of profits as it did at the Ellison ranch, under the influence of Eudora's sparkling enthusiasm, the crop sown by the great winter kill ready for its melancholy harvesting.
It was late in the evening, the sun had gone down red in the dust of trampling herds and horses, when the answer from the hide man came. At once the bone business loomed up with new importance, its possibilities far in excess of Tom's, even Eudora's, most extravagant hopes. The bone market was active as never before; the Kansas City dealer was enthusiastic in this prospect of a new source of supply and quoted a price far in excess of that current in Drumwell. Send all he could get, and as fast as possible, the hide man urged.
This was news to cheer a doubting, despondent man, indeed. Tom stepped high as he made for a restaurant, feeling that he could afford a good supper with such prospects ahead of him. After enfolding a large tough steak, with the canned corn and tomatoes which invariably accompanied it in Drumwell and other towns of its type, Tom made his purchases of supplies out of the joint fund subscribed for that purpose by Waco and himself that morning.
While his outlay was not large, the sack behind the saddle increased the horse's burden considerably. But the animal had been well rested and regaled; it would have set out on an eager canter on the homeward road if Tom had not held it back. Better to be all night on the road and have a fit horse under him at the end, than gain an hour or two in the going. Riding a strange road in an unfamiliar land a man never knew when he'd need all there was in a horse.
