“Never!” they sighed.
“Why, look here,” said the traveller, “what fools the people of this town are! Here we've been all these starving days, and you come and get ahead of them!”
“That's right easy explained,” said the Virginian. “I've been where there was big money in frawgs, and they 'ain't been. They're all cattle hyeh. Talk cattle, think cattle, and they're bankrupt in consequence. Fallen through. Ain't that so?” he inquired of the native.
“That's about the way,” said the man.
“It's mighty hard to do what your neighbors ain't doin',” pursued the Virginian. “Montana is all cattle, an' these folks must be cattle, an' never notice the country right hyeh is too small for a range, an' swampy, anyway, an' just waitin' to be a frawg ranch.”
At this, all wore a face of careful reserve.
“I'm not claimin' to be smarter than you folks hyeh,” said the Virginian, deprecatingly, to his assistant. “But travellin' learns a man many customs. You wouldn't do the business they done at Tulare, California, north side o' the lake. They cert'nly utilized them hopeless swamps splendid. Of course they put up big capital and went into it scientific, gettin' advice from the government Fish Commission, an' such like knowledge. Yu' see, they had big markets for their frawgs,—San Francisco, Los Angeles, and clear to New York afteh the Southern Pacific was through. But up hyeh yu' could sell to passengers every day like yu' done this one day. They would get to know yu' along the line. Competing swamps are scarce. The dining-cyars would take your frawgs, and yu' would have the Yellowstone Park for four months in the year. Them hotels are anxious to please, an' they would buy off yu' what their Eastern patrons esteem as fine-eatin'. And you folks would be sellin' something instead o' nothin'.”
“That's a practical idea,” said a traveller. “And little cost.”
“And little cost,” said the Virginian.
“Would Eastern people eat frogs?” inquired the man.