Primitive passions are
corporate of many feelings but of little sight.
As Orlando Guise slid from his horse, Joel Mazarine steadied himself and
said: "Come about the cattle? Ready to buy and pay cash down?"
Orlando Guise giggled.
"What are you sniggering at?" snorted the old man.
"I thought it was understood that if I liked the bunch I was to pay
cash," Orlando replied. "I've got a good report of the beasts, but I want
to look them over. My head cattleman told you what I'd do. That's why I
smiled. Funny, too: you don't look like a man who'd talk more than was
wanted." He giggled again.
"Fool--I'll make you laugh on the other side of your mouth!" the Master
of Tralee said to himself; and then he motioned to where a bunch of a
hundred or so cattle were grazing in a little dip of the country between
them and Askatoon. "I'll get my buckboard. It's all hitched up and ready,
and we can get down and see them right now," he said aloud. "Won't you
find it rough going on the buckboard? Better ride," remarked Orlando
Guise.
"I don't ever notice rough going," grunted the old man. "Some people ride
horses to show themselves off; I ride a buckboard 'cause it suits me."
Orlando Guise chirruped. "Say, we mustn't get scrapping," he said gaily.
"We've got to make a bargain."
In a few moments they were sweeping across the prairie, and sure enough
the buckboard bumped, tumbled and plunged into the holes of the gophers
and coyotes, but the old man sat the seat with the tenacity of a gorilla
clinging to the branch of a tree.
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