chuckled. "Now, Lon, here, he'll tell you that there ain't no po'try in
this here country. And I never knew they was till I got time to set back
and think over what we unbranded yearlin's used to do."

"For instance?" queried Bartley.

Senator Steve waved his pudgy hand as though shooing a flock of chickens
off a front lawn. "If I was to tell you some of the things that
happened, you would think I was a heap sight bigger liar than I am.
Seein' some of them yarns in print, folks around this country would say:
'Steve Brown's corralled some tenderfoot and loaded him to the muzzle
with shin tangle and ancient history!' Things that would seem amazin' to
you would never ruffle the hair of the mavericks that helped make this
country."

"This country ain't all settled yet," said the foreman, rising. "Reckon
I'll step along, Steve."

After the foreman had departed, Bartley turned to the Senator. "Are
there many more like him, out here?"

"Who, Lon? Well, a few. He's been foreman for me quite a spell. Lon he
thinks. And that's more than I ever did till after I was thirty. And Lon
ain't twenty-six, yet."

"I think I'll step over to the drug-store and get a few things," said
Bartley.

"So you figure to bed down at the hotel, eh?"