Pape chuckled from more than appreciation of his own pithy remarks—with more than satisfaction at overly paying an over-due bill, as he waved a hand in cordial _au revoir_ and started out the stable. He considered this elimination of his eye-brow mustached caller—the out-speeding of his third shadow, so to say—a good omen. With like conclusiveness would he in time dispose of the tack-faced Welch and Duffy of the vegetable ear, not to mention any foes unidentified as yet, such as the ring-leader of the plot against the Lauderdales and his own quarry in Gotham’s underbrush, that promoter of Montana Gusher oil stock. He felt convinced that luck again was with him when, at the end of his ride to the wharf-studded bank of the Hudson River, he found that for once the West Shore Road had not disappointed a consignee. In one of the high-fenced, unroofed pens of a wholesale butcher stood twenty-five or thirty sleek steers, red splotched with white, upon the rump of each the interrogation brand of the Queer Question Ranch. The range smell of the beasts caused Dot’s nostrils to quiver from delight over the reminder of home; caused his hind-hoofs to polka about the yard and his fore to lift in a proffered horseshoe shake to the beef handlers, one and all. And Pape himself felt hugely pleased over the showing of his product in this “foreign” market, for which they had been bred and fed. Dissatisfied with the returns from shipments to the established stock-yards of the Middle West—those of Chicago, Kansas City and Omaha having proved in turn equally deficient—he had conceived a plan of shipping direct by fast freight to the seaboard Metropolis. His hopes were based upon New York’s reputation of paying for its luxuries and the fact that absolutely fresh beef was a luxury. He soon had found an eager distributor and there promised to be no lack of consumers who were able and willing to pay. In time he hoped to gain for “Montana beef” as ambitious a place on high-class menus as that so long and honorably held by “Virginia ham,” “Vermont maple syrup,” “Philadelphia squab” or “Long Island duckling.” At the moment, however, his interest was not centered in the commercial origin of the project; rather, in “showing” the town, inclusive of one particularly jealous gentleman snob. From the foreman of the yard he borrowed the services of a couple of transplanted punchers who looked efficient and to whom he confided the nature of an impromptu act. Personally he selected and cut-out of the bunch its finest specimen—a huge red steer with wide-flung horns, whose Queer Question brand was distinctly burned. Polkadot, a-quiver from the exercise so remindful of home, was all capers, grins and hee-haws by the end of the task. The yard employees, turned rail-birds for the nonce, were vociferous in their applause over the skill of man and mount. Only the steer showed irritation.