'Well,' the old man answered, with anything but a cheerful face, 'I don't go much on tender-feet myself, and I don't go for to say that I make a specialty of home-reared aristocrats; but you say as they'll work and have the dollars—I guess we mout as well try 'em.'
And so that was settled. At last, after over a year, Snap wrote home a request that 200l. (half of all he possessed in this world) might be put to his credit at a Chicago bank, and advised the Winthrops to do the same.
Although strongly prejudiced against tender-feet as a class, Snap's friends were lucky enough to make a very favourable impression at Rosebud from the first, for, instead of driving over in a buggy from the railway depot, Frank and Towzer trudged in on foot, brown as berries, all their earthly goods in two small bundles which they carried on their backs, and ten dollars apiece in their pockets, earned by driving cattle up from the South, earning money by coming over two or three States on foot, instead of paying money to come on the cars.
When they first landed in America, not much more than a year before, the three lads who now stood, shaking hands and laughing, at Rosebud were fair-skinned, soft-handed lads, full of pluck, but looking to others for advice. Now they were men—hard and brown, with a quiet tone of decision in their voices, knowing how hard a dollar is to earn, and having some idea of the necessity of holding on to it when earned.
Wharton confessed that he liked the look of them, and the four set about making arrangements for their journey at once.
It seemed that years ago, when hunting in a range of mountains to the west of Rosebud, Wharton had been snowed up and obliged to winter in a certain valley which he christened Bull Pine Park, because it was surrounded by a number of Scotch firs, called 'bull pines' by the Yankees. Here, it seems, he noticed that hundreds and thousands of deer came in to winter, finding ample food and shelter in what was a sheltered basin of enormous extent, full of sweet, sun-dried, yellow grass, and protected by the shape of the land and the timber. To the old man's eye it was a type of what a range should be—a small range, that is to say—and he had kept his own counsel and waited until he had capital enough to stock his park and start on his own account. His only doubt was as to the Indians. True, he had seen none when there, or he might never have come back; but the valley was a long way from the frontier ranches, was very full of game, and on the stream which watered it he had noticed signs of what looked like a large annual fishing-camp. It was Wharton's intention, after the round-up, to revisit his valley with his three partners, to carefully reconnoitre the feeding-grounds, build a shanty, and, if possible, put up a corral, make certain about the nature and disposition of his red-skinned neighbours, and then, if all was satisfactory, return to Rosebud and drive in his cattle in the early spring.
Nares had given his old foreman leave to run his cattle and half-a-dozen of Snap's with the Rosebud herd until the spring, when the Bull Pine Firm, as Snap proudly called it, would come over to Rosebud and drive off about one hundred and twenty beasts as the nucleus of their future herd.
During the round-up the two young Winthrops won the good opinion of everyone by their reckless riding, and still more by the songs they sang over the camp fire at night. Towzer even had a banjo, the parting present of Jumbo, Jonathan Brown's black factotum, and with this he was kept uncommonly busy all night, being excused all share in the cooking arrangements in return for his music.
'Towzer, give us old Jumbo's own song,' said Frank one night, when all the old favourites had been sung more than once.
'Which?' asked Towzer, 'Jumbo had such a varied répertoire.'