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 grow here, although I'm goin' to try a hatful in me little garden. I've never seen a bit of a pig since I came out here. They say pigs can't live in this air so far west of Dodge."

"How long have you been in this country, Jack? this country west of Dodge, I mean."

"Three years!" Ryan replied, rolling his words solemnly.

"Not so long."

"It's more nor tin years in Arge'tine, where I was before. A man's cheated out of his life in this country where they put five winthers in one. Summer is the same. I've briled more grase out o' me body here than could be fried out of a whale. It's a ha-ard country; the ha-ardest country God made, and the last. The l'avin's he put in this place."

Ryan shook his head sadly, as if out of words to describe and denounce the atrocities of that country farther. He appeared to have fallen into a dream, his eyes fixed vacantly on some far-off place, while he moved his pipestem with precise stroke along his heavy gray mustache, now on the right section of it, again on the left, as if he drew that adornment into his features with deliberate pencil and careful hand.

"Tough country," said Dr. Hall. He got out of the chair, signifying to Ryan that he was ready for his professional stroke upon the floor.

"Tough," Ryan echoed feelingly. "It's cruel tough." He sighed, as for his bondage in a land he could not leave. "But I'll say for it, Dochter," hopefully, almost enthusiastically, looking around at Hall with a quickening light in his sad eyes, "it's the aiseyest country to shave