"It seems to be my duty to insist upon the one hundred and fifty cows and calves. Now the point is, I don't find any such description of creatures among the--the bunches in seeming readiness for delivery." "O!" says I, "that's what's eating yeh, is it? W'l don't worry any more. The cow kindergarten's furder up the river. We didn't want to put the tender little devils where they'd be tramped on by them monstrous big oxen you noticed around the corrals. This caff business is all right, trust us!" Whaley's man was waitin' fer me down at the saloon, an' when I told him about the cavvs, he shrunk into himself like a collapsed foot-ball, an' wilted. "Hain't yeh got 'em?" says I. "Huh!" says he, comin' out of it. "Don't be a dum fool, Aconite. This is the first I understood of it, an' whoever heared of an inspector readin' a contrack? And there ain't them many cavvs to be got by that time in all Dakoty. Le's hit the wires f'r instructions!" The telegrams runs something like this: To Senator Patrick Whaley, Washington, D. C.: Contract calls for a hundred and fifty cows with calves at foot. What shall I do? REDDY. * * * * * To Reddy Withers, Chamberlain, S. D.: Wire received. Calves at what? Explain, collect. WHALEY. * * * * * Hundred and fifty cows and calves. What do you advise? REDDY. * * * * * See inspector. WHALEY. * * * * * Won't do. Inspector wrong. REDDY. * * * * * Fix inspector or get calves. WHALEY. I'd got about the same kind of a telegram to Mr. Elkins, addin' that the Whaley crowd was up in the air. I sent it by Western Union to Sturgis, and then up Wolf Nose Crick by the Belle Fourche and Elsewhere Telephone Line. The O. M., as usual, cuts the melon with a word. His wire was as follows. Take first train Chicago. Call for letter Smith & Jones Commission merchants Union Stock Yards. ELKINS. This was sure an affliction on me, f'r I had fixed up a deal to go with Miss Ainsley an' her friends on a campin' trip, lastin' up to the day of the issue. She'd been readin' one of Hamlin Garland's books about a puncher who'd scooted through the British aristocracy, hittin' only the high places in a social way, on the strength of a gold prospect an' the diamond hitch to a mule-pack. She wanted to see the diamond hitch of all things. There orto be a law ag'inst novel-writin'. I got Reddy to learn me the diamond hitch so I could make good with Gladys, an' here was this mysterious caff expedition to the last place in the world, Chicago, a-yankin' me off by the night train.