Various

“ In a good many parts of the West a ranch simply means a farm; but I shall not use it in this sense, since the advantages and disadvantages of a farmer's life, whether it be led in New Jersey or Iowa, have often been dwelt upon by men infinitely more competent than I am to pass judgment. Accordingly, when I speak of ranching I shall mean some form of stock-raising or sheep-farming as practised now in the wilder parts of the United States, where there is still plenty of land which, because of the lack of rainfall, is not very productive for agricultural purposes. ”

“ From one cause or another we kept separating, some to plunge deeper into the fastnesses of the mountains, some to associate with new partners, and others to try their fortunes alone. At last I found myself paired off with a man who had been my chum on board the San Juan—a manly young fellow, as brave as he was clever, and with whom I shared all the danger, trouble, and fortune that were met with during the time that we remained in the country. ”

“ Work on a sheep ranch is less attractive but more profitable than on any other. A good deal of skill must be shown by the shepherd in managing his flock and in handling the sheep dogs; but ordinarily it is appallingly dreary to sit all day long in the sun, or loll about in the saddle, watching the flocks of fleecy idiots. In time of storm he must work like a demon and know exactly what to do, or his whole flock will die before his eyes, sheep being as tender as horses and cattle are tough. ”

“ Bea followed her shortly, brimming over with curiosity and resolution to hear all there was to tell.
"Say," she said, in a half-whisper, coming up to her sister, "how big was the moccasin? It must have felt mighty heavy on your feet. What did pa kill him with?"
Flea looked at her with owl-like seriousness, and laid her finger upon her lip.
"Don't be a fool!" returned the other, contemptuously. "Pa can't hear us."
Whereupon the newly made heroine lifted her hand and pointed upward, rebukingly.
"God can hear you," was what she meant.
"Bah!" sneered Bea. "You needn't preach to your betters. ”

“ If he wishes to try to ride a horse, he will be given every chance, if for no other reason than that he will continually meet men whose ideas of fun are met by the spectacle of a tenderfoot on a bucking bronco.
By degrees he will learn a good deal of the ways of the life and of the country. Then he must snatch the first chance that offers itself to take a position in connection with the regular work of a ranch. He may be employed as a regular hand to help cook on the ranch wagon, or taken by a shepherd to do the hard and dirty work which the shepherd would like to put off on somebody else. ”

“ At last, after many hardships, we reached the gold country, where thousands of men, representing almost every nationality, were feverishly digging into the soil, sifting the sands of river-beds, and picking into the rocky sides of mountains, extracting the wealth that had been zealously hoarded by nature since the beginning of the world. ”

“ For a year or two perhaps he can try to run a little outfit of his own in connection with his work on a big ranch. Then he will abandon the latter and start out entirely on his own account. Disaster may overtake him, as it may overtake any business man; but if he wins success, even though of a moderate kind, he has a pleasant life before him, riding about over the prairie among his own horses or cattle or sheep, occasionally taking a day off to go after game, and, while working hard, not having to face the mere drudgery which he had to face as a tyro. ”

“ Here is a proportionately large expense, and the result is that most cavalry cadet troops will have to be formed under the auspices of National Guard troops, which already have armories for cavalry practice.
Once you have an armory and an instructor, the rest is merely detail. Much objection is made of late to military drill and the encouragement of the love of war. Boy troopers have nothing to do with war. They should not wish to fight, even to grow up to fight some day, except in defense of their country. There is no more question of war in a cadet troop than there is in a bicycle club. ”

“ But the figwort has found out gradually through the ages that wasps are more serviceable in the cross-fertilization of its flowers than other insects, and it has thus gradually modified its shape, odor, and nectar especially to these insects.
Let us then take a careful look at these queer little homely flowers, and for the time being consider them as mere devices—first, to insure the visit of an insect, and second, to make that insect the bearer of the pollen from one blossom to the stigma of another. ”

“ Often would we work from sunrise to sunset, and then find ourselves rewarded by only just enough gold dust to exchange at the sutler's tent for a little flour and a piece of bacon on which to make our supper, while perhaps the men on either side of us had 'struck it rich,' and before our covetous eyes would exhibit a handful of yellow lumps or a tin cup brimming to the top with golden flecks of metal. ”

“ The "botanist" finds beauty everywhere, even among the homeliest of Flora's hosts. But in the light of the "new botany," which recognizes the insect as the important affinity of the flower—the key to its various puzzling features of color, form, and fragrance—every commonest blossom which we thought we had "known" all our lives, and every homely weed scarce worth our knowing, now becomes a rebuke, and offers us a field of investigation as fresh and promising as is offered by the veriest rare exotic of the conservatory ”

“ Grant, we beseech Thee, O gracious Father, that she, through Thy help may both faithfully live in this world according to Thy will and also may be partaker of everlasting glory in the life to come, through Jesus Christ our Lord. ”

“ We tried every kind of work in the way of digging, washing, and searching for pockets in the rocks, treasuring our little finds carefully, and holding on to them as long as we could; but living of the cheapest kind was expensive, and in spite of all our frugality the store of gold in the leather belt-bags that we carried strapped about us would ebb and flow about as regularly as the ocean tides. ”

“ We forget that the "weed" of one country often becomes a horticultural prize in another, even as the mullein, for which it is hard for the average American to get up any enthusiasm, and which is tolerated with us only in a worthless sheep pasture, flourishes in distinction in many an English or Continental garden as the "American velvet plant." ”

“ It is scarcely fair to assert that familiarity can breed contempt in our relations to so lovely an object as a flower, but certain it is that this every-day contact or association, especially with the wild things of the wood, meadow, and way-side, is conducive to an apathy which dulls our sense to their actual attributes of beauty. ”

