“We got to adopt ourselves to new ways, old Sure-Shot,” he ruminated aloud. “Got to quit hellin’ around an’ raisin’ Cain. Leastways I have. You never did do any o’ that. Yes, sir, I got to be a responsible citizen.”
The partner of the responsible citizen leaned back in a reclining chair which he had made from a plank sawed into five parts that were nailed together at angles.
“You’ll be raisin’ little towheads right soon,” he said through a cloud of smoke.
“No, sir. Not me. Not Dud Hollister. I can boss my own se’f for a spell yet,” the fair-haired youth protested vehemently. “When I said we got to adopt ourselves, I was thinkin’ of barb-wire fences an’ timothy hay. ’S all right to let the dogies rough through the winter an’ hunt the gulches when the storms come. But it won’t do with stock that’s bred up. Harshaw lost close to forty per cent of his cattle three years ago. It sure put some crimp in him. He was hit hard again last winter. You know that. Say he’d had valuable stock. Why, it would put him outa business. Sure would.”
“Yes,” admitted Bob. “There’s a schoolmarm down at Meeker was askin’ me about you. You know her—that snappin’-eyed brunette. Wanted to know all about yore claim, an’ was it a good one, an’ didn’t I think Mr. Hollister a perfect gentleman, an’—”
Dud snatched a blanket from the bunk and smothered the red head. They clinched, rolled on the floor, and kicked over the chair and stool. Presently they emerged from battle feeling happier.
“No, we got to feed. Tha’s the new law an’ the gospel of the range,” Dud continued. “Got to keep our cattle under fence in winter an’ look after ’em right. Cattle-raisin’ as a gamble will be a losing bet right soon. It’s a business now. Am I right?”
“Sounds reasonable to me, Dud.”
Bob’s face was grave, but he smiled inwardly. The doctrine that his friend had just been expounding was not new to him. He had urged it on Dud during many a ride and at more than one night camp, had pointed to the examples of Larson, Harshaw, and the other old-timers. Hollister was a happy-go-lucky youth. The old hard-riding cattle days suited him better. But he, too, had been forced at last to see the logic of the situation. Now, with all the ardor of a convert, he was urging his view on a partner who did not need to be convinced.
Dillon knew that stock-raising was entering upon a new phase, that the old loose range system must give way to better care, attention to breeding, and close business judgment. The cattleman who stuck to the old ways would not survive.