“I guess it took about all of Bill’s time to manage a ranch like that,” said Lanky.
“Not all, not all,” said Joe. “That was his main vocation and callin’, but he found time for a good many other things. He was always goin’ in for somethin’ else when the cattle business got slack.
“When the S. P. come through, he got a contract furnishin’ ’em wood. Bill went down into Mexico and rounded up a bunch of greasers and put ’em to cuttin’ wood. He made a contract with ’em that they was to git half the wood they cut. When the time was up, they all had big stacks of cordwood, Mex’can cords, you understand, that they don’t know what to do with. So Bill talked it over with ’em and finally agreed to take it off their hands without chargin’ ’em a cent. Bill always was liberal.
“He done some of the gradin’ on the S. P. too. This time he went out and rounded up ten thousand badgers and put ’em to diggin’. He said they was better laborers than Chinks, because he could learn ’em how to work sooner. Bill had some trouble, however, gittin’ ’em to go in a straight line, and that’s why the S. P. is so crooked in places.
“He also got a contract fencin’ the right-of-way. The first thing that he done was to go out on the line of Texas and New Mexico and buy up all the dry holes old Bob Sanford had made out there tryin’ to git water. He pulled ’em up and sawed ’em up into two-foot lengths for post-holes.”
“I’ve heard that Paul Bunyan did that with dry oil-wells,” said Lanky.
“Paul Bunyan might of for all I know,” said Joe. “But if he did, he learned the trick from Pecos Bill, for this was before oil had been invented.
“However, it cost so much to freight the holes down that Bill give up the plan long before he had used up all of Bob Sanford’s wells, and found a cheaper and better way of makin’ post-holes.”
“What was his new method?” asked Lanky.
“Why, he jest went out and rounded up a big bunch of prairie-dogs, and turned ’em loose where he wanted the fence, and of course every critter of ’em begun diggin’ a hole, for it’s jest a prairie-dog’s nature to dig holes. As soon as a prairie-dog would git down about two feet, Bill would yank him out and stick a post in the hole. Then the fool prairie-dog would go start another one, and Bill would git it. Bill said he found the prairie-dog labor very satisfactory. The only trouble was that sometimes durin’ off hours, the badgers that he had gradin’ would make a raid on the prairie-dogs, and Bill would have to git up and drive ’em back to their own camp.”