At best he could get no product from the land for many months, and then but a problematical one.

He was in a region where each man did many things, and first that thing which seemed nearest at hand to be done.

It was the common sense of old Aunt Lucy which discovered the truth of the commercial proposition that what a man will pay for a given benefit is what he ought to pay.

Had Aunt Lucy asked the cow-punchers even twice her tariff for a pie they would have paid it gladly.

Had Mary Ellen asked them for their spurs and saddles, the latter would have been laid down.
From the Halfway House south to the Red River there was nothing edible.
And over this Red River there came now swarming uncounted thousands of broad-horned cattle, driven by many bodies of hardy, sunburned, beweaponed, hungry men.