"You ain't so much of a dreamer, after all," thinks I. "In
important matters you are plumb decisive."
We sat down at little tables, and my friend ordered a beer and a
chicken sandwich.
"Chickens," says he, gazin' at the sandwich, "is a dollar apiece
in this country, and plumb scarce. Did you ever pause to ponder
over the returns chickens would give on a small investment? Say
you start with ten hens. Each hatches out thirteen aigs, of
which allow a loss of say six for childish accidents. At the end
of the year you has eighty chickens. At the end of two years
that flock has increased to six hundred and twenty. At the end
of the third year--"
He had the medicine tongue! Ten days later him and me was
occupyin' of an old ranch fifty mile from anywhere. When they
run stage-coaches this joint used to be a roadhouse. The outlook
was on about a thousand little brown foothills. A road two miles
four rods two foot eleven inches in sight run by in front of us.
It come over one foothill and disappeared over another. I know
just how long it was, for later in the game I measured it.
Out back was about a hundred little wire chicken corrals filled
with chickens. We had two kinds.
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