Ranch Life 113 



is not quite so particular in the West as she is in 

 Mayfair. It was obvious, you will admit, that the 

 elder had the law on his side, but only a tenth of it, 

 for the very substantial nine-tenths were and had 

 been for many years in the possession of the younger. 

 It is also obvious that the elder had no such passion 

 for his spouse as, shall we say, Juliet inspired in the 

 heart of Romeo. He had deliberately forsaken her. 

 Still, it is not impossible that he had often re- 

 pented, thinking, may be, of his children's faces, 

 and the old homestead, and the savoury dishes that 

 his wife could make (for she was an excellent cook). 

 Mind you, he had not been lost in a sub-arctic forest, 

 or living on a desert island, or doing anything, in 

 short, which could be pleaded as an excuse for his 

 absence and silence. The story is tragic from an 

 English or New England point of view. You will 

 say at once that the sailor went back to sea. Not a 

 bit of it. He bought a piece of land hard by, and 

 settled down comfortably as his brother's neigh- 

 bour. He did not want — so he said — to make 

 any " trouble ; " but he wished to see his children, 

 and his brother, and the mother of his children. 

 So he acted according to his convictions, and 

 the people said Amen. It seemed to them, as it 

 seemed to the sailor, the only sensible thing to 

 do. 



In the brush hills were many squatters — wild 

 folk, living the primal life, half -clothed, half -starved, 

 drinking coffee made from roasted barley, eating 

 what they could shoot, and not unfrequently what 

 they could steal. A friend of ours, a foreigner, a 

 man of breeding and culture, went to live amongst 



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