flourish. They show him the pictures and quote prices on the hoof--which
are low, but look what even a runt of a yearling whale that was calved
late in the fall would weigh on the scales!--and no worry about fences or
free range or winter feeding or water holes; nothing to do but ride round
on your private steamboat with a good orchestra, and a chance to be
dissolute and count your money. And look what a snap the pioneers will
have with all the mavericks; probably not a single whale in the ocean yet
branded! And does Timmins want to throw in with us? If he does mebbe they
can fix up a deal with me because I want a good business man at the head
of the new outfit.

But Safety says right off quick that it's all a pack of nonsense. He says
it's the mad dream of a visionary or feeble-minded person. He don't deny
there would be money in whales if they could be handled, but you couldn't
handle anything that had the whole ocean to swim in that covers three
quarters of the earth's surface, as he has often read. And how would you
get a branding iron on a whale, and what good would it do you? He'd beat
it out for Europe. He said they was foolish to think whales would stay in
a herd, and he guessed I'd been talking just to hear myself talk, or more
likely I'd been kidding 'em to get a good laugh.

Sandy says: "Well, I wasn't going to tell you at first, but I guess it'll
be safe with you, you being a good friend of the Arrowhead, only don't
let it go no farther; but the fact is the boss is negotiating for the
whale privilege in Great Salt Lake. Yes, sir, she's bribing the Utah
legislature this very minute to let the bill go through! And I guess that
don't look much like kidding. As soon as the governor has signed the bill
she'll put in a couple of good three-year-old bull whales and a nice
little herd of heifers and have the world's meat supply at her finger
ends in less than five years--just killing off the yearling steers."