Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/232

 them likely to spring up and singe you before you can jump—unless you take an old fool's advice and get out of the way while there's time and a clear road."

"You mean the cattlemen on one hand, and—who?"

"The solid business interests of this town, if you've got to have it straight between the eyes, Bill. Texas cattle were all right in their day, but this country ain't buildin' its future on them: it's the ones on the range around us that mean life or death for Pawnee Bend. This will be the last year Texas cattle will come up the trails, if they don't close the state to 'em tight after this herd you brought in. My opinion is it will be the last herd of Texas cattle ever to come on foot to a Kansas town.

"Personally, I don't blame you for bringin' in that herd. I might go on to say it will be to my profit to have them southern cowboys here, and it would be more to my profit to have the country wide open to all corners from down that way. But my profit might be loss to my neighbors, you see. I built on the future when I put this buildin' up; I had my last movable, collapsible cardboard hotel in Caldwell. This one I built up from the ground to remain and stay. A man gets weary of roamin' and rovin', Will-ium."

"He sure does," Bill agreed emphatically, as if he, as a wanderer, had come to the end of the rope himself.

"You made friends here, and you might 'a' kep' them but for this unfortunate step, well-intended as it was, no doubt."

"Not a bit of it," Bill denied, just as emphatically as he had endorsed the preceding sentiment. "I didn't