Pinkey stared at him.
"Say, feller, you'll have to learn to sling the buckskin before we can understand each other. Anyhow, as I was sayin', you got a good proposition in this 160 if you can hold it."
"If I am within my rights I shall adhere to them at all hazards," declared Wallie, firmly. "At first, however, I shall use moral suasion."
"Can't you say things plainer?" Pinkey demanded, crossly. "Why don't you talk United States? You sound like a Fifth Reader. If you mean you aim to argue with him, he'll knock you down with a neck-yoke while you're gittin' started."
"In that event, if he attempted violence, I should use my pistol--my 'gat'--and stop him."
"In that event," Pinkey relished the expression, "in that event I shall carry a shovel along to bury you."
Riding a horse from the livery stable and accompanied by Pinkey driving two pack-horses ahead of him, Wallie left the Prouty House shortly after noon, followed by comments of a jocular nature from the bystanders.
"How far is it?" inquired Wallie, who was riding his English saddle and "posting."
"Twenty for me and forty for you, if you aim to ride that way," said Pinkey. "Why don't you let out them stirrups and shove your feet in 'em?"
Wallie preferred his own style of riding, however, but observed that he hoped never to have another such fall as he had had at The Colonial.
"A feller that's never been throwed has never rid," said Pinkey, sagely, and added: "You'll git used to it."
This Wallie considered a very remote possibility, although he did not say so.
Once they left the town they turned toward the mountains and conversation ceased shortly, for not only were they obliged to ride single file through the sagebrush and cacti but the trot of the livery horse soon left Wallie with no breath nor desire to continue it.
The vast tract they were traversing belonged to Canby, so Pinkey informed him, and as mile after mile slipped by he was amazed at the extent of it. Through illegal fencing, leasing, and driving small stockmen from the country by various methods, Canby had obtained control of a range of astonishing circumference, and Wallie's homestead was nearly in the middle of it.
Although they had eaten before leaving Prouty, it was not more than two o'clock before Wallie began to wonder what they would have for supper. They were not making fast time, for his horse stumbled badly and the pack-horses, both old and stiff, travelled slowly, so at three o'clock the elusive mountains seemed as far away as when they had started.