Horse of a Different Color by Ralph Moody Read Free Book Online Page B

Miner if he’d set a value on the hay, corn, and hogs. He said he’d be willing to do it, but that if he were in my boots he’d be mighty careful about getting onto thin ice with as fancy a skater as Bob.
    After I’d explained all the terms of our agreement, and that I could terminate it at any time, he said, “Well that ought to protect you some, but there’s an awful lot of traps layin’ around for greenhorns in the feedin’ game. Besides, Bob’s a’ready earned a bad reputation for cheatin’, and a man doin’ business alongside of him could awful easy get tarred with the same stick. I kind of got the notion you aimed to start a little Hereford herd. Fact is, I picked out a few nice heifers, figurin’ you might want ’em, come spring. There’d be no need to take ’em out of the herd here even then. There’s plenty of pasture and hay land on the place, and Irene and I are gettin’ on in years. What with no boy of our own, I kind of had a notion . . . ”
    George broke off suddenly, cleared his throat, and said, “Well, what’s the odds, anyways? I reckon you’ve a’ready got your mind made up, or like as not given your word, but I’d be a mite leery about gettin’ into the feedin’ business in times like these. Hogs are back down to a sensible price, but cattle—specially feeder and fat steers—are awful high, and I’ll be jiggered if I can see what’s goin’ to keep the price up there.”
    “While I was in Kansas City I listened to all the discussions between the big cattlemen in the Stockmen’s Hotel lobby,” I told him, “and I talked to more than a dozen agents, feeders, and drovers. There wasn’t one of them that didn’t think the price of prime steers would be up to at least twenty-five dollars by spring, and some believe it will rise to thirty-five or forty. All the newspapers are saying that America will have to feed starving Europe for ten more years, so there’ll be plenty of demand, and the agents tell me that all the export beef is prime grade, so the demand will be for fat steers, don’t you think?”
    George listened without interruption till I’d finished, then said, “There’s lots of smart men down to Kansas City, and they know more about what’s goin’ on in the world than I do, so I couldn’t say they’re wrong. But don’t forget that there’s two Americas—North and South. I was readin’ somewheres a few months back that there’s more cattle on the pampas down in Argentina than there used to be buffaloes on these prairies when my father was a boy. Of course, they’re not corn-fat steers, but I never heard of starvin’ folks turning their noses up at good grass-fed beef . . . specially if they happen to be a mite shy on cash the way I understand most of the folks in Europe are since the war. It seems to me like they might go to buyin’ their beef in South America if we keep the price of ours too high for ’em.”
    I was a little disturbed by George’s reasoning, and it must have shown on my face, for he went on, “You understand, son, I could be crazier’n a hoot owl about this fat-cattle market bein’ too high, so don’t let my skittishness worry you. Chances are, those fellows down to Kansas City know somethin’ I don’t, and even if Europe did go to buying South American beef instead of ours, it wouldn’t happen all in a day and without warning. Anyways, you didn’t come over here to get a sermon on the livestock market. Are you right sure that Bones and Bob want me to set a value on that stuff?”
    I grinned and said, “Well, it’s part of the deal, but it wasn’t exactly Bob’s suggestion.”
    “That don’t surprise me none,” George said with just a trace of a smile, “but if you and Bones want me to, I’ll go over with you and appraise the stuff.”
    He brought along an ancient Farmer’s Almanac containing instructions and tables for determining by measurement the number of tons of hay in a stack, and bushels of ear corn