"I'd best get back to my work," John Seeley said.
He left, and Grandpa asked Joe, "What do you want to know about?"
"I—" Joe fumbled. He had come to ask about the west, and only now did it occur to him that he hadn't the slightest notion of what to ask. "I'm thinking of going there," he said lamely.
"You don't aim just to point your nose west and follow it?"
"No. That's why I came to see you. I want to find out how to do it."
"The west is a big place. What are your wishes?"
"A fellow named Townley told me he staked out land by riding three days in each direction and finally coming back to his starting point."
"Townley's a liar," Grandpa assured him. "Though some of the ranches and land grants in the southwest are most as big as the state of Missouri. They need a lot of land; takes maybe eighty acres to feed one cow in some of that country. You going in for cattle?"
"No. I'm a farmer."
"Oregon," Grandpa said. "Oregon's the place you want. Get yourself a quarter section there. That's all the land any farmer needs in that country."