"'See here,' says I. 'If you think this is a bit thick, as you call it, pay me the sixty pounds now, an' in three years bring me the title to your farm, an' I'll give you back your sixty pounds, an' not charge you a cent for the use of the land for those three years.' That seemed to shush 'im, an' he coughed up." We laughed over the story. "I suppose you get them here as green as grass," I ventured. "Oh, terrible, terrible," Jake agreed gravely. "An' in most unexpected places. But jus' you watch out!" he continued with a strange sharpness. "I took his sixty pounds because there was a dozen sharks on his trail, and he might as well give it to me fer somethin' as to them fer nothin'. But jus' you watch out that in ten or twenty years he don't have _you_ beat to a custard. Dang me! I can't explain it, but there's somethin' in those fellows that won't go down--an' stay down. That is, most of 'em. Course there's failures everywhere," he added, generously. "They don' count." "But do you think it quite fair," said Jack, and I knew that he was bantering our guide, or wanting to draw out his conclusions,--"do you think it quite fair to charge different fees for the same service?" "Fair as fightin'," Jake declared. "It's like this. You go into the butcher's an' you order a cut of steak, an' he sets you back six bits, an' it doesn't matter whether it's you or me or the king--six bits is the price. That's business. But you go into a lawyer's or a doctor's an' what does he do? Looks you up an' down an' figgers out in his mind what you can damn-well pay, an' that's what he soaks you. That's a perfession. Locatin' homesteads is a perfession." With this explanation of the ethics of his "perfession" we had to be satisfied. As the day wore on, the sun, pouring through a cloudless sky as clear as space, and the fresh wind which blew steadily in our faces, began to have effect, and we felt a smarting, tingling sensation over our cheeks and across our noses and chins. Jake had provided against this contingency with a box of axle grease; not the daintiest cosmetic, but a cheap and effective one. He now produced the box with the instructions, "Plaster it on. Don't be afraid of it." We did so, somewhat gingerly, and laughed whenever we looked in each other's faces. Jake turned in to a farm place in mid-afternoon for water. We could see the farmer seeding in his field; he made no stop on our account, and if he had a wife she remained indoors. We pumped as much water as the horses would drink, and filled our water keg, and then sat for a while in the shade of one of his buildings, chewing at straws and gazing into the blank distance. There was a supreme satisfaction, a fine relaxation and relief, in idling in such an hour. I was impressed with the off-hand way in which we seemed to have taken possession of the man's farm, and his complete indifference to our presence.