THE RANCH
Dusk was not far away when the boys, stumbling down a low hillside, came
into sight of an oblong clearing in the forest with a wooden house
standing on one side of it. That was all Frank noticed, for he found it
difficult to keep himself on his feet, and his sight seemed hazy.
Indeed, he fell down once or twice in the steeper places, and had some
trouble in getting up; and after that he had only a confused
recollection of crossing an open space and entering a dwelling. A man
shook hands with him, and a woman in a print dress made him sit down in
a low chair before she set out a bountiful meal. Soon after he had eaten
a considerable share of it Harry led him into a very little room where a
bed like a shelf with a side to it was fixed against one wall. Five
minutes later he was blissfully unconscious of his recent painful
experience.
The sun was streaming in through the window when he awoke, feeling
wonderfully refreshed, and, dressing himself in some overalls which had
been laid across the foot of his bed, he walked out into the larger
general room. It had uncovered walls of logs and a very roughly boarded
floor, and there seemed to be little in it besides a stove, a table and
several chairs.
A brown-faced man with a little gray in his hair sat at one end of the
table and at the other end sat a woman resembling him and of about the
same age. Harry, sitting between them, was apparently engaged in
narrating their adventures. Frank, who took the place laid out for him,
found that his supper had not spoiled his breakfast, for he fell upon
the pork, potatoes, dried apricots, hot cakes and syrup with an
excellent appetite. When the meal was over, the man led Frank into
another room and filling his pipe asked him to sit down.
"We'd better have a talk," he said. "You can take the chair yonder."
Frank looked at him more closely when he sat down. Mr. Oliver, who was
dressed in duck overalls, was rather spare in figure, though he looked
wiry. His manner was quiet, and his voice was that of an educated man,
but he had somewhat piercing gray eyes.
"I had a sincere regard for your father," he began. "On that account
alone I should be glad to have you here; but first of all we had better
understand each other. You mentioned that you had been in business in
Minneapolis and afterward in Winnipeg. Didn't you like it?"
"No, sir," replied Frank, who felt that it would be wiser to answer
carefully any questions this man might ask. "Still, that wasn't exactly
why I gave it up, though"--and he hesitated--"to say I gave it up isn't
quite correct."
"If I remember, you called it being fired, in your letter," Mr. Oliver
suggested with a twinkle in his eyes. "What led up to that?"
"Slack trade in the last case. I'd like to think it was only the grudge
a bullying clerk had against me in the other."
"Then, if you had been allowed, you would have stayed with the milling
business, though you didn't care for it?"
"Yes," responded Frank. "Anyway, I'd have stayed until I could have got
hold of something I liked better."
Mr. Oliver nodded in a way which suggested that he was pleased with the
answer.
"Well," he said, "that brings us to the question why you came out here.
Was it because you had heard that it was a good country for hunting and
fishing?"
Frank's face flushed. "No, sir," he replied, "I wanted to earn a living,
and I understood that a"--he was going to say a live man, but thought
better of it--"any one who wasn't too particular could generally come
across something to do quickest in the West. In fact, I'd like to begin
at once. After buying my ticket and getting odd meals I've only two or
three dollars left."
"Two-fifty, to be precise. My sister took your clothes away to mend.
Now, it's possible that I might manage to get you into the office of
some lumber or general trading company in one of the cities. How would
that do?"
"I'd rather go on to the land. I'd like to be a rancher."
"How much do you know about ranching?"
"Very little, but I could soon learn."
It was Frank's first blunder, and he realized it as he saw the gleam of
amusement in Mr. Oliver's eyes.
"It's by no means certain," commented the latter. "There are men who
can't learn to use the ax in a lifetime. We'll let it go at that, and
say you're willing to learn. Have you any idea of making money by
ranching?"
Frank thought a moment. "Well," he said finally, "I'd naturally wish to
make some, but I don't think that counts for most with me. I'd rather
have the kind of life I like."
