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 when I'm good and ready to go next time I'll burn up the road."

"You'll think better of it after a winter on the range, Peck. They say it takes a winter to break a man in and make him stick."

"I don't see why she didn't marry Tippie," Peck complained, passing over the probabilities of the future. "She trusts him with a roll of money as big as my leg and never asks him for the change. I'd have to give her a bond before she'd let me look at a dime."

"I expect it's because Tippie knew she bore down pretty hard on husbands, Peck. He's been around here a long time, you know."

"Yeah, he was wise, he knew her game. If I'd 'a' been smart I'd 'a' stuck to that little Edith. I didn't think she had money enough to make it worth a feller's time, but what's money? Here I am the husband of a woman with money up to her neck, and me eatin' hog and beans when I ought to be trimmin' a T-bone. Well, I can do that on my little old thirty a week back in St. Joe. But I'll be sway-backed before I ever hit that old town agin, if I can't turn a trick on that old woman."

"If my opinion's worth anything in the case, Peck, I'll bet you turn out a better sheepman than Duke ever was. She'll be so proud of you before your two years are up that you'll be the delegate runnin' around the range with the big wad of money payin' off the hands. My tip to you is, stick; hang on till the ewes come home, seeing there ain't any cows."

"They wouldn't come home, Rawlins," Peck said in reproachful, sad voice, "no more than good luck'll