Evelyn extended a cordial invitation to Mrs. Jones and her two daughters to drive over to the ranch-house some day and spend the day with her, and the mother gladly accepted the invitation. The girls were two healthy-looking la.s.ses, both blondes with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes.

Terry kept the old man busy telling him of the improvements that they were contemplating making on the ranch and of the residence that they would build down by the big mineral spring.

"Great rattlers!" the old man exclaimed. "You're sho gwine to spend a lot of money, ain't you?"

"Yes, we've got to in order to get a good start. If you know of any ranchmen within a hundred miles of us who want to sell a hundred or two beef cattle just tell us where to find him and we'll go after the cattle."

"Waal, I don't believe I know of any just now who want to sell any cattle other then to the market, but I reckon you can find plenty of them along the line of the railroad."

"How many cattle do you want to buy?" he asked.

"About one thousand," was the reply.

"Land! but you'll have a big lot of 'em."

"Oh, we could keep ten thousand on the ranch and keep them fat, too, for the gra.s.s down here is very rich."

"Yes, too rich for the farmers. We raise gra.s.s on our farms all summer.

We raise a heap of corn and cotton."

"Yes, we will raise corn, too, next year, for the use of our horses and hogs, but not for the cattle."

"Gwine to raise pork, eh?"

"Yes, pork will sell in the market just as readily as beef will, and we are going to raise our own supplies for our cowboys and for family use.

We have forty thousand acres on the range, which is room enough to feed several hundred people, as well as the cattle on the range and ducks, pigs and chicken. I believe that our dairyman is making some of the finest b.u.t.ter ever seen in this part of the South. It is sweet and rich and as yellow as gold. Generally one can't get a gla.s.s of milk or a pound of b.u.t.ter on any ranch, because the ranchmen don't take the trouble to make it. Everything pays that is raised on a ranch, and the greater the variety the more pay."

"That's so," said the old man, shaking the ashes from his corncob pipe; "but I reckon you'll have considerable trouble with coyotes and cattle thieves."

"Yes, we expect to have a little trouble with them, but we have a way of dealing with cattle thieves which we have found to be very corrective.

Every cowboy on our ranch has a Winchester rifle, and a lead pill from one of them makes a cattle thief sick. Then, too, a rope is something very distasteful to that breed of mankind, and as for coyotes, we will enclose that part of the ranch where we are keeping the pigs and ducks and chickens with a high wire-net fence, which no coyote can scale."

"Mister, wire fences cost a heap of money."

"Very true; but they will pay for themselves in one season."

By and by the old farmer's wife and daughters, having made their little purchases in the store, came out to the wagon ready to start home.

Evelyn came out with them and was on the best of terms with all three.

She shook hands with Farmer Jones and told him that his wife and daughters had promised to come over and spend the day with her in the near future, and that if he put up any objection to that he would probably get himself into trouble.

"All right, miss," said he. "I'll let 'em come and will drive 'em, too."

"Do so," she replied. "We'll set you down at the head of the table and see that you get plenty to eat."

"Waal, miss, don't offer me any jerked beef, for I can't eat it."

"Neither can I," she laughed, "and we never have it on our table. We'll give you fish, prairie chicken, quail, jack-rabbit and that genuine old Southern dish, bacon and greens."

"That's it. You can bet on my coming, and right soon, too. Bacon and greens is a dish fit for a king, but you haven't got any on this ranch, I reckon."

"No, we'll buy that in town, as we do sugar and tea and coffee, and if you are fond of coffee, brother and Mr. Fearnot can certainly make the best that you ever tasted."

"Gosh! I do love it."

Fred and Terry a.s.sisted the mother and her two daughters into the wagon, and the girls they literally lifted off their feet by catching them around the waist and lifting them up as though they were little five-year-old-children. The girls blushed and laughed, and Evelyn really enjoyed their confusion.

They all drove off, waving their handkerchiefs at Evelyn and the boys.

"Fred," said Evelyn, "they are plain, good, honest folks. The mother is a good woman and the girls do their share of the household work at home.

Their hands show it."

"Yes, and yet the old man is able to keep good servants for them, for black servants are cheap down in this region, and by the way, dear, when you go up to Crabtree again, you must start an inquiry for a good colored cook among your lady friends. Tell them you want a good one, who understands washing and ironing and all about cooking. At present we boys do all the cooking down here and we send our laundry up to Crabtree, where there are only three Chinamen to the whole town."

"Fred, let me do the cooking at present," she asked.

"Oh, yes, it's fun for you now; but you would get tired at it after a while."

"I'll make you boys do the rough work. When you go out to hunt in the woods you go to sleep on the ground on blankets and do your own cooking, so it certainly won't hurt you to rough it a little now."

"No, it never did hurt us; but Terry and I know that there are at least a score of young ladies in Crabtree who want to come down here out of curiosity and for a change. We are going to have two additional rooms built onto the house so that the two bedrooms that are now furnished can be given up to them and we boys will occupy the annex."

That evening they sat up quite late talking and planning.

"See here, Fred," said Terry, "we have no musical instrument on the ranch, so sister had better go in to-morrow and buy a piano."

"Oh, my! how extravagant you boys are becoming," she exclaimed. "The idea of a piano on a ranch would certainly astonish the natives."

"Yes, so it would, but for all that we've got to have it."

"Well, one of you must go in after it, for I won't."

"I'll go," said Terry, "for a good piano we must have; and, besides that, we must have a good violin, a good flute, and---"

"A ba.s.s drum," Evelyn interrupted.

"Yes," added Fred, "and a hurdy-gurdy."

The next morning Evelyn, was up before either of the boys, for as soon as she heard the little chickens peeping around she sprang up, put on a wrapper and went out to see them and feed them.

The dairyman was up feeding and milking the cows. Evelyn looked on for a while, and finally took up a pail and began milking, too. The dairyman looked on in astonishment.

"Great rattlers, miss!" he exclaimed. "Where did you learn how to milk?"

"Why, up at my home in New York state," she replied. "I made all the b.u.t.ter from two splendid cows, and more often did the milking than the hired help did."

"Well," said he, "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen you milking this morning."

She was talking with the dairyman when Fred showed up, exclaiming: