As I remounted, staunching the inevitable wound from barbed wire, I began to speak in the bitterly superior tones of an efficiency expert as we traversed a field where hundreds of white-faced Herefords were putting on flesh to their own ruin.  I said to my hostess that I vastly enjoyed lifting a hundred-pound gate—­and what was the loss of a little blood between old friends, even when aggravated by probable tetanus germs?  But had she ever paused to compute the money value of time lost by her henchmen in dismounting to open these clumsy makeshifts?  I suggested that, even appraising the one reliable ranch joke in all the world at a high figure, she would still profit considerably by putting in gates that were gates, in place of contrivances that could be handled ideally only by a retired weight lifter in barbed-wire-proof armour.

I rapidly calculated, with the seeming high regard for accuracy that marks all efficiency experts, that these wretched devices cost her twenty-eight cents and a half each per diem.  Estimating the total of them on the ranch at one hundred, this meant to her a loss of twenty-eight dollars and a half per diem.  I used per diem twice to impress the woman.  I added that it was pretty slipshod business for a going concern, supposing—­sarcastically now—­that the Arrowhead was a going concern.  Of course, if it were merely a toy for the idle rich—­

She had let me talk, as she will now and then, affecting to be engrossed with her stock.

“Look at them white-faced darlings!” she murmured.  “Two years old and weighing eleven hundred this minute if they weigh a pound!”

Then I saw we approached a gate that amazingly was a gate.  Hinges, yes; and mechanical complications, and a pendant cord on each side.  I tugged at one and the gate magically opened.  As we passed through I tugged at the other and it magically closed.  This was luxury ineffable to one who had laboured with things that seemed to be kept merely for the sake of a jest that was never of the best and was staling with use.  It would also be, I hoped, an object lesson to my hostess.  I performed the simple rite in silence, yet with a manner that I meant to be eloquent, even provocative.  It was.

“Oh, sure!” spoke Ma Pettengill.  “That there’s one of your per-diem gates; and there’s another leading out of this field, and about six beyond—­all of ’em just as per diem as this one; and, also, this here ranch you’re on now is one of your going concerns.”  She chuckled at this and repeated it in a subterranean rumble:  “A going concern—­my sakes, yes!  It moved so fast you could see it go, and now it’s went.”  Noisily she relished this bit of verbal finesse; then permitted her fancy again to trifle with it.  “Yes, sir; this here going concern is plumb gone!”

With active malice I asked no question, maintaining a dignified silence as I lightly manipulated a second paragon of gates.  The lady now rumbled confidentially to herself, and I caught piquant phrases; yet still I forbore to question, since the woman so plainly sought to intrigue me.  Even when we skirted a clump of cottonwoods and came—­through another perfect gate—­upon a most amazing small collection of ranch buildings, dying of desertion, I retained perfect control of a rising curiosity.