The Englishman in the West 165 



trees in the orchard have the scale, or perhaps the 

 " hoppers " are eating the vines, but Johnnie can 

 greet even the woolly aphis with a grin. " It 's not 

 quite so simple as I thought it was, this ranching," 

 he confesses over a pipe and a toddy. " I 'm — I 'm 

 going behind this year ; but next year I shall make 

 pots o' money ! You bet your life ! " 



Who is brute enough to retort that so far from 

 betting one 's life upon a result so very dubious, it 

 would be folly to hazard a farthing? Yet one is 

 miserably sensible that Johnnie is betting his life, 

 and that the odds are against him. 



Meantime he wears his tweeds, and is happy. 

 For a season, knickerbocker breeches made for hap- 

 piness with Johnnie ; so do polo boots, and pigskin 

 saddles, and brier pipes. But the sight of these 

 insignia of the broken brigade brings tears to the 

 heart. It is like seeing a well-cut dress-coat on 

 the back of a tramp. As the years pass, Johnnie's 

 English clothes wear out and are thrown aside ; but 

 the breeches remain, stained and discoloured, a sym- 

 bol of what has been, and what in all human prob- 

 abilty can never again be. Note the warp and 

 woof of the stout cloth : wool all through, no 

 shoddy. Johnnie too was made of good stuff, and 

 has worn well; but he is stained and discoloured, 

 thin and patched, torn by adversity, a scarecrow. 

 These breeches have other significance. They are 

 Johnnie's protest against the overalls of Western 

 life. They advertise the wearer's contempt of 

 public opinion, his ineptitude, his utter lack of a 

 sense of proportion. Think of thick Scotch tweeds 

 and thick Scotch stockings in hot, dusty Southern 



