16 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA, 



of the ranch, was much the same as it had been save 

 that the ricks of alfalfa grew larger and larger each 

 year and the problem of making and using the hay- 

 grew to be portentous. The mountains remained 

 the same always, and the boy loved them deeply and 

 climbed them eagerly, going up where never white 

 man had been before, just to gaze off afar to other 

 snowy ranges, and across sunny yellow valleys in 

 the desert, beautiful from afar. Mi the cowboys 

 loved him and worked faithfully for him ; every one 

 worked as hard as he could and the cattle waxed fat 

 on a thousand hills. 



In November it was that the letter came, the letter 

 written in that familiar crabbed yet plain handwrit- 

 ing that the father used. Nearly always the father's 

 letters gave the boy much pleasure. He opened this 

 one expecting it to be like the others that had come, 

 but it was a shock to find in it a totally different 

 note. It read like this: "My boy, I wish you to 

 come home. Times are hard back here; hired men 

 are no good any more. I am getting old and infirm. 

 I need you very much. Come home and help me 

 with the farm. I do not see how I can get along 

 without you longer." 



The letter gave the boy a rude shock. All at once 

 he realized bow he loved the wild ranch with its free- 

 dom, its responsibility, its opportunities for doing 

 things. He loved every hill and every mesa and 

 every canyon. Half of the canyons he had named, 

 some of them he only had ridden through. He 

 loved the sun and air, the yellow bunchgrass, the 