"The trouble with a good many men is that when they get it they find out
they like something else. Quite sure that hunting and fishing aren't
taking too prominent a place in your mind? If they are, I'd better tell
you that the favorite amusement in this country is chopping down big
trees. There's another fact that you must consider. It takes a good deal
of money to buy a ranch and, unless it's already cleared, you have to
wait a long while before you get any of the money back. This place cost
me about nine thousand dollars, one way or another, and in all
probability there's not a business on the Pacific Slope in which I
wouldn't get twice as much as I'm getting here for the money, though
I've been here a good many years. Now what do you expect to do with two
dollars and a half?"
What he had heard had been somewhat of a shock to Frank, and the
question was difficult to answer.
"I might earn a little more by degrees, sir," he said hopefully.
Mr. Oliver smiled at him encouragingly.
"It's possible; and there's cheaper land than mine, while a smart man
used to the country can often get hold of a small contract of some kind.
Now I'll tell you what we'll do. Wait a month, and then if you find that
you like the life I'll hire you for what anybody else would give you."
With that he arose, signifying that the discussion was over, and Frank
went out of doors and joined Harry in the clearing. The latter held a
big handspike with an arched iron hook hinged to it, and he invited
Frank to assist him in rolling logs.
"It will give you some idea how a ranch is cleared," he said. "To begin
with, you had better take a look around."
Frank did so and first of all noticed the rather rambling house, part of
which was built of logs notched into one another at the ends, though the
rest, which had evidently been added to it later, was of sawed lumber.
It was roofed with what he fancied were red cedar shingles. On the other
side of it, carefully fenced off with tall split rails, stood orderly
ranks of trees, some in delicate pink and white blossom. Harry told him
they were apples and prunes and peaches. Nearer him were one or two
fields of timothy grass and fresh green oats, and then more of the
latter growing among fern-engirdled stumps sawed off some six feet above
the ground. Beyond them, in turn, half-burned branches were strewn
among another stretch of stumps, then there was a narrow belt where
great trees lately chopped lay in tremendous ruin, and behind them again
the forest rose in an unbroken wall.
"Now," explained Harry, "you have the whole thing in front of you, if
you'll begin at the bush and work back toward the house. First you chop
down the trees, then you burn them up and raise your first crop or two
round the stumps. Afterward by degrees you grub up the stumps and get
the clean, tilled land. When it's been worked a few years it will grow
almost anything."
"But where's the stock?" Frank asked. "I had a notion that a ranch was a
place where you raised no end of horses or cattle."
"That's on the plains," laughed Harry. "On this side of the Rockies it's
any piece of cleared land with a house on it. At quite a few of the
ranches they raise nothing but fruit. As you asked the question, though,
our cattle are in the bush. They run there and live on what they can
find until we round them up. Now we'll get to work."
He turned away after a pair of brawny oxen that were plodding leisurely
across the clearing, and in a little while they halted on the edge of
what Harry called the slashing. This was a belt of fallen timber which
ran around most of the open space. As Frank gazed at the chaos of great
trunks and mighty branches he felt inclined to wonder how Mr. Oliver had
managed to get them down.
"What will you do with these?" he asked.
"Saw or chop off the bigger branches," Harry answered. "Then we'll wait
until the trunks are good and dry in the fall and put a fire to them. It
will burn up all the small stuff, and leave them like this."
He pointed to the rows of blackened and partly burned logs which lay
between the slashing and the half-cleared soil, and Frank noticed that
most of them had been sawed into several pieces.
"Couldn't you sell them for lumber?" he inquired.
"No," replied Harry. "For one thing, it's quite a long way to the
nearest mill and we'd have to build a skidway for a mile or two down to
the water. Besides, in a general way, it's only the redwood and red
cedar that the mills have much use for."
Then he gave Frank a handspike that lay close by, and between them they
prized up one end of a log so that he could slip a chain sling under it.
