“Fortune always beckons from some place a long ways remote,” Hinman rambled on. “When likely she’s roosting right at home, if only we’d have a look. Now I quit Ohio as a youngster because there wasn’t any land left open but hardwood swamp lands, which could be had for about a dollar an acre, but I couldn’t see its value at a dollar a mile. To-day that Ohio swamp land is selling round two hundred an acre while what ground I’ve got under crop out here would average right at thirty and raw grassland not over three or four.” “But owning the most part of two countries,” Carver commented, “you can maybe worry along.” “Likely,” Hinman confessed. “But that’s not the point. I could have stayed right at home with those swamp lands and without ever exerting myself, except maybe to keep entertained with a brace of coon hounds, I could have growed into more wealth by considerable than what I’ve accumulated out here by steady work. That’s the real point; so it appears that my leaving there was sheer lack of foresight. So it’s likely that your best chance to get ahead and lay up an honest dollar is by staying right here instead of stampeding off somewheres. That’s the real reason I sent for you.” “Since I’ve never even considered leaving, and you well aware of it,” said Carver, grinning, “then the real reason you sent for me was to engage me to perform something you didn’t want to do yourself--which in turn is related to the possibility of my accumulating an honest dollar. We’ve rambled all the way from timbered swamp land on down to the surrounding short grass. What sort of country lays beyond? My curiosity is fairly foaming over.” Hinman regarded him quizzically and Carver bore the scrunity undisturbed. The older man knew that Carver was dependable; that once committed he would follow any mission to its termination and defend the financial interests of his employer with every resource at his command. It was only in his own affairs that he evidenced supreme carelessness. Older men forgave his irresponsibility in that quarter and accorded him a certain measure of respect for the reason that even in the midst of some bit of recklessness he retained an underlying sense of balance and proportion. And he had worked intermittently for old Joe Hinman for the past twelve years. “It’s not that I don’t want to do it myself,” Hinman denied, reverting to Carver’s mild accusation. “It’s only that it wouldn’t look right on the surface. Now whatever property is down in the Strip is legally non-existent, you might say, and consequently untaxable,” thereby disproving his oft-lamented lack of foresight. “And it’s drawing right close to the first of March.” “So you want me to move a thousand head of steers across the line and hold ’em till after you’ve been assessed.” Carver hazarded.