Carver repaired to the shack to retrieve his horse and as he rode back
through town he observed a group round the town well in the center of
the wide main street. Mattison had laid aside his personal pursuits and
had donned his official rôle of town marshal, in which capacity he was
instructing Bart Lassiter in no uncertain terms as to the impropriety
of watering his horse from the oaken bucket attached to the well rope.
“Water him from the trough,” he ordered.
“After all those Cherokee ponies have been dipping their noses in it?”
Bart demanded. “Not this horse.”
“That bucket is for folks,” the marshal patiently explained.
“An’ this horse is folks,” Lassiter insisted. He continued to extend
the brimming bucket horseward with his left hand. The spectators
shifted, recalling that Mattison’s predecessor had fallen in a street
fight near this same well. There was no ill-feeling between the two
men, but neither of them would back down publicly under pressure.
Carver glanced aside as a voice called Bart’s name. The girl of the
Silver Dollar was peering from a window above a store, her gaze riveted
on the group at the well.
“Here’s two of my friends working up a grievance over well water,”
Carver said, dropping from his horse. “Wherever did the pair of you
acquire this sudden interest in it? I’m surprised at you.”
“If this party’s a friend of yours, why you take him,” said Mattison.
“He won’t mind me. Let him water his horse till the well goes dry.”
“No such thing,” Lassiter gracefully declined. “I wouldn’t think of
letting the critter slosh his muzzle in the town bucket.”
The marshal moved off and Carver reflected that the girl’s sudden
appearance in the doorway of the Silver Dollar had been occasioned by
Bart Lassiter’s failure to fulfill his appointment. It also accounted
for Bart’s hesitation as they had stepped out of the Golden Eagle
earlier in the day. He had halted to avoid meeting the girl, not to
avoid Freel, as Carver had previously supposed; and Bart’s grievance
against Freel rose from this same source, for undoubtedly the girl who
was being piloted down the street by the marshal at the moment of their
exit was the same who had later stirred Carver so strangely by her
unexpected appearance in the doorway.
“A lady was calling your name from a window a minute back,” he said.
“Likely it was Molly,” Bart returned. “That’s who that ten spot was
destined for--the one Noll lifted first. That twenty I planted later
would also have found its way to her except for Noll. She’s a sweet
kid, Molly, but she’s worried sick every minute I’m out of sight.”
Carver was conscious of a sense of irritation toward his friend, a
vague resentment at this implied familiarity between the boy and the
lady of the doorway.
“Then I wouldn’t be letting her wait around,” he reproved. “Damned if I
would.”
“But a man can’t tag his sister every living second,” Bart
expostulated. “I ask you now!”
“No,” said Carver. “Maybe not.” His irritation had evaporated. “But if
she was my sister I’d put in considerable time with her.”
The brother grinned unrepentantly.
“All right; you do that,” he urged. “Maybe she’ll take to worrying
about you instead of losing sleep over me. Appears to me like a nice
arrangement for all hands concerned.”
The girl appeared suddenly beside Lassiter and rested a hand on his arm.
“Put up your horse and stay here with me,” she urged.
“Can’t, Molly,” Bart declined. “I promised the boys I’d go and they’re
waiting now. We’re due to help Crowfoot gather a little bunch of beef
stuff to-morrow and we’ll have to ride all night if we make Turkey
Creek by morning.”
The girl turned to Carver.
“Thanks for interceding with your friend the marshal,” she said. “But
please go now. You’ve had Bart to yourself all day.”
Carver nodded assent, mounted and rode off down the street. As he
passed the Silver Dollar he felt the single coin in his pocket.
“That’s what I’m capitalized at,” he said. “Just one little measly
silver dollar. That’s my invoice. This morning I could have added a
horse, a house and an extra saddle to the statement. Now I’m out the
saddle and owe Hinman a sum sufficient to offset the value of both
horse and house. I’d sell under the hammer for a single dollar bill.
The lady read my face value at a glance and dismissed me offhand
without another look.”
He saw the two elder Lassiter brothers riding south at the next street
intersection. It was quite dark when he cleared the town and as he rode
on through the night he was conscious of a mild dissatisfaction. He
drew forth his last coin and addressed it.
