WESTERN CATTLE LANDS. 327 



passenger of a few minutes' acquaintance should inquire the 

 prime cost of his watch or overcoat ; and he has ceased to 

 regard the half-breed conductor of the car as the impersona- 

 tion of insolent familiarity, merely because the latter slaps him 

 on the shoulder or settles down beside him for a good chew 

 before answering a question as to the route. Thus the liberty 

 and equality of a great nation will have been fairly broken to 

 him ere he enters the brotherhood of the Far West. 



On his way he has doubtless encountered more than one 

 representative of the race of stockgrowers, and no doubt found 

 him pleasant, sociable, and — on the vital and absorbing subject 

 of cattle — communicative to a degree. If our friend is not 

 foolish in his generation, he will take every advantage of this 

 readiness of discourse to gain all the information he can on a 

 topic of equal interest to himself, and will encourage the other 

 to talk, the while he sets himself to digest what he hears. As 

 a man of the world, he is likely to accept the utterances of his 

 new acquaintance with many a grain of salt. But, in testimony 

 to Western veracity, I may fairly say, from personal experience, 

 that this is necessary only in a marvellously slight degree. 

 A stockbroker on his favourite theme may be occasionally 

 enthusiastic ; but he is as a rule not only precise and clear, but 

 intentionally truthful — except when he wants to sell you an y- 

 tlt hi (j. 



Then — go to the West, good reader, and learn for yourself ! 

 Still, when he is holding forth in the abstract, the stockgrower 

 is almost invariably a lucid and reliable guide on matters 

 pertaining to the business which has enriched him — and which 

 has, perhaps, even allowed him the luxury of a couple of total 

 failures on what he would term " side issues," besides. That 

 his views and statistics are likely to be pretty correct, is more 

 or less assured by the close coincidence between his statements 

 and those of his equally discursive brethren-in-stock, with whom 

 our English friend may easily find himself in conversation. 

 And, besides being voluble to edify and iustruct the newcomer 

 on matters pertaining to the art of stockraising, the stockgrower 



