Any open prairie farm, with no house,
nothing with which to make a house, and no home but a wagon, and no
companions but my cows would have been rather forbidding at first
glance; but this--I was certain I was ruined; I suppose I must have
looked a little bad, for Henderson L. laid his hand on my shoulder.
"Don't cave in, my boy," said he. "You're young--and there's oceans of
good land to be had. Keep a stiff upper lip!"
"I'll kill him!" I shouted. "I'll kill John Rucker!"
"Don't, till you catch him," said Burns. "And what good would it do
anyhow?"
"Is there any plow-land on it?" I asked, after getting control of
myself.
"Some," said Henderson L. cheerfully. "Don't you remember that we drove
up over a spur of the hill back there? Well, all the dry land north of
our track is yours. Finest building-spot in the world, Jake. We'll make
a farm of this yet. Come back and I'll show you."
4
So we went back and looked over all the dry ground I possessed, and
agreed that there were about forty acres of it, and as Burns insisted,
sixty in a dry season; and he stuck to it that a lot of that slew was as
good pasture especially in a dry time as any one could ask for. This
would be fine for a man as fond of cows as I was, though, of course,
cows could range at will all over the country. It was fine hay land, he
said, too, except in the wettest places; but it was true also, that any
one could make hay anywhere.
I paid Henderson L.
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