Then there was a long letter from his guardian, reminding Snap that, 'had he only been advised by him, he might now be occupying an honourable position in commerce or the law, and making his way to a fair competency in his maturer years.'
'Yes,' muttered Snap, 'and supping on blue pills, with a breakfast of black draught, or (if very well) only Eno, to follow. No, thank you, my worthy relative,' muttered the boy. 'I prefer these "Arctic solitudes and uncultured men," as you civilly call them, to a solicitor's office, any day.'
Snap's guardian fell into a common error. Civilised himself, he couldn't understand the beauties of barbarism. Snap could; and of the two, barbarism and civilisation, thought barbarism the better horse.
The odd thing that Christmas was that there was no letter from Frank or Towzer, to whom Snap had already written more than once. Later on, Snap got a letter, but, as we will ourselves visit the other boys shortly, it is unnecessary to refer further to that here.
The Admiral's glasses nearly led Snap into a bad scrape, though the glasses were in no way to blame for it. As he stood trying them from the door of the ranche-house one morning, he said to Wharton, who was beside him:
'Dick, I believe I can see a band of cattle making up towards the line.'
'Like enough,' replied Dick, 'for there is, maybe, some little feed up that way; but you had better turn them, if you can, we don't want to lose any that way.'
'What way, Dick?'
'Why, if they get on the line the train may catch them before we do, and the C.P.R. won't stop for a beast or two; the "cow-catcher"' (a great iron fender in front of the engine) 'will just pick them up and chuck them off the rails in heaps.'
'The deuce,' muttered Snap, 'then I'd better go; the boys are out, and if the silly brutes go on as they are going now they'll just about get on to the line by the time the passenger train comes along.'