The other end of the chain was attached to the yoke of the oxen, and
when he called them the big white and red beasts hauled the log away
until he stopped them and went back for another. Frank did not find much
difficulty in this, but it was different when they had drawn six or
seven of the logs together and laid them side by side. Harry said that
the next lot must go on top of the others, and Frank was wondering how
they were to get them there, when his companion laid two or three stout
skids some distance apart against the first of the row. These, it was
evident, would serve as short, slanting bridges, but Frank was still not
clear as to how the next log could be propelled up them.
When Harry brought it up he slipped the chain along toward its middle,
though it cost the boys an effort to prize the mass up with their
handspikes, after which he made one end of the chain fast on the
opposite side of the row, around which he led the oxen. The other end he
hooked to their yoke, so that it now led doubled across the row and
around the trunk they wished to raise. He said that when the chain was
pulled the log would roll up it. He next shouted to the oxen, who
plodded forward straining at the yoke, while he and Frank slipped their
handspikes under opposite ends of the log.
"Heave!" he cried. "Send her up!"
Frank did his utmost, with the perspiration dripping from him and the
veins on his forehead swelling, but the ponderous mass rolled very
slowly up the skids, and several times he fancied it would drag the oxen
backward and slide down on him. Indeed, for about half a minute it hung
stationary, though Harry, who dared not draw out his handspike, shouted
frantic encouragement to the straining beasts. Then it moved another
inch or two, and one released skid shot up as though fired out of a gun
when the log rolled upon the first of the preceding ones. They worked it
well across them, and then freeing the chain went back for another,
though Frank's arms felt as if they had been almost pulled out of their
sockets.
"You want somebody to keep the oxen up to it as well as two to heave,
when the logs are as big as these," said his companion. "Still, some of
the small ranchers do the whole thing alone."
Frank could not help wondering what kind of men these were, but in the
meanwhile he was obliged to bend all his thought on his difficult task,
which grew heavier when, having ranged the logs in two layers, they
commenced the third. The skids were now too short to reach the top of
the second tier without making the slope rather steep and Harry said
that they must cut some new ones. A couple of axes lay close by, and
handing one to Frank he strode into the bush and stopped in front of a
young fir.
"The butt ought to make a skid," he said. "I'll leave you to get it down
and I'll look for another. You do it like this."
Spreading his feet apart and balancing himself lightly, he swung the
heavy, long-hafted ax above his head. The big blade, descending, buried
itself in the trunk, and rose with a flash when he wrenched it clear.
This time he struck horizontally and a neat wedge-shaped chip flew out.
"Now," he said, handing the ax to Frank, "you can go ahead."
He turned away and Frank swung the ax experimentally once or twice. The
thing looked easy. Whirling up the blade, he struck with all his might.
It came down into the notch Harry had made, but it was the flat of it
that struck, and, while the haft jarred his hands, the blade glanced and
just missed his leg. This appeared somewhat extraordinary, and he was a
little more cautious when he tried again. He hit the tree fairly this
time, but almost a foot above the cut, and he was commencing to feel
indignant when he dragged the steel out again, which in itself was not
particularly easy. He then struck horizontally, but the blade did not
seem to go in at all, and at the next attempt the ax buried itself in
the soil, just grazing his boot. This steadied him, for he had no desire
to lame himself for life. Shortening his hold upon the haft, he used it
after the manner of a domestic chopper, until at length, when his hands
were blistered and he was very hot, the tree went down with a crash.
Then turning around he saw Harry watching him with a look of amusement.
"Have you got yours down?" Frank asked.
"Oh, yes," Harry replied, "and another. I've chopped them through for
skids." He pointed to the hacked and splintered log. "Looks as if
something had been eating it, doesn't it?"
Frank's face grew rather red. "You couldn't expect me to drop into it
all at once. Give me a week or two to pick up the swing and balance of
it."
"A week or two!" Harry seemed to address the clustering firs. "They sure
raise smart folks back East."
"How long were you learning?" retorted Frank.
"Well," said Harry thoughtfully, "you could call it most of twelve
years. I used to go whittling with a toy tomahawk soon after I could
walk. Of course, they confiscated the thing now and then. Once it was
after I'd just brought down a one-leg round table."
"Did you ever cut yourself?"
