“Hell of a fine place,” affirmed the desert rat, squinting at the long saddleback. “Danged fine place, Perfesser! Every wildcat and coyote in the Chuckwallas would be pointin’ that way, inside of a week. If a gent was feelin’ real philanthropic and wantin’ to help out the pore desert critters, I’d say start him a chicken-and-egg factory right up yonder. Yessir. That’s like Haywire Johnson done, time he was livin’ down to Meteorite. He started him a egg-ranch—done it to get ahead of some other folks and kep’ it real quiet. Got all his chickens clear from Phoenix and Yuma, danged near a hull carload of ’em, and set up incubators and all that truck. Then he begun to figger on how rich he’d be. Every oncet in a while he’d go out to look for eggs, but dad blame if he got any. He fed them chickens on everything from ground-up lizards to eggplant, and nary a egg come along. Finally he got desp’rit and called in help—and durned if all them birds wasn’t roosters! Yessir, not a female chicken in the lot. That’s how come Haywire went broke and had to come over yere to work for Hassayamp.” Tompkins grinned despite himself. Then he sobered. “Look here, Sagebrush. Remember that young woman at the hotel? They’ve framed up a deal on her. They’re trying to sell her a chicken-ranch on this mesa.” “Sounds like them city fellers. Dad blame, they’d rob a dyin’ man! Serves the female right, too, for havin’ that much money. Females aint got no right to have money. Oncet when I was married and livin’ down to Umatilla, my ol’ woman got ten dollars from one of her relations and went to Phoenix, and durned if she didn’t spend it all in three days. When I trounced her for it, she up and run off with a Mormon from Yuma, and that’s the last of her. Twenty years ago that was, and I been happy ever since, and ain’t looked twice at no females.” “That’s a novel argument, certainly,” said Tompkins. “But I’m going to try and keep Miss Gilman from getting robbed. Are you with me?” Sagebrush rubbed his whiskers, squinted at the sand, expectorated over an unwary Chuckwalla lizard, and then responded without enthusiasm. “Nope! Quicker that there female gits skun and gits out o’ this country, better off I’ll be. I don’t hanker after no females spoilin’ the scenery. Besides which, I aint pinin’ to start no argument with Sidewinder Crowfoot and his crowd, not without they force me into it. Leave the other feller alone, I says, so long’s he don’t crowd ye none.” “All right, then,” said Tompkins briskly, and turned to the car. “Let’s get moving.”