ON A CATTLE RANCH
Do you remember your first sight of the sea? I've not forgotten mine, though it must have been many years before yours. I suppose I wasn't more than four, and kindly patronising elder brothers and sisters had tried to describe it to me beforehand, but the most I pictured was a very, very big pond, with water as flat and uninteresting as that of most ponds. No one can have any real notion of the sea before seeing it; and it is the same with the prairie. I have often imagined it, but now that we are actually on it, driving over it, I find that all my mind-pictures are lifeless compared with the reality. It gives one a feeling of freedom, as if one had been living always in rooms and suddenly got out. It is not flat like a table, but full of gentle curves and sweeps, as if it were always just going to reveal something unknown, and yet it reaches on for ever on all sides. It makes us feel quite insignificant as our conveyance crawls along the centre of a gigantic circle which appears to move with us. But the thing which is most surprising is the beauty of it. The grass is growing freely and is very fresh, and mingled with it, like poppies and cornflowers in a wheatfield, are innumerable flowers, red and blue and yellow, shining like jewels in the brilliant sunlight—some are like sunflowers, and others, growing singly, are tall red lilies. There are clumps of trees, too, here and there, little round islands of them, bluffs, they are called. We have left the mountains now and descended into the great plains once only inhabited by wild tribes of the Redskins and mighty herds of buffalo, but now for the most part taken up by white men for grazing-ground.
A LEAN SUNBURNT MAN.
When our engine ran into Calgary station, with a great clanging of the big bell, we found a sunburnt lean young man of twenty or so, in the shady hat, blue shirt, breeches, and leggings we have become accustomed to now. He greeted us very shortly: "For Mr. Humphrey's ranch?" and when we said "Yes," led the way outside to where an odd kind of waggonette, drawn by two horses, was waiting. We gather it is called a "democrat," for we heard the stationmaster say, "Put 'em in the democrat" as sundry square wooden boxes were gathered up from a storehouse. Our luggage was a mere trifle compared with the miscellaneous mass of sacks and boxes and bundles that were piled in behind. We were six hours late, as we were due at two this morning and it is now eight. I remark on it to our silent young driver when he gathers up the reins. He laughs shortly. "You never can tell, sometimes it's as much as a day——"
LONE PINE RANCH.
The trail out on to the boundless prairie, after getting clear of the town, is merely marked by two deep ruts. When we meet another "rig," as conveyances of any sort are called here, the driver usually goes off on to the grass to make way for us, as we have a heavy load, a courtesy our young driver acknowledges by raising his whip.
It is very, very hot, and as we jog along in silence it is difficult not to fall asleep. It seems a long, long time before the driver points with his whip to a distant herd of cattle.
"They belong to the Lone Pine Ranch," he volunteers. That's the ranch we are going to stay at. Then a group of log buildings, with a few trees near, rises out of the plain, and we draw nearer and nearer steadily and realise this is our destination.