“Didn’t you?” Jean smiled. “You should have lived here during the range trouble. The range used to be free for all, girls, but the cattlemen said when the sheep grazed on it, they didn’t leave enough for a grasshopper to perch on. So they tried to drive them out. And you know the old riddle. When an irresistible body meets an immovable body, what is the result?”
“General and inevitable smash-up,” Ted said.
“Exactly. In this case, after thousands of sheep had been killed and many men too; after the wells had been poisoned, and all the State turned into a boiling kettle of trouble; all at once, Uncle Sam stepped in, and homesteaded the land. That meant the loss of the range in a way, although up here in our corner, we haven’t had much trouble, have we, mother?”
“It’s a blessing we haven’t,” declared Mrs. Murray fervently. “Between the Indians, the long winters, the range troubles, and the loneliness out here, I’m thinking we’re as much pioneers and good pilgrims as those that landed on the rock at Cape Cod. If it hadn’t been for the children, I’d have grieved, but there’s no time for grieving with a brood of bairns growing up around you.”
“It must be nice to belong to a large family,” Polly said, wistfully. “Especially if they looked alike like yours do, Mrs. Murray. It must be like having a lot of little selves around you.”
“Isn’t that just like Polly,” cried Ted. “Now, I’ve got two brothers, and they’re not a bit like me. Mother says I am a good deal more like the one boy in the family. Oh, look, girls!”
“It’s only Don,” Jean said, rising to get a better view. “He’s riding Scamp. That’s his own pony. He broke him himself, and taught him tricks. They say he’d make a good polo pony, but Don wouldn’t sell him for any price.”
The girls rose to get a good look as Don flashed by on the calico pony. Down went his hat on the earth, and he swung round in an oval, leaned far over sideways, and caught up the hat. Then once again, and this time, it was the handkerchief from his throat that went fluttering into the dust, and as he came back, he seemed to almost slip out of the saddle, as he caught it up.
Then he took the rope that hung at the saddle-bow, and sent it twirling far out in ever widening circles and ovals.
“Don’t catch me, Don,” Peggie called merrily, as she ran up from the corral.