"If you don't mind, Cockney," Stamford grimaced, "would you give me warning when you have those thunder-claps in mind? You jar me out of focus, mentally and optically.... I wish we had some of that 'good old beef' down at my hotel. I often wonder where the West gets the beef it eats."
"Get a herd of your own, man. I didn't know as much about ranching when I started as you do. There's a million miles of grazing land out about the Red Deer yet."
Stamford made a wry smile. He drew out the large purse and counted three dollar bills and sixty cents in silver.
"Would that start me?" he asked. "Guess I'd have to steal the herd."
"Lots have done that before you," said Cockney, staring over the prairie.
A loose-limbed cowboy, whose chaps seemed to be about to slip over his hips, had drifted over from the stockades as they talked.
"Yes," he exclaimed, slapping Cockney on the back, "good old beef for England, and good old gold for you!"
The jeer in the tone might have passed, Stamford felt sure, but the slap on the back was another matter. He understood Englishmen rather well, Aikens in particular, and he knew that even the King would require a winning smile to gild such familiarity.
Aikens stiffened.
"Once or twice, Dakota," he warned quietly. "I've looked what I thought of this particular form of playfulness; now I've told you. The natural progression is the laying on of hands—and that'll come next." He turned his back.