"Ain't any news," responded Buck dejectedly. "Too much talk; no news."
"That's right," nodded Gary Peters. "O'Brien is the out-talkingest man I ever see. Ain't nobody on Brownsville can get his tongue around so many words as O'Brien."
So saying, he blew through his pipe, picked up a stick of soft pine, and began to whittle it to a point.
"In my part of the country," went on Buck Daniels, "they don't lay much by a man that talks a pile."
Here the blacksmith turned his head slowly, regarded his companion for an instant, and then resumed his whittling.
"But," said Daniels, with a sigh, "if I could find a man that knowed the country north of Brownsville and had a hobble on his tongue I could give him a night's work that'd be worth while."
Gary Peters removed his pipe from his mouth and blew out his dropping moustaches. He turned one wistful glance upon his idle forge; he turned a sadder eye upon his companion.
"I could name you a silent man or two in Brownsville," he said, "but there ain't only one man that knows the country right."
"That so? And who might he be?"
"Me."