Produced by KD Weeks, MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transcriber’s Note: This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. Several minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation. SEEKING FORTUNE IN AMERICA [Illustration: THE WRITER AT CALGARY, 1891.] SEEKING FORTUNE IN AMERICA BY F. W. GREY _WITH A FRONTISPIECE_ LONDON SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1912 [All rights reserved] Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh PREFACE In the early ’eighties lads who preferred exercise to examinations looked abroad for work, and parents who feared their failure in competitions agreed with them. Ditties like— “To the West, to the West, to the land of the free, Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea,” had long moved our agricultural class America-wards; perhaps the next line— “Where a man is a man if he’s willing to toil,” did not so much appeal to middle-class youth, but there were always visions of “broncho-busting” and rope-swinging. Moreover, no one in England, of whatever class, knew what “toil” meant, as understood in Canada and the States. Land was easy to get in those days, free grants of 160 acres on certain conditions of exploitation which were often evaded. After weary search from Iowa northward I reached a rolling country dotted with small lakes and groves, leading up to the beautiful valley of the Little Saskatchewan. My driver said that some land which I fancied here was certainly taken up, but I saw a Scotchman ploughing and we foregathered. He told me that the other holders around were “jumping” new grants elsewhere, and that the little “breaking” which they had done did not fulfil conditions. Investigation proved this, and I bought two square miles at prairie value from the railway whose line was to traverse this very land. My son eventually did not use it, and, twenty years later, still as “prairie,” it fetched enough to cover the original price _plus_ accumulated interest and taxes.