“I’ve rode into town with a many a dollar on me,” he said. “But this is
about the first time I ever rode out and packed one away with me. That
shows I’m growing more conservative right along. You must be a lucky
little devil or else you wouldn’t have stayed with me till I got out of
town.” He slipped the coin back into his pocket. “Little lonely dollar,
you must mount up to a million.”
He heard the low rumble of animal voices and knew that Hinman’s cows
were being held on the bed ground somewhere just ahead. The old man
greeted him as he rode up.
“I’m sending Bradshaw and four others with you,” he announced. “One of
the boys is holding the pack outfit back behind. He’ll follow. I’ll
help you get ’em on their feet and moving.”
The men spread out at intervals to the north of the herd, riding along
its edge and crowding the cows on the near fringe to their feet. They
worked cautiously, for any slight commotion of an unusual nature,
the weird flap of a garment or any cry too startling, might serve to
throw a few cows into a panic which would be swiftly communicated to
the rest and put the whole herd off the bed ground in a mad stampede.
Their chief concern was to prevent a disastrous night run. The affair
was skilfully handled and the near fringe of cows rose reluctantly,
crowded back through the ranks of their reclining fellows and raising
them in turn till eventually the whole herd was up and drifting south.
The moon rose sharp and clear as they crossed into the Strip and for
hours they forged slowly ahead, their course a trifle south of west.
When they had covered ten miles the forward drift of the herd was
arrested and the tired cows bedded down at once.
“From now on they’re in your hands, son,” Hinman said to Carver. “I’ll
back any deal you make with the outfits off to the south, so play her
the best you know.”
He turned his horse back toward the State line and left Carver to solve
the problem as best he might. Their present stand was in the quarantine
belt, a strip some miles wide which paralleled the State line; this
to protect the stock of the Kansas cowmen from Texas fever and other
contagious afflictions so prevalent among the trail herds brought up
from the south. All southern cattle must be held in this quarantine
area until declared free of all disease before proceeding on their
northward course to market. This was the off-season for the pastoral
transportation of trail herds from the Texas cow country, and the only
official intervention against which Carver must guard was the possible
appearance of one of the infrequent cavalry patrols sent out from old
Fort Darlington on the southern extremity of the Strip.
The unowned lands were tenanted only by a few big cow outfits whose
owners had made satisfactory arrangements with the Cherokees,
paying their tribute in the shape of grazing fees, a custom so long
established that it was recognized by Federal authorities, and
government agents now collected the money and passed it on to the
territory tribes.
Carver stood his turn on first guard and as he rode round the herd he
pondered the problem in hand and sought for a solution which would
give him an insight into Hinman’s purpose. It was not so much from the
authorities but from the common themselves that he might expect prompt
interference. Those who leased range in the Strip did not often wait
upon the slow process of official intervention when outside brands
encroached upon their interests but took the law into their own hands
at once. Hinman was well aware of that condition, Carver reflected. He
circled the herd and sang to soothe his charges on the bed ground. Off
across he could hear the voice of another night guard raised in song.
He produced his one last coin and studied it in the moonlight.
“Little lonely dollar, you must mount up to a million,” he chanted.
“And we’ll mount the first step upward if only I can fathom what
Hinman expects of me. He don’t care a dime about saving taxes on
this bunch, and he knows that I can see the costs will outweigh the
profits two to one even if everything goes through without a quiver.
He and Nate Younger, while they get along personal, have been whetting
their tomahawks for each other as far back as I can remember. Now he
leads us down here due north of the center of old Nate’s leases and
stresses the point that I can maybe trade deals with any outfit off to
the south--and Nate the only possible one I could deal with from this
point. What time I haven’t worked for Hinman, I’ve been working for
Nate, and Old Joe knows that Nate’s the best friend I’ve got outside
himself. Now what’s he aiming at?”
His shift on guard duty was half over before he found the slightest ray
of light on the problem.
“Joe must know that Nate will pounce down on us right off,” he mused.
“If they open the Strip for settlement, like Joe predicts, then Younger
will be forced out of the game. Now just why does Hinman provide him
with this opportunity for a big final disturbance with all the odds on
Nate’s side? He couldn’t have done it accidental and it appears more
and more like he’s deliberately throwing himself wide open.”
His mind traveled back over the events of the day and settled upon
the scene which had transpired near the town well just prior to his
departure.
