ink I am suited for office work. I would prefer
something in the open. I had thought of the land."

"Farming," exclaimed Mr. Denman. "Ah!--you would, I suppose, be able to
invest something?"

"No," said Cameron, "nothing."

Denman shook his head. "Nothing in it! You would not earn enough to buy
a farm about here in fifteen years."

"But I understood," replied Cameron, "that further west was cheaper
land."

"Oh! In the far west, yes! But it is a God-forsaken country! I don't
know much about it, I confess. I know they are booming town lots all
over the land. I believe they have gone quite mad in the business, but
from what I hear, the main work in the west just now is jaw work; the
only thing they raise is corner lots."

On Cameron's face there fell the gloom of discouragement. One of his
fondest dreams was being dispelled--his vision of himself as a wealthy
rancher, ranging over square miles of his estate upon a "bucking
broncho," garbed in the picturesque cowboy dress, began to fade.

"But there is ranching, I believe?" he ventured.

"Ranching? Oh yes! There is, up near the Rockies, but that is out of
civilization; out of reach of everything and everybody."

"That is what I want, Sir!" exclaimed Cameron, his face once more aglow
with eager hope. "I want to get away into the open."

Mr. Denman did not, or could not, recognise this as the instinctive cry
of the primitive man for a closer fellowship with Mother Nature. He was
keenly practical, and impatient with everything that appeared to him to
be purely visionary and unbusiness-like.

"But, my dear fellow," he said, "a ranch means cattle and horses; and
cattle and horses means money, unless of course, you mean to be simply a
cowboy--cowpuncher, I believe, is the correct term--but there is nothing
in that; no future, I mean. It is all very well for a little fun, if
you have a bank account to stand it, although some fellows stand it on
someone's else bank account--not much to their credit, however. There is
a young friend of mine out there at present, but from what I can gather
his home correspondence is mainly confined to appeals for remittances
from his governor, and his chief occupation spending these remittances
as speedily as possible. All very well, as I have said, for fun, if
you can pay the shot. But to play the role of gentleman cowboy, while
somebody else pays for it, is the sort of thing I despise."

"And so do I, Sir!" said Cameron. "There will b