"I guess I can. Will that be enough?"
"Plenty. You see I was figurin' on buyin' a few head of stock to run with yourn on the water-hole range."
"Why, I can let you have the stock. You can pay me when you get ready."
"That's just it. You'd kind of give 'em to me and I ain't askin' favors, except the buckboard and the white hosses."
"But what do you want to monkey with cattle for? You're doing pretty well with the water."
"That's just it. You see, Anita thinks I'm a rarin', high-ridin', cussin', tearin', bronco-bustin' cow-puncher from over the hill. I reckon you know I ain't, but I got to live up to it and kind of let her down easy-like. I can put on me spurs and chaps onct or twict a week and go flyin' out and whoopin' around me stock, and scarin' 'em to death, pertendin' I'm mighty interested in ridin' range. If you got a lady's goat, you want to keep it. 'Course, later on, I can kind o' slack up. Then I'm goin' to learn her to read American, and she can read that piece in the paper about me. I reckon that'll kind of cinch up the idea that her husband sure is the real thing. But I got to have them cows till she can learn to read."
"We've got to brand a few yearlings that got by last round-up. Bud said there was about fifteen of them. You can ride over after you get settled and help cut 'em out. What iron do you want to put on them?"
"Well, seein' it's me own brand, I reckon it will be like this: A kind of half-circle for the sun, and a lot of little lines runnin' out to show that it's shinin', and underneath a straight line meanin' the earth, which is 'Sundown'—me own brand. Could Johnny make one like that?"
"I don't know. That's a pretty big order. You go over and tell Johnny what you want. And I'll send the buckboard over Saturday."