"None sich," replied the old man heatedly. "It's me--my funeral--en I'm aimin' to make a splendid time outen it. The boys on hosses, firin' salutes as they see it, a preacher sharp to give it dignity, en the 'Cowboy's Lament,' as sung by ole Landy Spencer. That's a fitten program, en you are engaged fer the job." "En about when do ye plan to stage this splendid event?" drawled Landy. "Why, when I die, ye idiot, mebbe now, mebbe later, jist whenever I bed down fer the last time. Here I am, over ninety years old. I can't go on livin'! It's agin nature. I want to make ready when it comes. I'm ready and I want everything else to be jist as ready as I am." Landy Spencer drummed his knotty fingers on the armchair and looked thoughtfully at the old Nestor seated at his fireside. Ninety years old! Seventy years of activity in a territory where activity was enforced, if one were to live. Strange stories, legends now, were told of the doings of this gaunt, eagle-beaked, shaggy-browed old man who now, chatted complacently of death. Very true, none living was able to verify them. Those who had passed on told only fragments, and Jim Lough, neither verified nor denied. One legend persisted. Landy had heard it long before coming to the district. It related to the beginning days of the great cattle game of the grasslands--days before the coming of the vast herds and the problems they brought. It concerned the destinies of those who followed fast in the footsteps of the trailmakers and sought to establish a business where there was neither law nor precedent. Sordid days, these. The honest men were not yet organized; the dishonest and criminal were unrestrained by laws. Cattle and kine were taken furtively or openly to these very hills and vales where Jim Lough now lived in quietude and peace. Here they were held until a sufficient number was collected for the drive to the marches and markets that lay east of the Virginia Dale.