“It’s hardly a ranch, though we have hopes,” replied Blair. “Mother and I run the farm. My father’s not—he’s away.”
“Looks like good soil. Plenty of water and fine grass,” observed Adam.
“Best farming country all around—these valleys,” declared the lad, warming to enthusiasm. “Ranchers taking it all up. Only a few valleys left. There’s one just below this—about a hundred acres—if I could only get that!... But no such luck for me.”
“You can never tell,” replied Adam, in his quiet way. “You say ranchers are coming in?”
“Yes. San Diego is growing fast. People are buying out the Mexicans and Indians up in these hills. In a few years any rancher with one of these valleys will be rich.”
“How much land do you own?”
“My mother bought this little farm here—ten acres—and the valley, which was about ninety. But my father—we lost the valley. And we manage to live here.”
Adam’s quick sympathy divined that something pertaining to the lad’s father was bitter and unhappy. He questioned further about the farm, what they raised, where they marketed it, how many cattle, horses, chickens, ducks they had. In half an hour Adam knew the boy and liked him.
“You’re pretty well educated for a farmer boy,” remarked Adam.
“I went to school till I was sixteen. We’re from Indiana—Vincennes. Father got the gold fever. We came West. Mother and I took to a surer way of living.”