“But do you believe me? That damn Yankee wouldn’t take my word that the horns of them Lagunies gets their growth early sometimes. I says, ‘Mister, I’ll bet you a hunderd dollars that’s a four.’ ‘Well, maybe it is,’ says he. He scratch his haid. But he couldn’t git over it. When we come to load in at the boat he says, ‘Well I be damned ef that ain’t the littlest cow I ever seen fer a four.’ I was sort o’ hot by then, and I says, ‘Boss, you’re right—that ain’t a four, it’s a yearlin’.’
“Well, then he swung around the other way. Says he, ‘It kain’t noways be a yearlin’, not with them horns. I bought too many cows not to know that much. It don’t stand to reason that no yearlin’ can raise no horns more’n five foot acrost.’ You see, mister, that yearlin’ was carryin’ horns about like this one—one of our Lagunies. O’ course, I don’t say that all Texas cows has horns like that as yearlin’s; you can see that fer yore own self right here. Only way we could convince that gentleman was to show him.”
“Well, that may all be,” said Pattison, nettled. “Anyhow, I always take my own judgment in cattle, ages and all. I’ve known buyers who couldn’t tell long twos from threes. I’ve studied cattle.”
“I never did much,” said Len Hersey; “I never had time. But my folks couldn’t never break me of gamblin’—monte, you know. Sometimes I win a shirt, and then agin I’d lose one. Right now”—he looked ruefully at his elbow—“I’d like fer to win one. I’ll gamble that critter’s a yearlin’, now. I’d hate to take a man’s money on a cinch; but ef you, now, was feelin’ you’d like to peel off a couple of hunderd against my hawse an’ saddle, an’ what’s left of my shirt, why, I’d hate to rob you—I’d bet that that’s a yearlin’. I was goin’ to kill it fer beef. We don’t eat the horns, mister, but them Lagunies is special tender on account of that something in the water around there.”
“You fool Texans deserve to be trimmed,” said Pattison; “a boy like you putting your judgment up against that of one of the oldest buyers that ever saw Kansas City.”
“I know it—I know I’m foolish,” nodded Len Hersey. “I was borned thataway. I allus hatter be bettin’ on monte er somethin’. Still I’ll bet thataway on this here yearlin’ ef you insist. Does you?”