r other things
more than they do for money are slowly crowded out by the people who
care more for money than for anything else."

"Uncle Dan, is that why you grasping Scotchmen have crowded out the
Irish round these parts?" inquired Charlie. "McClintock, MacCleod,
Simpson, Forbes, Campbell, Monroe, Fenderson, Stewart, Buchanan--why,
say, there's a raft of you here; and across the river it is worse."

"You touch there on a very singular thing, Mr. Charlie. Not that we
crowded out the Irish. There were only a few families, and most of
them are here yet. They happened to come first, and named the
settlements--that's all. But for the Scotch--you find more good
Scots' names to the hundred, once you strike the hills, than you will
find to the thousand on the plain country. Love of the hills is in the
blood of them; they followed the Rocky Mountains down from Canada."

"But, Uncle Dan," said Hobby, "how did so many of them happen to be in
Canada?"

"Scotland was a poor country and a cold country, England was rich and
warm, Canada was cold and hard. The English had no call to Canada, the
Hudson Bay Company captained their outflung posts with Scotchmen; the
easier that the Hanoverian kings, as a matter of policy, harried the
Jacobite clans by fair means and foul. You were speaking of across
the river. That is another curious matter. The California Company,
now--ruling a dozen dukedoms--California lends the name of it and
supplied the money; but the heads that first dreamed it were four long
Scottish heads. And their brand is the John Cross. Any stranger cowman
would read that brand as J Half Circle Cross. But we call it John
Cross. And why, sirs?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Hobby. "It was always the John Cross and
it never entered my head to ask why."

"Look you there, now!" Uncle Dan held out an open palm and traced on
it with a stubby and triumphant finger. "Their fathers had served John
Company, the Hudson Bay Company! And there you are linked back with
two hundred years! 'John Company has a long arm,' they said; 'John
Company lost a good man there!' How the name began is beyond my sure
knowing; but it is in my mind that it goes back farther still, to the
East India Company, to Clive and to Madras. Lyn, you are the bookman,
I'll get you to look it up some of these--Lyn! Lyn! Charlie See! The
young devils! Now wouldn't that jar you?"

"A fool and his honey are soon started," observed Adam.

"We're out here, Uncle