"Shut up, Percy," Lew Garrow urged. "Let him talk."
"Yeah," Fellers Compton seconded. "Let him talk."
"All right," Percy agreed. "Go ahead and talk, Bibbers."
"I got this cut," Bibbers said, sure that he had won an encounter which
he had not won at all, "in a fight with Apaches. It was in Arizona
territory...."
For a couple of moments Joe listened with great interest to a lurid tale
of a battle which Bibbers had had with eight Apaches. He shot six of
them, and with the last two it was knife to knife. At that point the
story became so absurd that Joe lost himself in his own thoughts.
Bibbers was a liar, had always been one. However, select ten groups of
men from ten parts of the country and they would average out about the
same. The fact that any part of the country could produce its quota of
asinine braggarts was not necessarily a reflection on the country. Joe
unleashed himself completely.
Suppose a man owned everything on his land and the land too? He'd still
have to work, but he wouldn't have to work until his whole insides
tightened into a hard knot, and inner forces built up so tensely that he
seemed ready to explode! When things got that bad, if it were not for
Elias Dorrance, a man could take an hour and go hunting or fishing or
just walking. Would it ever be that bad if land was something between a
man and his God, and not between a man and his banker? Would it be bad
at all if he knew that his children were going to find opportunities
which they could never have here?
Then there was the rest of it; the eternal wondering about the unknown!
Wouldn't a man rid himself of that burden if he went to see for himself?
"One time in Sonora," Bibbers Townley was saying, and Joe listened with
little interest while Bibbers regaled his audience with another
improbable adventure. Joe stared beyond the stove, and saw only the
vision that arose in his own mind. He broke into Bibbers' account of
what he had done one time in Sonora.
"What about land," he called.
"Land? Land, my friend? Do you want to know how they measure land in the
west? I'll tell you."
Immediately he started telling, all about how he had staked out land by
riding for three days straight west, then three south, three east, and
three north. Finally he came back to the starting point and all the land
he'd ridden around was his. Joe spat disgustedly.
"You thinkin' of goin'?" John Geragty asked Joe.
"I've been pondering on it."
"So have I."
Joe slipped away from the group and his feet were light on the starry
path. The curtains had parted, at least for the time being, and he had
seen the bright promise. He must hurry home at once so he could tell
Emma about it too.