“There now,” he suddenly remarked. “That’s sure enough the answer. Bart
and Mattison didn’t want to carry that altercation to a finish but
neither one would back down with folks looking on. These two stubborn
old pirates are likely in a similar frame of mind. It’s always seemed
to me someway, that they didn’t either one feel half so hostile toward
the other as they made it appear. Joe’s giving Nate one final chance to
show his hand--to take a whack at him or quit, hoping to cancel this
old feud before Nate’s crowded out. He didn’t send me down here to keep
out of trouble but shoved me right into it, knowing I’d do my best to
make it as light as possible when it came. That’s all the idea I’ve got
to work on.”
The men breakfasted in the first light of day and the cows were allowed
to scatter through the breaks on the far side of the creek.
“You boys hold ’em within fair limits,” Carver instructed Bradshaw.
“I’ll join you up here this evening. If a patrol should jump you by any
off chance, you just explain that you’re driving them down to the Half
Diamond H and laid over here a day to rest them.”
“They’d be sure to believe us,” Bradshaw commented skeptically. “Old
Nate Younger wouldn’t let a Kansas cow graze on the Half Diamond H for
the price of it. Leastways not one of Hinman’s.”
“He’s maybe changed his mind,” said Carver. “I’ll ride down and see.”
He headed for the home ranch of the Half Diamond H, located on a branch
of Cabin Creek some miles above that stream’s confluence with the Salt
Fork of the Arkansas. Younger met him halfway, a rider having already
reported the presence of the herd.
“Now just what are you doing with a bunch of Joe Hinman’s cows in the
quarantine strip and messing along the edge of my range?” he demanded.
“You’ve rode for me on enough different occasions to know better than
that.”
“They just came fogging down here of their own accord,” Carver
testified. “And I came after them.”
“I’ll see that you get plenty of help when it comes to running them
back,” Younger offered. He waved an arm toward a group of approaching
riders. “Here come my boys now. I’ll throw ’em in behind those cows
and jam them back across the line and scatter ’em over the whole west
half of Kansas; or else take charge and hold ’em till I can get a
detachment sent up from Fort Darlington to keep the whole mangy layout
in quarantine till they’re fined more’n their market price. I’ll----”
“I wouldn’t adopt either one of those courses you just mentioned Nate,”
Carver counselled. “If a patrol jumped us I was going to proclaim that
Joe was short of range and that you, being an old friend of his, had
volunteered to run this bunch on your leases till the grass greened up
next month. That was my idea.”
“I’ve got another idea that beats yours all to hell,” Younger retorted.
“About fifteen years back a bunch of my stuff drifted off in a storm
and fed out a few sections of Joe Hinman’s land that had blowed clear
of snow. He thought I’d shoved ’em on there to eat him out. This is the
first real good chance I’ve had to play even for what shape he left
those cows of mine in after hazing ’em at a run through a foot of snow.
What I’ll do to this bunch of Box T steers will be sufficient.”
He motioned his grinning riders to fall in behind him as he headed up
country with Carver.
“Then it does look as if I’d soon be out of a job,” Carver said, “if
you go and mess up my detail. Maybe you’d take me on for the summer.”
“You was top hand for me once,” Younger returned. “And you could be
again if you’d only stay at it. Anyway, I’ll put you on for the summer.”
“This season will likely see the last big round-up of all history,”
Carver predicted. “And I want to be part of it. I’d sort of planned to
go in with your wagon. I guess this is the last. The order is out to
comb every hoof from the unowned lands.”
The old man’s face clouded. Two years before all cowmen had been
ordered to clear their stock from the Cherokee Strip. They had grimly
refused, and now the order had been issued again.
“They mean business this time,” Carver predicted. “There’ll be cavalry
patrols riding to keep an eye on the round-up, likely, and make sure
that everything’s gathered and shoved outside. There’ll be upwards of
two hundred thousand cows collected and marketed this summer in order
to clear the Strip.”
“Maybe you’re right, son,” Younger said. “It’s beginning to look that
way. You don’t want to miss the round-up. The likes of it will never
be seen again on this old footstool. All wiped out in a single season.
It ain’t right. It just can’t be right.”
The old man’s thoughts strayed from the immediate matter in hand, that
of evening the old score with Hinman, and he nodded abstractedly to the
comments of his younger companion. He was possessed of cows in plenty
and if forced to market them he could cash in for a fortune; but this
game was his life. Take away his cows and money would mean little.
