"You need not think me grumbling or grasping. I long to get a fair, clear start, and have done with it. Whatever you do, do not think I am tired or want a change. The more I see of this life the more I like it.
"My _Homestead Right_[1] lasts for five years, and until they have expired I cannot get a title from the Government for my land, so that I am not likely to throw up my work and right without a good cause....
"_P.S.—A trip out here would do you good, and you could see for yourself how things stand._"
"... You ask me whether my ranche does not produce anything—have I no cattle to sell, &c. If you refer to my letters, you will see that I mentioned having bought an old cow cheap (for £4), which gave us milk last winter, but as she was a little too decrepit to raise a calf, I traded her off this spring for a little mare, which, again, I sold for 200 cedar posts, worth twenty cents apiece, or forty dollars. Thus my old cow, which I gave £4 for, will, when the posts are delivered and sold, bring me in £8. (As the spring has been unusually wet, the man has not come up to time with the posts, but I shall have them shortly.) My garden ought to bring me in £20. I have the finest set of cabbages, peas, and potatoes in the valley, my team, and this spring I have 130 chickens, 100 of which we raised this spring, and more are hatching out now. Twenty-five acres broken ready for a crop of wheat that is ready to sow by September, and one mile and a half of fence, or 150 acres, enclosed. In addition to this, I have just finished putting up a little milk house on the creek, and am terribly proud of it; it looks like a Swiss châlet, gabled ends, &c. I am all the more proud of it, as I have hewed the logs and put it up at odd times of an evening. By next autumn, when I hope to have everything complete, I shall have, if not the prettiest, at least one of the nicest little ranches in Montana, magnificent building spot, icy cold water all the year round, and unrivalled panoramic view, also perfectly healthy. You will understand from this that what with having bought my team, tools, &c., it does not leave much for stock. One cow costs fifty dollars, and _hard_ to get at that. A yearling calf costs from £3 to £5, and if possible I must try and get some in the fall, as I have put about seven acres into oats for hay, besides what hay I can cut (this having been a splendid season for grass). Oats would hardly pay to thresh on so small an acreage, though the yield ought to be between fifty and seventy bushels to the acre. Crops are magnificent. On lots of ranches _wheat_ will go as high as fifty bushels to the acre this year (seventy-five have been raised). As my team, though strong, are not very heavy, I have only averaged three-quarters of an acre breaking sod a day. Three horses are generally used.