"Fair as fightin'," Jake declared. "It's like this. You go into the butcher's an' you order a cut of steak, an' he sets you back six bits, an' it doesn't matter whether it's you or me or the king—six bits is the price. That's business. But you go into a lawyer's or a doctor's an' what does he do? Looks you up an' down an' figgers out in his mind what you can damn-well pay, an' that's what he soaks you. That's a perfession. Locatin' homesteads is a perfession."
With this explanation of the ethics of his "perfession" we had to be satisfied. As the day wore on, the sun, pouring through a cloudless sky as clear as space, and the fresh wind which blew steadily in our faces, began to have effect, and we felt a smarting, tingling sensation over our cheeks and across our noses and chins. Jake had provided against this contingency with a box of axle grease; not the daintiest cosmetic, but a cheap and effective one. He now produced the box with the instructions, "Plaster it on. Don't be afraid of it."
We did so, somewhat gingerly, and laughed whenever we looked in each other's faces.
Jake turned in to a farm place in mid-afternoon for water. We could see the farmer seeding in his field; he made no stop on our account, and if he had a wife she remained indoors. We pumped as much water as the horses would drink, and filled our water keg, and then sat for a while in the shade of one of his buildings, chewing at straws and gazing into the blank distance. There was a supreme satisfaction, a fine relaxation and relief, in idling in such an hour. I was impressed with the off-hand way in which we seemed to have taken possession of the man's farm, and his complete indifference to our presence.
"Some people say," said Jake at length, yawning and digging his heels in the ground preparatory to getting up, "some people say that the Indian is a fool, an' the Indian says the white man is a fool. On a day like this I al'us reckon the Indian has a little the best o' the argyment."
He pulled his team out from the side of a haystack, where they had been feeding with as little concern as if the hay were their own, and presently we rattled off down the trail again. On the way we passed the field in which the farmer was seeding. We waved our hats at him, and from the distance he waved his hat back at us, and we drove on into the prairies.
On account of our afternoon rest Jake drove until almost sundown. We were now in a slightly rolling country, and suddenly he swung from the trail and pulled up on the top of a little knoll. From this little vantage point we could see the unbroken sweep of the prairies, miles and miles in every direction.
"Is this the bald-headed?" I asked in a low voice, as though touching on something almost sacred.
"This is the bald-headed," he answered, solemnly. "See, everywhere, sky an' grass—sky an' grass. Ah, there, there's an exception." I followed the line of his extended arm. Far across the plains I saw a flashing light, as of a heliograph.
"The window of a settler's shanty, twenty miles from here, if it's a foot," he explained. "Look how green the grass is. The evenin' light makes it that way, somehow."