"O'Brien is the out-talkingest man I ever see.

Ain't nobody on Brownsville can get his tongue around so many words as O'Brien." So saying, he blew through his pipe, picked up a stick of soft pine, and began to whittle it to a point.
"In my part of the country," went on Buck Daniels, "they don't lay much by a man that talks a pile." Here the blacksmith turned his head slowly, regarded his companion for an instant, and then resumed his whittling.
"But," said Daniels, with a sigh, "if I could find a man that knowed the country north of Brownsville and had a hobble on his tongue I could give him a night's work that'd be worth while." Gary Peters removed his pipe from his mouth and blew out his dropping moustaches.

He turned one wistful glance upon his idle forge; he turned a sadder eye upon his companion.
"I could name you a silent man or two in Brownsville," he said, "but there ain't only one man that knows the country right." "That so?
And who might he be ?" "Me." "You ?" echoed Daniels in surprise.

He turned and considered Gary as if for the first time.

"Maybe you know the lay of the land up as far as Hawkin's Arroyo ?" "Me?
Son, I know every cactus clear to Bald Eagle." "H-m-m!" muttered Daniels.