Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/69

 skelp if you was to mention acceptin' money to her!"

"As payment for the use of her horse, sir," Texas explained, his homely face burning from the old man's vehement correction.

"She'll git on till school opens. She's got a job for then, the first she ever was obliged to take. When Ed was alive they wallered in money, and they'd 'a' had plenty to last 'em all their lives if they'd 'a' got a square deal. They was beat out of a lot of money; I'll tell you how it was.

"Ed McCoy was the man that started this town. He was the first man that ever drove a herd of cattle up from Texas to load here, and he done it when other cowmen said it couldn't be done and come out on it. He made a pile of money at it the first few years, but when them Texas cattle begun to spread the fever up here, and the cowmen on this range got to kickin', Ed he quit drivin' and started up the cattle business with a man name of Henry Stott, a kind of a half-breed Dutchman with eyes in his head like a hog.

"Well, sir, a drouth hit us here about three years ago and nearly cleaned up this range, and McCoy and Stott they bought at their own price right and left. All the money Ed had went into stock. They must 'a' had five or six thousand head that fall when the rains set in and the grass popped up. It