The young man groaned. "I know," he mourned. "I've lost my birth-land;
it's as extinct as the prehistoric lizards whose bones we used to find
sticking in the old gully banks on Table Mesa. By the way, that reminds
me: are there any of those giant fossils left? I was telling Professor
Anners about them the other day, and he was immensely interested."
"We're all fossils--we older folks of the cattle-raising times," laughed
the man whom Richard Gantry had called the "biggest man in the State."
"But there are some of the petrified bones left, too, I reckon. If the
professor is a friend of yours, we'll get him a State permit to dig all
he wants to."
"Yes; Professor Anners is a friend of mine," was the younger Blount's
half-absent rejoinder. But after the admission was made he qualified it.
"Perhaps I ought to say that he is as much a friend as his daughter will
permit him to be."
The qualifying clause was not thrown away upon the senator.
"What-all has the daughter got against you, son?" he asked mildly.
"Nothing very serious," said Patricia's lover, with a laugh which was
little better than a grimace. "It's merely that she is jealous of any
one who tries to share her father with her. Next to her career--"
"That's Boston, isn't it?" interrupted the ex-king of the cattle ranges.
Then he added: "I'm right glad it hasn't come in your way to tie
yourself up to one of those 'careers,' Evan, boy.
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