"It's jest like anything else, ain't it, when you get used to it? Jest
as easy as ropin' a cow brute or ridin' a bronco hoss?"

Conniston told him that he was right.

"But what gits me," Lonesome Pete went on, closing his book and
marking the place with a big thumb, "is knowin' words that comes
stampedin' in on you onexpected like. When a man sees a cow brute or
a hoss or a mule as he ain't never clapped his peepers on he knows the
brute right away. He says, 'That's a Half Moon,' or, 'It's a Bar
Circle,' or 'It's a U Seven.' 'Cause why? 'Cause she's got a bran' as
a man can make out. But these here words"--he shook his head as he
opened his book and peered into it--"they ain't got no bran'. Ain't it
hell, stranger?"

"What's the word, Pete," smiled Conniston.

"She ain't so big an' long as bothers me," Lonesome Pete answered.
"It's jest she's so darn peculiar-lookin'. It soun's like it might be
_izzles_, but what's _izzles_? You spell it i-s-l-e-s. Did you ever
happen to run acrost that there word, stranger?"

Conniston told him what the word was, and Lonesome Pete's softly
breathed curse was eloquent of gratitude, amazement, and a certain
deep admiration that those five letters could spell a little island.

"The nex' line is clean over my head, though," he went on, after a
moment of frowning concentration.