So he waited, and he gripped the arms of his chair, and he clamped his mouth shut and did not speak a word.
The Happy Family had expected him to swear at them stormily; to accuse them of vile things; to call them such names as his memory could seize upon or his ingenuity invent.

They had been careful to prepare a list of plausible reasons for leaving then.

They had first invented a gold rumor that they hoped would sound convincing, but Andy had insisted upon telling him straightforwardly that they did not favor fence-building and ditch-digging and such back-breaking toil; that they were range men and they demanded range work or none; that if they must dig ditches and build fences and perform like menial tasks, they preferred doing it for themselves.

"That," said Andy, "makes us out such dirty, low-down sons-of-guns we'd have to climb a tree to look a snake in the eye, but it's got the grain of truth that'll make it go down.

We DON'T love this farming graft, and the Old Man knows it.