings off Hinman’s range and bringing them down here?”
“In a few days now,” Carver admitted. “I’ll be starting up after them before long.”
“Why don’t you send me?” Bart suggested.
“With you in charge they might increase too fast on the homeward way,” said Carver.
“I’ll guarantee not to arrive with one extra head over the specified number,” Bart offered. “I’ll go up and get them, just as a sort of favor in return for many a kind deed you’ve done for me.”
“Not you,” Carver declined. “Anyway, you’ve got all your lumber on the ground now and you want to stay on the job until you’ve built the house. I’ll send over a few volunteers from the bunk house squad to help you throw it up.”
“That lumber is too green to work up just yet,” Bart objected. “I’ll rest up in town till the sap quits flowing through those boards and they season up till a man can run a saw through ’em. The birds were singing in those very trees last week.”
It was evident that Bart was bent upon having his vacation under any possible excuse.