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 this country. All we had to do was trail him and git rich. Couldn't help it; wasn't nothing to our credit."

"I've seen a lot in the papers about Simpson," the wheat buyer said; "pictures of his steam gang-plows throwing a furrow ten feet wide, a disc harrow hitched on behind, turning out a finished job at once."

"All ready for the drill," Waco said. "Eleven thousand acres, all in one patch. And Simpson harvests around twenty bushels to the acre where a lot of wheat farmers don't average more than fifteen. You can figger it up for yourself, and wheat at eighty-seven cents, July delivery. Some money for a farmer to slip in his sock—tell me!"

"Is that his house down there among the trees?"

"He calls it a cottage—it's only got twenty-four rooms! Yeah, that's Tom Simpson's house. His wife's a fine woman—I've knowed her since she was knee-high—well, maybe she was a little higher—but it's been a good long time."

Waco touched the mettled horses absently with the whip, treatment which they seemed to resent from the way they started off, keeping their driver's attention fixed to the muting of his ready tongue. Presently they fell to a swinging trot, and Waco relaxed, turning to his customer with a big red grin.

"Yes sir, Tom Simpson and me made our start together, right here on this ranch, haulin' and shippin' bones. Dang his old hide! named one of his boys after me. Waco. Yeah—Waco Johnson Simpson. Mean trick to play on a innocent child. Take him a long, long time to live it down."