Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/194

 "I hope he'll keep it up—for the sake of his friends."

"Charley ain't got started on his way yet. He's goin' to be one of the biggest men in this country, he's goin' to wring the tails of some of them Kansas City sharpers that's been layin' down the law to us cattlemen out here in this country west of Dodge the past five or six years. Charley's the feller that's goin' to show 'em cattlemen can stand on their own legs, and make their own terms when it comes to loans and commissions, I'm here to say."

"I don't know," Hall said abstractedly; "I never knew their methods." He wondered how much of this confidence in Burnett was justified; whether it was founded on what he had accomplished, or the front he made with his handful of diamonds and his bluff. "So you took stock in the new company, instead of cash, for your ranch and cattle, did you?"

"It's better than dollar for dollar," Justice declared with such force one might have thought his security had been questioned. "I'll double on it between now and fall if I want to turn it loose."

"I wish you all kinds of luck," Hall said, but not with the honest warmth of unreserved faith.

"It ain't luck,'it's know-how," Jim said, full of confidence to the neck. "That's why I want to let loose of that blame hotel. Time for a feller that's worked all his life as hard as I have to pull in to the bank and take a rest. If I could git shut of my hotel I'd go back east and settle down."

"Back to Missouri, heh?"

"No, I wouldn't aim to go clear back east. I guess Dodge'd be fur enough for me. I used to be there in the old days. Guess the town'd be kind of quiet to me