Now, I want some one to start just such a eatin' place somewheres along here, and if you'll do that, you'll make a stake here in less'n two years, sure's you're born." Sam's conviction gave him eloquence.

He was talking of business now, of the direct, practical things which were of immediate concern in the life of the region about.

The force of what he said would not have been apparent to the unpracticed observer, who might have seen no indication in the wide solitude about that there would ever be here a human population or a human industry.

Buford was schooled enough to be more just in his estimate, and he saw the reasonableness of what his new acquaintance had said.

Unconsciously his eye wandered over to the portly form of the negress, who sat fanning herself, a little apart from the others.