"The reason I'd like to find the house is because--"
"Reasons ain't none too popular with me."
"Well, you're pretty sure that your suggestion will take me to the spot?"
"I'm sure of nothing except my gun when the weather's hot."
"Reasonably sure, however? The pine trees and the house--if I don't find one I'll find the other."
"That picture was taken a long time ago."
"Do you read the mind of a picture, Mr. Wilkes?"
"That's going a bit too far. Do you mean to say you know that this particular tree is down?"
"That's first growth. All that country's been cut over. D'you think they'd pass up a tree the size of that?"
"It's going to be hard," said Anthony with a frown, "for me to get used to the West."
"I can ride and shoot pretty well, but I don't know the people, I haven't worn their clothes, and I can't talk their lingo."
"The country's mostly rocks when it ain't ground; the people is pretty generally men and women; the clothes they wear is cotton and wool, the lingo they talk is English."
It was like a paragraph out of some book of ultimate knowledge. He was not entirely contented with his statement, however, for now he qualified it as follows: "Maybe some of 'em don't talk good book English. Quite a pile ain't had much eddication; in fact there ain't awful many like me. But they can tell you how much you owe 'em an' they'll understand you when you say you're hungry. What's your business? Excuse me; I don't generally ask questions."
"That's all right. You've probably caught the habit from me. I'm simply going out to look about for excitement."
"A feller gener'ly finds what he's lookin' for. Maybe you won't be disappointed. I've knowed places on the range where excitement growed like fruit on a tree. It was like that there manna in the Bible. You didn't have to work none for it. You jest laid still an' it sort of dropped in your mouth."
He added with a sigh: "But them times ain't no more."
"Don't start complainin' till you miss your feed. Things are gettin' pretty crowded, but there's ways of gettin' elbow room--even at a bar."
"And you really think there's nothing which distinguishes the Westerner from the Easterner?"
"Just the Western feeling, partner. Get that an' you'll be at home."