Chapter I: Front Matter

FRANK'S RANCHE;

OR,

MY HOLIDAY IN THE ROCKIES.

FRANK'S RANCHE

OR

MY HOLIDAY IN THE ROCKIES

BEING A CONTRIBUTION TO THE INQUIRY INTO WHAT WE ARE TO DO WITH OUR BOYS

_BY THE AUTHOR OF
"AN AMATEUR ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVEDALE"_

"To thy bent mind some relaxation give,
And steal one day out of thy life, to live!"

COWLEY

Second Edition.

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET
1886

(_All rights reserved_)

"Oh! happy farmers! overblest I wis,
If they could only realise their bliss!
For whom the earth, away from jingling strife,
In just abundance sheds the gifts of life."

VIRGIL'S _Georgics_.
(_R. D. Blackmore's Translation._)

_DEDICATORY LETTER._

_MY DEAR FRIEND M._,

_I cannot but dedicate this little volume to you who have been my pleasant travelling companion for many thousands of miles in the great western world. But for you I should probably never have undertaken such a journey; and for how many acts of thoughtful kindness by the way am I not indebted to you? Can I forget that you always insisted on my taking the best bunk in the cabin, the best seat in stage-coaches, the best room in hotels, the best bed in sleeping cars? Can I forget that it was your warmhearted friendship for Frank which induced you to "rough it" with me in his little log shanty? And ought I not gratefully to remember the inexhaustible resources of that wonderful travelling bag and the cruse of cordials which, in time of need, were ever at my service? No man could have had a more pleasant, unselfish, and kind companion than you were, and my only regret is that I have not been able to produce a record of our journeyings more worthy of your acceptance._

_Yours faithfully,
E. M._

_London,
Christmas, 1885._

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

"What can justify one in addressing himself to the general public as if it were his private correspondent?" asks Oliver Wendell Holmes. He then answers his own question by stating that "there are at least three sufficient reasons," and proceeding to give them.

I wish I could with satisfaction to myself offer any one of those three reasons for the existence of this little book. But, I cannot venture to say that I have "a story to tell which everybody wants to hear;" neither have I "been shipwrecked, or been in a battle, or witnessed any interesting event that I can tell anything new about." It is needless to add that I have not been hugged by a bear or scalped by an Indian. I do not presume to assert that I can "put in fitting words any common experiences not already well told;" and so I must assign the third reason, which permits me "to tell anything I like, provided I can so tell it as to make it interesting."

I cling to this third reason; it embodies the only plea I can put forth. I have tried to make my story interesting; it would gratify me deeply to believe that I have succeeded.

* * * * *

"What shall we do with our boys?" is a question frequently put to the body politic through the medium of the newspapers in the dull season. My experience has convinced me that the question is a useless one. You may train up and control your boys to a certain age; you may make them a present of as good an education as you can afford; you may lay down plans for their future; you may find niches for each one to fill; you may fondly hope that each one in his turn will quietly drop into his niche; that they will live and work together, and in course of time become a help and comfort to you in your declining years.

But will they do so? I have other sons besides Frank, and they have found niches for themselves quite other than the ones I had intended for them when years ago I said to myself "What shall I do with my boys?" Now they have sons and daughters of their own, who will no doubt soon become objects of the same inquiry in their turn.

Frank's erratic wanderings from the niche I had designed for him are recorded in these pages. I have written them in the hope that they may be, if not very interesting, at least useful to young fellows who, like him, cannot rest content in the parent nest, however well-feathered or cotton-wooled it may be; but who also, like Frank, seem to be impelled by some subtle influence, or by—

"Such wind as scatters young men thro' the world
To seek their fortune further than at home,
Where small experience grows."

CONTENTS.

PART I.