Harry rolled up his trousers and pointed to a big white mark below his
knee.
"I could show you two or three more of them," he commented dryly. "There
are quite a few bush ranchers who haven't got all their toes on."
He cut a skid from the butt of the log, and when they went back to the
pile the work which before had been hard now became more or less
dangerous. They had to prize and sometimes shoulder up the ponderous
masses of timber three-high, and Frank was far from feeling over the
effects of the previous two-days' march. Still, if his companion could
manage it, he was determined that he could, and he toiled on, soaked in
perspiration, straining and gasping over one of the heaviest tasks
connected with clearing land, until to his vast relief Miss Oliver
appeared in the doorway, jingling a cowbell as a signal that dinner was
ready.
They went back to work after the meal, and Frank somehow held out until
the middle of the afternoon. It seemed very hot in the clearing and the
scorching sunrays beat down upon the back of his neck and shoulders. One
of his horribly blistered hands commenced to bleed, he was almost afraid
to straighten his back, and his arms were sore all over. At last as they
were heaving up a heavy log it stuck just on the edge of the tier and
Frank, who felt his breath failing him and his heart beating as though
it would burst, could hear the oxen scuffling furiously on the other
side of the pile.
"Heave!" Harry shouted. "Another inch will land her!"
"I can't!" Frank panted, with his hands slipping upon the lever.
"Then look out!" warned Harry. "Let go of the thing and jump!"
Frank did not remember whether he let go or whether the handspike was
torn from his grasp, but he jumped backward as far as he could and
staggered a few paces farther when he saw the big log rolling down after
him. Then he fell headlong, there was a crash and a great trampling of
hoofs, and he wondered whether the log would crush the life out of him.
When he scrambled to his feet, however, it had stopped not far away; and
in a few moments Harry appeared from behind the pile.
"It pulled the oxen backward right up to the logs," he explained. Then
he looked sharply at Frank. "We haven't done badly for one day, and Aunt
Sophy wants me to haul in some stovewood. You sit there and rest
yourself awhile."
He went away with the oxen, and Frank was thankful to do as he was told,
for his heart was heavy and he was utterly worn out. His hands were torn
and blistered and the logs that he had partly lifted with his body had
bruised his breast and ribs. If this was ranching, it was horrible work,
and he felt that he would break down altogether if he attempted much
more of it. It was nothing like his dream of riding through the bush on
spirited horses after half-wild cattle. Then the troublesome question as
to what he should do if he gave it up had to be faced. He had found that
he had no aptitude for business, and he had a suspicion that work would
be quite as hard in a logging camp or in a sawmill. It was clear that he
could not go home, even if he had the money for his fare, which was not
the case, and he felt very forlorn and miserable.
In the meanwhile the twigs he lay upon were pleasantly soft, and it was
cool and peaceful in the lengthening shadow of the firs. There was a
curious rhythmic drumming sound which he found most soothing and which
he afterward learned was made by a blue grouse not far away. The pungent
smell of withering fir and cedar sprays in the slashing dulled his
senses, until at last his troubles seemed to melt away and he fancied
that he was back in Boston where nobody had ever required him to heave
ponderous logs upon one another.
It was a couple of hours later when Mr. Oliver, walking back that way
with Harry, stopped and looked at the pile.
"You have put all those up since this morning?" he asked.
Harry said that they had done so, and Mr. Oliver glanced down with a
little smile at Frank, who lay fast asleep.
"It's rather more than I expected. The lad must have done his share, but
it might have been better if you had started him at something easier."
"He stood it all right until a while ago, and I think he'd have seen me
through if it hadn't been for the walk yesterday. Shall we crosscut some
of those branches to-morrow instead?"
"No," replied Mr. Oliver after a moment's reflection. "It might be wiser
to let him see the worst of it. If he stands a week's logging there's no
doubt that he'll do." He paused a moment and looked down at Frank again.
"I don't think he'll back down on it. He's very much like his father, as
I remember him a good many years ago."
Then he laid his hand on Frank's shoulder.
"Get up, boy. Supper's ready."