grazed since the great tragedy; it stood tall among the bones, it grew rank through the ribs that unkind nature had served to the buzzards on the platter of that vast, green plain.
"Well, gee-mo-nee cripes!" the stranger said. "What killed 'em? when did it happen?"
Simpson repeated the story of the great winter kill as it had been told him by Mrs. Ellison.
"Gee-mo-nee! You could 'a' walked on 'em for miles," the stranger marvelled. "I've been through winter kills in Montany, but I never saw one that took 'em that thick. They're dead—they're all dead—ever' damn one of 'em's dead!"
It was obviously so, too plainly true to require any such tragically surprised comment as that, Simpson believed. But he hadn't got the trend of the man's thought, as his next words revealed.
"They ain't got a head left alive on the place! That's why I never run acrost no cows when I struck this neighborhood."
"You're right. Ellison saved a few hundred head, lost his life doing it, but his wife and daughter sold them. They're not in business now."
"Bones!" said the stranger, turning to look over the wreckage that nature, in its kindlier mood, was laboring now to hide. "Cripes! Look at the bones!"
"There'll be no trouble getting a load, anyhow," Tom said, scarcely less astonished than his unknown helper.
"No, nor a few hundred loads, from the looks of 'em. What do you aim to do with them bones?"