“ My Dear Bob,—We fellers had that mass-meeting to complain about the eagle-eyed head-waiter that won't let us take all the nuts and raisins we want out of the hotel dining-room, but the proprietor won't discharge him because he doesn't dare to. The trouble is the head-waiter isn't like other head-waiters you meet. Head-waiting isn't his regular business. He's a college man and he pays for his education with what he makes here in the summer-time, and as he's centre rush in his college football team the proprietor's afraid of him. ”

“ These young men can be divided into two classes—first, those who, if they get a chance to try the life for which they long, will speedily betray their utter inability to lead it; and, secondly, those who possess the physical capacity and the peculiar mental make-up necessary for success in an employment far out of the usual paths of civilized occupations. A great many of these young men think of ranching as a business which they might possibly take up, and what I am about to say is meant as much for a warning to one class as for advice to the other. ”

“ It is astonishing to find how quickly and how well the boy recruit learns to ride, how much he learns about a horse, and how his muscles and his eye and his self-reliance develop under the drill. The writer has seen riding that no cowboy need be ashamed of done by a boy of fourteen who a year before had never thrown his leg over anything but a Shetland-pony, and many of the young troopers never mounted a horse at all until they first made their appearance in the tan-bark ring of the troop riding-school. If a boy is a "muff," he does not stay at it long ”

“ Again, the beginner must remember that though there are occasional excitement and danger in a ranchman's life, it is only occasional, while the monotony of hard and regular toil is not often broken. Except in the matter of fresh air and freedom from crowding, a small ranchman often leads a life of as grinding hardness as the average dweller in a New York tenement-house. ”

“ ON A CATTLE RANCH—AN UNRULY STEER.
With the work of a cow ranch or horse ranch there comes more excitement. Every man on such a ranch has a string of eight or ten horses for his own riding, and there is a great deal of exciting galloping and hot riding across the plains; and the work in a stampede at night, or in line-riding during the winter, or in breaking the fierce little horses to the saddle, is as exciting as it is hard and dangerous. ”

“ If the one who is "it" is clever, he dodges and doubles, turns and backs, and if he can keep his ribbon for three minutes he wins. But the others push him hard, and here it is where good riding tells. I have seen a little shaver who had to be helped up on to a fifteen-hand horse do some riding that would be credit to a Comanche Indian. They wrestle—these boy troopers—on horseback, and I have seen one leap from his own horse astride that of his opponent, and then succeed in dismounting him. ”

“ Almighty God and Heavenly Father, we give Thee humble thanks that Thou hast been graciously pleased to deliver from great danger the child in whose behalf we bless and praise Thy name in the presence of Thy people. ”

“ The first thing to be remembered by any boy or young man who wishes to go West and start life on a cattle ranch, horse ranch, or sheep ranch is that he must know the business thoroughly before he can earn any salary to speak of, still less start out on his own accord. A great many young fellows apparently think that a cowboy is born and not made, and that in order to become one all they have to do [Pg 550] is to wish very hard to be one. ”

“ He will not have much society of any kind, and the society he does have is not apt to be over-refined. If he is a lad of a delicate, shrinking nature and fastidious habits, he will find much that is uncomfortable, and will need to show no small amount of pluck and fortitude if he is to hold his own. The work, too, is often hard and often wearisome from mere sameness. It is generally done on horseback even on a sheep ranch, and always on a cow ranch. The beginner must learn to ride with indifference all kinds of rough and dangerous horses before he will be worth his keep. ”

“ With all this before him, the beginner will speedily find out that life on a Western ranch is very far from being a mere holiday. A young man who desires to start in the life ought, if possible, to have with him a little money—just enough to keep body and soul together—until he can gain a foothold somewhere. ”

“ If you are in no hurry on your trip to Buffalo, it is well to spend a day or two in Syracuse, and take some of the rides in the vicinity of that city. The streets are very poorly paved in the city itself, with few exceptions, but on getting out of the immediate city limits the roads are moderately good. It is well for the tourist to remember that the Syracuse Athletic Association, on Jefferson Street near Salina, and the Century Cycling Club, at 319 James Street, will be glad to see at any time any member of the bicycling confraternity who goes through Syracuse. ”

“ A school-girl must not overwork, for if she does she will neither do credit to her teacher nor to her own abilities. We insist in these days that the best students are those who are in good health, able to walk, to ride a wheel, to play golf and tennis, and to lend a hand at whatever is going on. ”

“ A horse is a very complicated piece of machinery to the novice, and he must be managed by the eye, the whole body, and the mind. He knows when the rider on his back is timid or determined, and he often acts accordingly. Horses have an individuality that bicycles haven't, and the young trooper must learn to govern besides learning merely to guide and "stay on." ”

“ In New York city there exists a troop of boy cavalry that has been drilling and exercising faithfully, and under such able direction that it may be taken as a model for what a boys' organization of this kind should be. Soldiering means really serious work, whether it is in the service of a State, a country, or merely entered into for the love of it, and a boy who has not the proper spirit cannot long remain a member of "Troop A" Cadets. ”

“ Savage with blood, the lion left the antelope, and prepared to spring upon the group of children. He made one leap over the benches, which landed him in front of the teacher's desk, and his eyes catching sight of her, he changed his purpose, and swinging around, was about to spring upon her. Noticing this, the teacher, who had been watching for a good opportunity to shoot, instead of waiting for him to make the leap, walked quickly up to him, and before the astonished brute could recover she placed the muzzle of the gun in his ear and pulled both triggers. ”