"You're a rancher, eh?" queried the older man. "Well, there's nothing like the range and the open country. If I could handle horses like you there isn't anything would hold me in town.
"Oh, I don' know," Dave answered. "You get mighty sick of it."
"Did you get sick of it?"
Elden shot a keen glance at him. The conversation was becoming personal. Yet there was in Mr. Duncan's manner a certain kindliness, a certain appeal of sincere personality, that disarmed suspicion.
"Yes, I got sick of it," he said. "I lived on that ranch eighteen years, and never was inside school or church. Wouldn't that make you sick?… So I beat it for town."
"And I suppose you are attending church regularly now, and night school, too?"
Dave's quick temper fired up in resentment, but again the kindliness of the man's manner disarmed him. He was silent for a moment, and then he said, "No, I ain't. That's what makes me sick now. I came in here intendin' to get an education, an' I've never even got a start at it, excep' for some things perhaps wasn't worth the money. There always seems to be somethin' else—in ahead."
"There always will be," said Mr. Duncan, "until you start."
"I suppose so," said Dave, wearily, and took up the reins.
But Mr. Duncan persisted. "You're not in such a hurry with that team," he said. "Even if you are late—even if you should lose your job over it—that's nothing to settling this matter of getting started with an education."