“I was just thinking, Nate,” Carver said. “It’ll take a long time to
settle all this country up after you folks are ordered out with your
stock, and there’ll be worlds of good range going to waste with nothing
to eat it off. A man could hold a dodge-bunch down here on good feed
and keep ’em moving from point to point. If we were questioned we could
explain that we were trail herding ’em through when they up and made a
night run off to one side; that we are just gathering ’em up again to
move them on up to the Box T range.”
“Box T!” Younger scoffed. “Joe Hinman, that wrinkled old pirate,
wouldn’t let a second elapse before he’d be spreading the news that I
had a bunch down here. He’d never let a Half Diamond H cow set foot on
his range and ever get off with its hide on.”
“But if you’d help him out now, like I said a while back, he’d be bound
to return it out of sheer human decency,” Carver pointed out. “I could
hold a bunch down here easy. If you help Joe out now he can’t go back
on you then.”
“Can’t be?” Nate inquired. “I don’t know.” The blank wall of a cowless
future loomed just ahead. In a few more months his old brand would be
but a tradition. The only alternative would be to buy out another brand
in some distant part where open range was still available. But this was
his chosen territory and a move did not appeal. “One time and another
I’ve dealt him a hell-slew of trouble.”
“He’s put in fifteen years handing it back to you,” Carver said.
“That’s part of the game, the way the pair of you has played it. Joe’s
not the man to stick at trifles like that.”
Younger shook his head.
“Then maybe he was mistaken about how you felt,” said Carver. “He
gave me my instructions straight enough. ‘If you strike trouble down
there just go right to the Half Diamond H and get in touch with Nate
Younger,’ he says. ‘He’ll put you straight, and if he can’t fix you up
then there’s no way out.’ That’s the last words he told me.”
“He didn’t,” Nate returned doubtfully. “You got mixed in the names. He
didn’t ever instruct you to look to me for anything but trouble.”
“Those were my orders,” Carver affirmed. “Word for word, as near as I
can recall, just as I recited them to you. That’s what he says, looking
right at me, just what I told you he did.”
“I don’t know what he’s driving at,” Younger stated. “But I’ll
certainly hand him a surprise. I’ll take him up--which’ll be exactly
the last thing he’d counted on.”
He tugged his hat over his eyes and turned to the nearest of the riders
who trailed behind him.
“You boys dangle along back and take down the north fence for a few
hundred yards west of the creek,” he instructed. “Pull the staples and
lay the wire flat on the ground so Carver can cross in with his bunch
any time.”
The men gazed in blank astonishment at thus being deprived of their
contemplated sport but they turned back without comment.
“That Carver now,” one youth remarked. “He’s the silver-tongued little
fixer. He’s somehow managed to reverse old Nate in mid-air. Once in
Caldwell he talked me out of my last dollar. He did, honest.”
“But he spent it on you later,” another testified. “That’s him. But now
he’s gone and ruined my whole day. I’d prefer to be jamming them cows
north at a run to coaxing staples out of fence posts.”
Some days thereafter Freel rode northward through the leases of the
Half Diamond H, crossed the Salt Fork and stayed overnight at the home
ranch of that brand. For several days the marshal had been visiting
the widely scattered outfits operating in that portion of the Strip
and making inquiries as to the whereabouts of certain men on a day of
the preceding week. Freel knew the customs of the men with whom he had
to deal, being familiar with the evasiveness which was a country-wide
characteristic whenever one citizen was questioned concerning the
possible operations of another. The marshal’s queries were therefore
more or less desultory and wholly unproductive.
On the date in question four masked horsemen had surrounded a box car
recently planted beside the railroad track in the Cherokee Strip. This
car had served as a station and the word “Casa” had been painted in
white letters upon either end. The stockmen had stubbornly resisted
all attempts to establish stations in the unowned lands, foreseeing
in such moves another possible link toward the dreaded settling of
the Strip. These wild riders had evicted the two men stationed there
and applied the torch to the box car which seemed to presage a future
settlement at that point. The embryo city of Casa was no more. Freel
was conscious of no particular regret over the fate of this defunct
metropolis, but in view of the fact that only Federal officers were
vested with authority in the Cherokee lands he felt it expedient to
make a few perfunctory inquiries.
