And how did I find ranching now? Was I awfully keen
about it and was it ripping good sport? I said yes, to an extent. She
said she thought it must be ripping, what with chasing the wild cattle
over hill and dale to lasso them, and firing off revolvers in company
with lawless cowboys inflamed by drink. She went on to give me some more
details of ranch life, and got so worked up about it that we settled
things right there, she being a lady of swift decisions. She said it
wouldn't be very exciting for her, but it might be fine for son and
daughter, and bring them all together in a more sacred companionship.
"So I come back and got that place down the creek for her, and she sent
out a professional architect and a landscape gardener, and some other
experts that would know how to build a ranch _de luxe_, and the thing
was soon done. And she sent son on ahead to get slightly acquainted with
the wild life. He was a tall bent thing, about thirty, with a long
squinted face and going hair, and soft, innocent, ginger-coloured
whiskers, and hips so narrow they'd hardly hold his belt up. That rowdy
mother of his, in trying to make a companion of him, had near scared him
to death.
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