About noon our friends crossed a river, on the further side of which were the feeding-lands of Nares's ranche. Some miles again from the river was a range of low rolling hills and broken lands, the shelter provided by Nature for the beasts of the field against blizzards and snowstorms. Nares used to boast his ranche had every advantage obtainable in America—plenty of water, river-lands to cut hay upon for winter feed, hills and broken land for shelter in storm-time, and a railway handy to take produce to market. There are very few such ranches nowadays in America, as even its great prairies are not boundless—a fact much overlooked by its go-ahead citizens.
'I reckon the cows sold pretty well, boss, this year,' suggested the old man when he had unhitched the team and kindled a bit of a fire for lunch.
'Yes, they sold well, Wharton, and none of them got damaged on the way down. There won't be much to do on the ranche now till spring,' added Nares.
'Guess that's why you're bringing an extra hand along,' snapped the old man. 'Why! Jeehoshaphat! what's the matter with you now?' he shouted.
Poor Snap had tried first one side of the fire, then the other, with an equal want of success. On one side the smoke nearly choked and blinded him, on the other worse things awaited him. A blanket, which just accommodated 'the boss' and Wharton, was stretched on the windward side of the fire. With a weary sigh Snap threw himself down beside it. With a yell of pain he bounded up again, holding first one foot, then the other, in the air, and all the time applying his hands sorrowfully to the softest part of his person. The old foreman had laid a trap for the tender-foot, and he had sat upon it, the 'it' being a bed of what the natives call prickly pears, a peculiarly vicious kind of cactus about the size of a small potato, which unobserved spreads all over the ground, and sends its long thin spines through everything which presses upon them. When, at last, the good-natured Nares understood his friend's sorrows, and had managed to stop laughing, he gave Snap a place on the blanket, and, turning him over on his face, proceeded tenderly to pluck him. It is no fun to be converted at a moment's notice into a well-filled pincushion.
At lunch Nares told old Wharton the story of the maniac-hunt recorded in the last chapter. As he told the story of little Madge's danger and salvation Wharton's eyes wandered from 'the boss' to the boy beside him. At last, when the story was over, he sighed softly 'Jee-hosh-a-phat.' Then he rolled his quid and expectorated. Then he got up and held out his great fist to Snap with these words, 'Say! were them pears prickly? Well, never mind. I guess you needn't sit on no more now. I'm a-gwine to be your "miss," Britisher;' and it is only fair to add, the old man kept his word.
An hour or two afterwards Nares and Snap got out at Rosebud, and our hero entered his new home, a big one-storied house built of rough logs dovetailed into each other, the cracks filled up with moss and covered over with clay. Indoors, the floor was covered with skins. On the walls were antlers of deer and wapiti and mountain sheep, from which hung half a dozen rifles, hunting-knives, &c. There was a bench or two about the place, a big table, at one end a huge open stove, and along the walls were ranged a dozen shelves or bunks not unlike those you see on board ship. A small room opened off from the main apartment, and in this Nares himself slept and kept his accounts. Outside were some few smaller buildings—a cook-house, a forge, and so on. A huge piece of land enclosed with rough timber fencing ran alongside the house. This was a corral for horses or weak cattle. A smaller corral for horses likely to be wanted at a short notice also adjoined the ranche.
'Now, Snap,' said Nares, 'this is Rosebud. Rosy enough for a worker, what we call a "rustler" out here, but not a bed of roses for a loafer. There's your bunk when you are up here, but I expect you'll be wanted out on the feeding-grounds most of your time. Anyhow, for the first day or two you can help me with the books, and try your hand at the cooking.'
So Snap tried his hand at bread-making and failed; flour and water won't make bread of themselves, and, even when you have made your dough, if you don't flour your hands the compound will stick to them. However, old Wharton set the boy right and gave him the soup to look after.
'Put some salt in it,' said the old chap, 'you'll find it in a tin up there,' pointing to a shelf over his head. 'You'd better just taste it to see as you get it right. The boys don't like no fooling with their broth.'