When he rode away from the Half Diamond H he elected to wend his way
up Cabin Creek and so chanced across two thousand head of Joe Hinman’s
cows grazing in the quarantine strip. Freel sought out Carver and
acquainted him with the details of the Casa raid.
“The Lassiters rode out of Caldwell Tuesday night, you recollect,” he
said. “They’re a shifty bunch of boys, the Lassiters. But Crowfoot
assures me that they turned up at his place on Turkey Creek early
Wednesday morning and this Casa raid was Wednesday night. Crowfoot says
they’ve been there straight through. That lets the Lassiters out.”
Carver recalled the black scrap of cloth he had seen in the dresser
drawer in the Lassiter’s room, its eyeholes staring up at him.
Crowfoot’s testimony to the marshal did not cause Carver to revise
his former estimate of the cowman; rather it served to strengthen his
previous opinion as to Crowfoot’s character.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, that lets the Lassiters out.”
“But it don’t have any particular bearing on the fact that Hinman’s
cows are grazing in the quarantine strip,” the marshal commented.
“Joe’s short of range,” Carver returned. This was according to formula.
“We’re resting ’em over here for a day before taking ’em on down to the
Half Diamond H.”
“That’s nice,” said Freel. “But of course it’s my duty as an officer
to report their presence to the Federal authorities. Then they can
use their own judgment as to quarantine proceedings and maybe even a
trespass suit. Tax-dodging, is he?”
“I’ll bet fifty even that you go and do that very thing,” Carver stated.
“How do you know?” the marshal retorted. “I’ll bet you a hundred I
don’t.”
“A hundred is way beyond my depth,” said Carver. “Even fifty would
strain me most to pieces, but I could manage to pay it the day I land
in Caldwell if I lost.”
“Fifty’s a bet,” the marshal accepted. “I’ll take you on. And don’t
forget to have the money in your clothes next time you show up in
Caldwell.”
Carver gazed after Freel’s retreating back as the worthy marshal rode
northward toward the line.
“There goes a part of my profits,” he observed. “This petty larceny
milking process enlightens me as to why I never could warm up to Freel.
I’d rather he’d held me up, but the man that’ll do one won’t do the
other--not ever. It all comes of my being too honest. If I’d neglected
to make that losing bet, he’d have made a report that might have caused
old Joe some grief. My conscience has let me down for fifty. Honesty
is maybe the best policy for the long pull but it’s ruinous in short
spurts.”
Someway he regretted the loss of that fifty dollars, a sentiment
hitherto unknown to him, for he had never valued dollars except as
a means to an end and the end was in each case the same,--the swift
squandering of the means. But of late, while riding his lonely way in
charge of Hinman’s cows, he had pondered the possibilities of various
projects in which he might engage, the accumulation of dollars, not
their spending, constituting the ultimate objective in each case.
When the marshal had disappeared Carver rode a few miles north to the
crest of a high ridge, from which point of vantage he could sweep a
considerable area. Off across the State line he could make out white
points of light at intervals of a mile or more, and he knew them for
the covered wagons of squatters who were camped just outside the Strip.
He knew too that as one neared Caldwell he would find the intervals
between these camps considerably decreased and he made a tentative
estimate that there were fifty such outfits camped along the line in
the twenty miles between himself and Caldwell. For three months these
homeless ones had been rolling up to the edge of the unowned lands and
making camp. These were but the vanguard, the first to respond to the
persistent rumor recently set afloat to the effect that the Strip would
soon be thrown open for entry and free homes be made available for all.
Carver allowed his mental vision to travel far beyond the horizon which
cut off his physical view, and he saw other wagons coming. He pictured
them scattered along the roads of Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri, of
Illinois and Iowa. From far and near the landless of a vast country
were converging upon this last corner left unsettled, their worldly
effects crowded into the bulging beds of old-time prairie schooners,
their live stock trailing behind and the tousled heads of their
youngsters peering curiously from the wagons as they rolled through
country strange to them. Their pace was slow and plodding but intensely
purposeful, a miniature reproduction of that general movement which
had resulted in reclaiming the Great West from savagery a few decades
before,--a movement which Carver felt could not long be forestalled. He
addressed his luck piece in prophetic vein.
“It’s coming and we can’t head it off. In ten years there’ll be a
squatter on every second section and the old free range cut up with
fence. Little lonely dollar, what will you and me be doing then? That’s
the prospect that’s looming just ahead of us.”
