You don't get the big feelin's. Out in the West they're the flesh and blood and bone; and you people here, meanin' no disrespect--you're the dimples and wrinkles and--the warts. You spend and gamble back and forth with that money we raise and dig out of the ground, and you think you're gettin' the best end of it, but you ain't. I found that out thirty-two years ago this spring. I had a crazy fool notion then to go back there even when I hadn't gone broke--and I done well to go. And that's why I wanted that boy back there. And that's why I'm mighty proud of him, to see he's so hot to go and take hold, like I knew he would be." "That's excellent. Now, Mr. Bines, I like him and I dare say you've done the best thing for him, unusual as it was. But don't grind him. Might it not be well to ease up a little after he's out there? You might let it be understood that I am willing to finance any of those propositions there liberally--" "No, no--that ain't the way to handle him. Say, I don't expect to quit cussin' him fur another thirty days yet. I want him to think he ain't got a friend on earth but himself. Why, I'd have made this play just as I have done, Mr. Shepler, if there hadn't been a chance to get back a cent of it--if we'd had to go plumb broke--back to the West in an emigrant car, with bologna and crackers to eat, that's what I'd have done. No, sir, no help fur him!" "Aren't you a little hard on him?" "Not a bit; don't I know the stock, and know just what he needs? Most men you couldn't treat as I'm treatin' him; but with him, the harder you bear down on him the more you'll get out of him. That was the way with his pa--he was a different man after things got to comin' too easy fur him. This fellow, the way I'm treatin' him, will keep his head even after he gets things comin' easy again, or I miss my guess. He thinks I despise him now. If you told him I was proud of him, I almost believe you could get a bet out of him, sick as he is of gamblin'." "Has he suspected anything?" "Sure, not! Why, he just thanked me about an hour ago fur savin' him--made me shake hands with him--and I could see the tears back in his eyes." The old man chuckled.