If money is what makes people happy, one would suppose that George Ackerman ought to be one of the happiest boys in the world; and so he was, up to the time his only parent died, which was about a year and a half previous to the beginning of our story. He had everything a boy could possibly wish for—good health, a kind and indulgent father, a comfortable and happy home, and all the other aids to complete happiness so dear to the heart of most boys, and for which Bob Owens and Dan Evans so impatiently longed—such as horses, dogs, jointed fish-poles and breech-loading guns. He had made a start in business for himself, and was thought by the boys of his acquaintance to be pretty well off in the world. He began when he was only nine years old, by herding cattle for his father at forty dollars a month, taking his pay in young stock which he selected himself. These increased in numbers and value during the two years he was away at school, and now he was the owner of three hundred head of cattle which he had paid for by his own labor, and which he could have sold any day for twenty dollars apiece. He had a herdsman of his own and colts enough to mount all the cronies he had left at school, and who had faithfully promised to visit him at no distant day in his far-away home. It was two years and more since he parted from those same cronies, and not one of them had ever been to see him. He never heard from them now. His correspondents had dropped off, one after the other, until he had not a single one remaining. His father was gone, too, and poor George felt much as he would have felt if he had been dropped suddenly on Robinson Crusoe’s lonely island, without even a man Friday to keep him company.
It is true, that there were plenty of people around him. His Uncle John and Cousin Ned lived in the same house with him, and there were a score or more of men, Americans and Mexicans, employed on the ranche as house-servants and herdsmen. He had four playmates close at hand—that is, two of them lived five miles east of him and the others eight miles west—and they were jolly fellows and he liked to be in their company. The time never hung heavily on his hands, for he was very industrious, and could always find something useful to do; but still he was lonely and homesick every hour in the day. The old house was not the same now that it was during his father’s lifetime. Uncle John had built additions to it, rearranged the inside of it to suit himself, and filled it with the most expensive furniture, such as had never been seen in the wilds of Texas before.