At the door Jim raised his voice.

"Thanks, fellows! Phil and I are going ranching and we haven't time for booze any more, but you go on down to the Kenora and tell Charlie Mack to give you a couple of rounds each at my expense. I'll 'phone him as soon as we get home.

"You're a dog-goned bunch of real, live sports,--every mother's son of ye."

CHAPTER XIX

Ranching De Luxe

A team of horses and a wagon were standing at the front entrance to Mrs. Clunie's boarding house.

It was the same team and wagon that Jim Langford took over from Rattlesnake Dalton with the Brantlock Ranch.

It was early morning and still dark, but the two would-be ranchers had already loaded up the wagon with their tools, bedding and personal effects.

With a nod of satisfaction to each other, they grinned, tied their saddle horses on behind, clambered into the front of the wagon and started off.

This ranching fad was entirely Jim's, for Phil looked with Lord Nelson's blind eye when it came to seeing any quick fortune in fruit farming. But knowing that the Brantlock Ranch was a sheer give-away at the price they had paid for it and not being desirous of parting from Jim or of smothering any attempt on the part of the latter to take up some definite work, he had compromised: Jim was to remain on the ranch all the time, while Phil would keep on working at his trade with Sol Hanson, thereby giving Sol time to look about for a subst.i.tute and also ensuring a good food supply until they should realise on their next season's general produce, which Jim had decided to plant and cultivate between his fruit trees. This revolutionary plan of combining truck gardening and ranching had been a pet scheme of Jim's for a number of years. He contended, and rightly too, that despite the fact that a fruit rancher was a fruit rancher, there was no particular reason why a rancher should not be a farmer as well; rather than lay out his young trees and sit still for the next five or six years and become poor or bankrupt in the process of waiting till his trees should grow to fruition--as so many seemed to be doing--when by pocketing his pride and condescending to a little hard work in market gardening, he could at least make ends meet until the time came for the greater harvest of the big fruits.

Jim Langford was not destined to demonstrate this theory personally, although he lived to be confirmed in his wisdom and to see the plan work out to splendid success.

The Brantlock Ranch was only some two miles from town, and Phil, for company's sake, had agreed to spend his spare time there, riding in and out to work morning and evening.

When all was ready, Jim handled the reins of his team, blew a kiss in the location of the chaste and goodly Mrs. Clunie's bedroom window, and they started off.

Phil glanced up at the clouded sky, through which the grey of dawn was endeavouring to peep. Away beyond the mist, the dark outline of the cold, enveloping hills barely showed itself.

"It's a great day to start out ranching, Jim," he commented with a shiver, as he b.u.t.toned up his coat and turned up his collar.

Jim looked upward. A blob of very moist snow--the forerunner of many--splashed into his eye and blurred his vision.

"It sure is!" he agreed, squeezing it out.

"It is a good job we have Morrison's tarpaulin over our stuff."

"Ugh-huh!"

Five minutes' silence ensued, in which the grey of dawn seemed to be getting the worse of its tussle with the black of night.

"I guess the gang down town will think we're crazy starting out to ranch in the month of November."

"Ay!"

A splash of snow struck the bridge of Phil's nose, spread itself and slid slowly down to the point, where it clung precariously for a moment, then lost its hold. Another--the size of a silver dollar--landed sheer on the nape of Jim's neck just where the coat and his hair did not meet. Jim turned up his coat collar to forestall a possible repet.i.tion.

"There's one consolation, Jim, we'll have everything in apple-pie order by the spring-time."

"Ya!"

A cattleman, going townward, pa.s.sed.

"Rotten weather for movin', fellows!" was his chilling comment.

Jim looked up lugubriously, but without verbal response.

Phil well understood the mood, and did not worry.

Langford might have been pondering on the comfortable bed he had left at Mrs. Clunie's and on the advisability of turning back, or he might have been figuring how much they were going to make on the next year's fruit crop. As he did not turn back, his thoughts, despite his monosyllables, were evidently bravely optimistic.

On they jogged through the enveloping mists of the vanguard of a snow-storm, huddling themselves gradually into smaller and smaller compa.s.s as the sleety snow warmed--or rather, cooled--to its task of discouragement and settled down in ghostly earnest, pushing back the already delayed dawn and casting a cheerless gloom over the countryside.

Before the budding ranchers had gone half a mile, the watery snow was running off their clothes. When a mile was completed they were soaked through, sitting like two scare-crows, their hats almost to their chins and their chins buried in their b.u.t.toned mackinaws.

They were nearing their journey's end--too miserable for words--when a horse clip-clopped on the muddy road behind them. The rider drew up alongside them.

"Gee, boys, but you started early. I thought I'd never catch up on you."

The speaker was Eileen Pederstone, snug in her riding habit and enveloped in an oilskin coat.

"In the name of all that's lovely!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jim. "What are you doing up at this time in the morning?"

"I'm up by this time pretty nearly every morning, Mister Impertinence.

"I thought I might be in time to catch you at Mrs. Clunie's before you left. I just heard of this enterprise late last night."

She laughed.

"My, but that was a great coup. You're a dandy pair! I just wanted to wish you both the best of luck right at the start."

"Thanks awfully!" grinned Jim, "for we sure are getting it."

"Oh, tush! This is nothing. Okanagan ranchers don't worry about a little snow in November or December. It's a good warm blanket for the roots of the trees when the cold comes along, and a fine drink for them later on in the spring-time.

"Here's something for your first meal on the ranch. Who's to be cook,--you Jim, or Phil?"

Phil glanced over quickly and Eileen's cheeks took on a rosier tint.

"Oh, Jim's to be the rancher and I've to earn a living for both in the meantime," answered Phil, "so I guess he will be cook--unless we can hog-tie one somewhere."

Eileen handed them a large parcel from under her oilskin.

"Well,--that's all, boys," she said. "I'm going to Victoria pretty soon, to be dad's house-keeper. But I'll be out to see you before I go. You're off on your own at last,--and that's the only way. If you don't like ranching, sell out. But whatever you do,--oh boys!--keep on your own. Don't ever work for the other fellow any more. Stay out on your own. One is always of most value to one's-self. I wish I could preach that from the hill-tops. Wage slaving for somebody else is the curse of the times."

"Hush!--you rascally little socialist; do you wish to ruin all the millionaires and trust companies by giving away their trade secrets in this way?" dryly commented Jim.