Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/133

 sharply at Dunham as if to fix his attention on a point not duly considered, "is sixty dollars a month."

"It's purty good for these times," Bill admitted, but he was not moved.

"The va-a-a-st resources of this fer-tile plain," said Bergen, making a grand sweep with his arms, "the ad-van-tages of our climate, which I'll not call italian, for there's nothing in Europe to compare to it—"

"Haw, haw!" laughed a grizzled old cowpuncher who had ridden that fertile plain under temperatures ranging from one hundred and five in the shade to twenty below zero.

"Well, I never was in Italy," said MacKinnon, "but if they've got anything that beats this country along the middle of January they can keep it. I don't want any of it in mine."

This derogatory comment did not turn Bergen from the trend of his argument, irrelevant to the case as it seemed to be. He spread his hands as if to put his benediction on the country he invested with such purely imaginary qualities.

"When we see the temple of justice rising in our square," he said, fixing Dunham with stern and lowering eye, as if he had caught an infidel and was determined to save his soul before the matter went any farther, "and the spires of our churches pointing—"

"You can't sell any lots to this crowd, Henry," the mayor cut him off calmly. And to Dunham: "You can be sworn in at once and go on duty right now. Sixty dollars a month."

"It's a big compliment to a stranger like me to have