"He calls that forsaken claim of his Eden," said my brother. "Shall we
tell him what sort of a Hades it really is?"
One day, some months after this, we rode up to Eden. It presented the
usual heart-breaking appearance so familiar to men who have lived in a
wild country and witnessed, year after year, the furious struggle
between Man and Nature. Misterton had cleared and planted about forty
acres, enclosed with a barb-wire fence. Riding along this, we saw that
many of his fruit trees had been barked and ruined by jack-rabbits.
The month was September. A rainless summer had dried up a spring near
his house, which, against our advice, he had attempted to develop by
tunnelling. The new chicken-yards held no chickens.
Nevertheless, Jim welcomed us with a cheery smile. He had made
mistakes, of course--who didn't? But he intended to come out on top,
you bet your life! Western slang flowed freely from his lips. The
blazing sun, which already had cracked the unpainted shingles on his
roof, had bleached the crude blue of his jumper and overalls. His
sombrero might have belonged to a veteran cowboy.
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