"That's going a bit too far. Do you mean to say you know that this particular tree is down?"
"That's first growth. All that country's been cut over. D'you think they'd pass up a tree the size of that?"
"It's going to be hard," said Anthony with a frown, "for me to get used to the West."
"Maybe not."
"I can ride and shoot pretty well, but I don't know the people, I haven't worn their clothes, and I can't talk their lingo."
"The country's mostly rocks when it ain't ground; the people is pretty generally men and women; the clothes they wear is cotton and wool, the lingo they talk is English."
It was like a paragraph out of some book of ultimate knowledge. He was not entirely contented with his statement, however, for now he qualified it as follows: "Maybe some of 'em don't talk good book English. Quite a pile ain't had much eddication; in fact there ain't awful many like me. But they can tell you how much you owe 'em an' they'll understand you when you say you're hungry. What's your business? Excuse me; I don't generally ask questions."
"That's all right. You've probably caught the habit from me. I'm simply going out to look about for excitement."
"A feller gener'ly finds what he's lookin' for. Maybe you won't be disappointed. I've knowed places on the range where excitement growed like fruit on a tree. It was like that there manna in the Bible. You didn't have to work none for it. You jest laid still an' it sort of dropped in your mouth."
He added with a sigh: "But them times ain't no more."