“Hello, Ray!” he called, cheerily. “On your way back to town? I suppose Mr. McKay’s work is advanced sufficiently to let you go, although, upon my word, I confess I thought you’d likely become a permanent part of his organisation. Especially,” he added, with a sly twinkle in his eye, “especially as I happen to have met that young daughter of his.”
“Well, it didn’t work out that way, Mr. Ensley, although she’s as fine a girl——”
“Mr. Ensley only visits here on Sundays,” interrupted the other. “The gentleman in charge is known as Zeb. But let us get these plugs in and then we’ll see what the cook can do for us. Fried eggs, I expect, with warmed potatoes and dried apples, table d’hôte.” He was unbuckling the horses’ harness as he spoke, and presently slipped it from their backs and turned them loose for the night.
Once inside the shanty Burton discovered that “the cook” was Ensley himself. But no time was wasted in conventions, and in a few minutes a plain but appetising supper was on the table. “Come, dig in,” was the host’s invitation, and there was a lull in the conversation as the hungry men plied the viands.
“So you’ve left McKay’s,” said Ensley, after the first insistent demands of appetite had been satisfied. “Where are you bound for now—back East?”
“No, I think of taking up a homestead, as soon as I can get a map showing open land, and learn where I may make application.”
“Good!” said the Englishman, with genuine enthusiasm. “I’m always glad to see bright fellows taking to the homesteads. Most fathers think they do their boys a favour when they coop them up in an office or a shop, but I tell you where this country wants its bright men, some of them, at any rate, is out on the sod. There is a mob of little interests growing up, each with its little coterie of promoters and parasites, but the big industry here will always be agriculture, and it is the big industry that needs the big brains. Besides, where is the life of town or city that a free man would accept in exchange for a hundred and sixty acres to grow in? I always have an eye for the homestead openings, and perhaps you can get all the information you want right here.”
After the meal was over Ensley spread a number of maps but recently issued by the Department of the Interior on the table, and enlightened Burton on the details of the regulations. “Now here,” he said, “is a fine stretch of land, of which I have first hand knowledge, as I cross it every fall when I take a few days off for goose shooting. There’s no better soil in the West. It’s about sixty miles from here, and nearly a hundred miles from a railway, but they’re building new lines through this country as fast as they can buy the labour and the steel, and you are sure to have a road near by in a few years. Now it’s a little early for goose hunting, but the ducks are at their best, and there is a chance of a few chicken. Suppose we hitch up to-morrow and make a trip out there to look over the land?”