"Aren't – you – played out?" he stammered weakly.
"Oh, yes," replied Harry with a grin. "Still, in this country you're quite often dead played out and have to go on again."
"But if you can't?"
"Then," said Harry dryly, "you have to keep on trying until you're able to."
It struck Frank that this might be painful and his heart sank. After a while he tried another question:
"Don't people get lost in the bush every now and then?"
"Why, yes," was the answer. "There was a man strayed off from a picnic just outside one of the cities not long ago and they didn't find him until a month or two afterward. He was lying dead not a mile from a graded road."
Frank shivered inwardly at this.
"Still, I suppose you generally have something to guide you – the moss on the north side of the trees? I've heard that people who don't know about it walk around in rings."
"I must have gone pretty straight the only time I was lost," laughed Harry; "and it's mighty hard to find moss in some parts of the bush. In others it's all around the trees. I'd rather have a big peak as a guide. You have heard about people walking round, but I wonder whether you have heard that when they're badly scared they'll walk right across a trail without seeing it?"
"Is that a fact?" Frank asked in astonishment.
"Sure!" said Harry. "A lost man will sometimes walk across a logging road without the slightest idea that he's doing it. Anyway, I know where the homestead lies. It's only a question of holding out until we reach it."
Frank was sincerely pleased to hear this, and by and by he rose with an effort and they went on again.
CHAPTER III
THE RANCH
Dusk was not far away when the boys, stumbling down a low hillside, came into sight of an oblong clearing in the forest with a wooden house standing on one side of it. That was all Frank noticed, for he found it difficult to keep himself on his feet, and his sight seemed hazy. Indeed, he fell down once or twice in the steeper places, and had some trouble in getting up; and after that he had only a confused recollection of crossing an open space and entering a dwelling. A man shook hands with him, and a woman in a print dress made him sit down in a low chair before she set out a bountiful meal. Soon after he had eaten a considerable share of it Harry led him into a very little room where a bed like a shelf with a side to it was fixed against one wall. Five minutes later he was blissfully unconscious of his recent painful experience.
The sun was streaming in through the window when he awoke, feeling wonderfully refreshed, and, dressing himself in some overalls which had been laid across the foot of his bed, he walked out into the larger general room. It had uncovered walls of logs and a very roughly boarded floor, and there seemed to be little in it besides a stove, a table and several chairs.
A brown-faced man with a little gray in his hair sat at one end of the table and at the other end sat a woman resembling him and of about the same age. Harry, sitting between them, was apparently engaged in narrating their adventures. Frank, who took the place laid out for him, found that his supper had not spoiled his breakfast, for he fell upon the pork, potatoes, dried apricots, hot cakes and syrup with an excellent appetite. When the meal was over, the man led Frank into another room and filling his pipe asked him to sit down.
"We'd better have a talk," he said. "You can take the chair yonder."
Frank looked at him more closely when he sat down. Mr. Oliver, who was dressed in duck overalls, was rather spare in figure, though he looked wiry. His manner was quiet, and his voice was that of an educated man, but he had somewhat piercing gray eyes.
"I had a sincere regard for your father," he began. "On that account alone I should be glad to have you here; but first of all we had better understand each other. You mentioned that you had been in business in Minneapolis and afterward in Winnipeg. Didn't you like it?"
"No, sir," replied Frank, who felt that it would be wiser to answer carefully any questions this man might ask. "Still, that wasn't exactly why I gave it up, though" – and he hesitated – "to say I gave it up isn't quite correct."
"If I remember, you called it being fired, in your letter," Mr. Oliver suggested with a twinkle in his eyes. "What led up to that?"
"Slack trade in the last case. I'd like to think it was only the grudge a bullying clerk had against me in the other."
"Then, if you had been allowed, you would have stayed with the milling business, though you didn't care for it?"
"Yes," responded Frank. "Anyway, I'd have stayed until I could have got hold of something I liked better."
Mr. Oliver nodded in a way which suggested that he was pleased with the answer.
"Well," he said, "that brings us to the question why you came out here. Was it because you had heard that it was a good country for hunting and fishing?"
Frank's face flushed. "No, sir," he replied, "I wanted to earn a living, and I understood that a" – he was going to say a live man, but thought better of it – "any one who wasn't too particular could generally come across something to do quickest in the West. In fact, I'd like to begin at once. After buying my ticket and getting odd meals I've only two or three dollars left."
"Two-fifty, to be precise. My sister took your clothes away to mend. Now, it's possible that I might manage to get you into the office of some lumber or general trading company in one of the cities. How would that do?"
"I'd rather go on to the land. I'd like to be a rancher."
"How much do you know about ranching?"
"Very little, but I could soon learn."
It was Frank's first blunder, and he realized it as he saw the gleam of amusement in Mr. Oliver's eyes.
"It's by no means certain," commented the latter. "There are men who can't learn to use the ax in a lifetime. We'll let it go at that, and say you're willing to learn. Have you any idea of making money by ranching?"
Frank thought a moment. "Well," he said finally, "I'd naturally wish to make some, but I don't think that counts for most with me. I'd rather have the kind of life I like."
"The trouble with a good many men is that when they get it they find out they like something else. Quite sure that hunting and fishing aren't taking too prominent a place in your mind? If they are, I'd better tell you that the favorite amusement in this country is chopping down big trees. There's another fact that you must consider. It takes a good deal of money to buy a ranch and, unless it's already cleared, you have to wait a long while before you get any of the money back. This place cost me about nine thousand dollars, one way or another, and in all probability there's not a business on the Pacific Slope in which I wouldn't get twice as much as I'm getting here for the money, though I've been here a good many years. Now what do you expect to do with two dollars and a half?"
What he had heard had been somewhat of a shock to Frank, and the question was difficult to answer.
"I might earn a little more by degrees, sir," he said hopefully.
Mr. Oliver smiled at him encouragingly.
"It's possible; and there's cheaper land than mine, while a smart man used to the country can often get hold of a small contract of some kind. Now I'll tell you what we'll do. Wait a month, and then if you find that you like the life I'll hire you for what anybody else would give you."
With