ly
remember. He still walks with a limp. By the way, dad, it seems
to me that when you were about twenty-five you "indulged in some
damned poor pastimes," yourself. Your dutiful son, ELLIS.

Dad never answered that letter.

Montana, as viewed from the Bay State Ranch in March, struck me as being
an unholy mixture of brown, sodden hills and valleys, chill winds that
never condescended to blow less than a gale, and dull, scurrying clouds,
with sometimes a day of sunshine that was bright as our own sun at home.
(You can't make me believe that our California sun bothers with any other
country.)

I'd been used to a green world; I never would go to New York in the
winter, because I hate the cold--and here I was, with the cold of New York
and with none of the ameliorations in the way of clubs and theaters and
the like. There were the hills along Midas River shutting off the East,
and hills to the south that Frosty told me went on for miles and miles,
and on the north stretched White Divide--only it was brown, and bleak, and
several other undesirable things. When I looked at it, I used to wonder at
men fighting over it. I did a heap of wondering, those first few days.

Taken in a lump, it wasn't my style, and I wasn't particular to keep my
opinions a secret. For the ranch itself, it looked to me like a village of
corrals and sheds and stables, evidently built with an eye to usefulness,
and with the idea that harmony of outline is a sin and not to be
tolerated. The house was put up on the same plan, gave shelter to Perry
Potter and the cook, had a big, bare dining-room where the men all ate
together without napkins or other accessories of civilization, and a
couple of bedrooms that were colder, if I remember correctly, than
outdoors. I know that the water froze in my pitcher the first night, and
that afterward I performed my ablutions in the kitchen, and dipped hot
water out of a tank with a blue dipper.

That first week I spent adjusting myself to the simple life, and trying to
form an unprejudiced opinion of my companions in exile. As for the said
companions, they sort of stood back and sized up my points, good and
bad--and I've a notion they laid heavy odds against me, and had me down in
the Also Ran bunch. I overheard one of them remark, when I was coming up
from the stables: "Here's the son and heir--come, let's kill him!" Another
one drawled: "What's the use? The bounty's run out."

I was convinced tha