It was early morning and still dark, but the two would-be ranchers had already loaded up the wagon with their tools, bedding and personal effects.
With a nod of satisfaction to each other, they grinned, tied their saddle horses on behind, clambered into the front of the wagon and started off.
This ranching fad was entirely Jim’s, for Phil looked with Lord Nelson’s blind eye when it came to seeing any quick fortune in fruit farming. But knowing that the Brantlock Ranch was a sheer give-away at the price they had paid for it and not being desirous of parting from Jim or of smothering any attempt on the part of the latter to take up some definite work, he had compromised: Jim was to remain on the ranch all the time, while Phil would keep on working at his trade with Sol Hanson, thereby giving Sol time to look about for a substitute and also ensuring a good food supply until they should realise on their next season’s general produce, which Jim had decided to plant and cultivate between his fruit trees. This revolutionary plan of combining truck gardening and ranching had been a pet scheme of Jim’s for a number of years. He contended, and rightly too, 259 that despite the fact that a fruit rancher was a fruit rancher, there was no particular reason why a rancher should not be a farmer as well; rather than lay out his young trees and sit still for the next five or six years and become poor or bankrupt in the process of waiting till his trees should grow to fruition––as so many seemed to be doing––when by pocketing his pride and condescending to a little hard work in market gardening, he could at least make ends meet until the time came for the greater harvest of the big fruits.
Jim Langford was not destined to demonstrate this theory personally, although he lived to be confirmed in his wisdom and to see the plan work out to splendid success.
The Brantlock Ranch was only some two miles from town, and Phil, for company’s sake, had agreed to spend his spare time there, riding in and out to work morning and evening.
When all was ready, Jim handled the reins of his team, blew a kiss in the location of the chaste and goodly Mrs. Clunie’s bedroom window, and they started off.
Phil glanced up at the clouded sky, through which the grey of dawn was endeavouring to peep. Away beyond the mist, the dark outline of the cold, enveloping hills barely showed itself.
“It’s a great day to start out ranching, Jim,” he commented with a shiver, as he buttoned up his coat and turned up his collar.
Jim looked upward. A blob of very moist snow––the forerunner of many––splashed into his eye and blurred his vision.
“It sure is!” he agreed, squeezing it out.