Besides the stock, there was one farm-hand—a youth of about seventeen, employed by Crowley, who had consented to remain with the new owner.
When Ranger had left, the two men set out on a general tour of inspection.
"It strikes me, Russell, that fellow Crowley, who has just gone back home, must have been a very lazy chap to be willing to part with such a capital location as this is for the money he did!"
"I don't understand him at all, sir," said Russell, as they walked over the fields, and through the rich grasses of much that was still untouched prairie-land. "He appears to have done very little. There has not been more than about thirty acres under cultivation all the time he was here."
"I suppose he must have run out his capital, and left nothing to buy stock with."
"I daresay that was about it. He probably sent all he raised the first season to market, or nearly all, and the quantity for the next harvest was so small that he never recovered."
"What I think of doing is, to try and get about fifty acres under wheat for next harvest. We ought to be able to manage that."
"Yes, with some little additional labour, which I daresay can be hired in town."
"What's the distance into town?" inquired Sinclair.
"I think the nearest is Church Bridge, about seven miles; the next is Bredenbury, which is about two miles farther."