50 FRUIT RANCHING. 



was repeatedly asked if he would take for tiicm a sum 

 equivalent to £10 more than I paid for them. 



We did not attempt to plough with them again for 

 several weeks. One reason was that for nearly a 

 month they luxuriated in lameness — first one, then 

 the other. No sooner was the foot of the grey mare 

 recovered than the foot of the brown went wrong; 

 and did we bandage and rub and poultice the 

 brown mare's foot into soundness, we found the 

 grey limping. It was insinuated to me that it 

 was all caused by mismanagement; but I refused 

 to credit that. And no better proof of the 

 falsity of the insinuation could be found than 

 in the subsequent history of the team. They turned 

 out as useful and handsome a pair of horses as a man 

 need wish to see. They never suffered from any 

 trouble, either to their feet or to their chests, and to- 

 day they are both as sound of wind and limb as 

 horses should be. I have no doubt it was their un- 

 familiarity with the ground that caused their lame- 

 ness. They had been bred on the prairie, and they 

 had not yet learnt how to avoid the sharp stones of 

 the British Columbian hillsides or the still sharper 

 " stubs " — jagged ends — of the slashed scrub. 



There was a further cause why, for a time, we did 

 not get out of them all the work that we had a right 

 to expect. Both were mares, and both turned out to 

 be in foal. I had been warned of the possibility of 

 this in the case of one of them, though I did not 

 suspect it in the case of the other. 



When their troubles arising out of this condition 

 were well over, we had them engaged in " stumping," 

 one of the processes of clearing, and after that we 