In fact this prospect seemed nearer still when he crossed back with
Hinman’s cows some weeks thereafter. With the first warm days of
approaching spring the slow stream of incoming squatters had increased
and there were more outfits camped along the line. Carver rode up to
the ranch house in the gray light of dawn to report that the herd was
back on Hinman’s own range once more. He found old Joe at breakfast and
was invited to sit in.
“Draw up your stool and toss a feed in you,” the old man greeted.
“Tell me how everything came to pass.”
“It was a right uneventful trip,” Carver reported. “There was only one
patrol came messing through and we shifted the bunch down on to the
Half Diamond H for a week or more.”
“The Half Diamond H!” Hinman exclaimed. “Then Nate Younger must have
died without me getting word of it. I’ll send over some flowers right
away. It’s a moral certainty that roan-whiskered old lizard wouldn’t
let one of my cows have a spoonful of grass if he was alive and
kicking.”
“On the contrary,” said Carver; “he put himself out to invite us down
in case we thought best to pull off the quarantine belt. He ordered his
north fence laid flat as soon as he gets word we’re in the country with
your cows, and announced that he’d be palsied and paralyzed and even
worse than that before he’d be found lacking in hospitality toward a
friend in need.”
“Yes,” said Hinman. “Go right on. What else did he say?”
“Nothing to speak of,” Carver said. “He did sort of mention that you
was welcome to throw as much stuff as you liked on the Half Diamond H
as long as he was running it. So you might say the trip was more or
less of a holiday.”
Hinman allowed his gaze to rove through the window and settle upon a
covered wagon crawling slowly southward.
“He’ll be crowded clear off the map inside another year,” Hinman said.
“I don’t suppose you told him about how glad I’d be to have him swarm
over here on my grass with all his cows whenever he’s finally ordered
out down there; now did you?”
“I did sort of intimate that your range would always be wide open,”
Carver stated. “I was straining every little point to save the taxes on
that bunch of cows. I’ll bet it would have totalled up to anyhow six
hundred dollars, those taxes would.”
“Well, that’s all you agreed to do,” said Hinman. “And I guess I’d
better pay you off and have it over with, even if you did get me into
considerable of a snarl. Only one thing I can do now, since you made
all those arrangements, and that’s to back up anything you told Nate. I
never figured you’d let me in for anything like this.”
“I’d prefer to take my pay in some other form than cash,” Carver
announced as Hinman produced his check book. “Suppose you give me a
bill of sale for a hundred head of coming yearlings instead of nine
hundred cash and let ’em range with your stuff up on the west place
till November.”
“You can’t spend calves,” said Hinman.
“I could borrow against them if I was needing money,” Carver explained.
“But coming yearlings are worth twelve dollars a head,” Hinman objected.
“I’ll owe you the rest,” Carver offered.
“And when I deliver in November they’ll be worth more’n that. They’ll
bring round sixteen dollars a head by then.”
“That’s what I was counting on,” said Carver. “I like to feel every
morning that I’m worth just a little more than I was the night before.”
Hinman laid down the check book and regarded him.
“Now it’s always struck me that you put yourself out to be worth just
a mite less each morning than you was the night before,” he stated.
“Surely you haven’t gone and deserted the ranks of the tumbleweeds in
favor of the pumpkins. I never knew you to set a value on a dollar.”
“That’s because I never chanced across just the right sort of dollar,”
Carver explained. “Now this is different.” He produced his lucky coin
and handed it over for inspection. “I’m aiming to accumulate a number
of others just like this to keep it company.”
Hinman inspected the silver dollar.
“Yes,” he said. “This is a right unusual appearing sort of coin. Don’t
know as I ever see one just like it. Now if you really think there’s
a chance for you to collect some more like this and take an interest
in holding on to them, why we might make a deal. You’ve just effected
quite a saving on my taxes, so I can maybe stretch a point. But if I
don’t deliver till November, and run ’em meantime on my grass, those
critters will cost you fourteen apiece instead of twelve. You’ll be
owing me five hundred in place of three.”
“I don’t mind owing you,” said Carver. “We’ll close the deal.”
As he rode away from the Box T he sang:
“Oh, I’ve risked many dollars
On the rambling tumbleweed
And only one on pumpkins
But that one went to seed.”