"Then use it, for Heaven's sake!"
"I do. Don't I ask you to marry me every time I get a chance?"
"That's not using your ambition. That's playing the fool."
"Nice opinion of yourself you've got," he grinned.
"Never mind. You make me tired, Bill. Here you've got a little claim and a little bunch of cows—the makings of a ranch if you'd only work. But instead of working like a man you loaf like a—like a——"
"Like a loafer," he prompted.
"Exactly. You'd rather hunt and fish and ride the range for monthly wages when you're broke than scratch gravel and make something of yourself. You let your cows run with the T-Up-And-Down, and I'll bet when Tuckleton had his spring round-up you weren't even on the job. Were you?"
"Well, I—uh—I was busy," shamefacedly.
"Fishing over on Jack's Creek. That's how busy you were, when you should have been looking after your property."
"Oh, Tuckleton's boys are square. Any calves they found running with my brand, they'd run the iron on 'em all right."