1 8 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



for his sake, sit four days and a half in a 

 Pullman car and spend large coin in the 

 endeavour to cheer his exile. One train per 

 diem runs the downward length of the valley 

 and brings him his Eastern mail, and with 

 this, one or two faithful friends excepted, he 

 must learn perforce to be content make 

 new friends and absorb himself in toil, of 

 which latter he will in very truth find no 

 lack. So the stranger braces himself, and 

 ' takes a fresh grip.' 



And at last, after much wading through 

 and rolling over the so-called roads of the 

 country, a home was found even for this 

 ' tenderfoot.' What was it that decided the 

 question ? Alas ! must it be confessed by an 

 ambitious ranchera that it was not wholly the 

 fertile, if neglected and unfenced land, the 

 fruit-trees in bearing, the generally admirable 

 possibilities of the ranch from a farming 

 point of view, which alone turned the scales 

 when weighed against hideous, nay, almost 

 unparalleled, disorder and neglect ? What 

 was it, then ? An attractive carriage-drive 

 bordered with young trees, a few rose-bushes 

 before the door, a magnificent cottonwood 



