CHAPTER II.
CATTLE RANCHING IN ARIZONA Leave for United States of America--Iowa--New Mexico--Real Estate Speculation--Gambling--Billy the Kid--Start Ranching in Arizona--Description of Country--Apache and other Indians--Fauna--Branding Cattle--Ranch Notes--Mexicans--Politics--Summer Camp--Winter Camp--Fishing and Shooting--Indian Troubles.
My health seemed to have reached a more serious condition than imagined; and so on the advice of my friends, but with much regret, I decided to henceforth cast my lot in a more bracing climate.

Having no profession, and hating trade in any form, the choice was limited and confined to live stock or crop farming of one kind or another.
Accordingly, after six months at home and on complete recovery of health, I took my way to the United States of America, first to Lemars in Iowa, where was a well-known colony of Britishers, said Britishers consisting almost entirely of the gentlemen class, some with much money, some with little, none of them with much knowledge of practical business life or affairs, all of them with the idea of social superiority over the natives, which they very foolishly showed.

Sport, not work, occupied their whole time and attention.

Altogether it seemed that this was no place for one who had to push his fortunes.

The climate, too, seemed to be far from agreeable, in summer being very hot, in winter very cold; so, with another man, I decided to go further west and south, to the sheep and cattle country of New Mexico; not that I had any knowledge of sheep or cattle, hardly knowing the one from the other; but the nature of Ranch life (Ranch with a big R) and the romance attaching to it had much to do with my determination.
Arrived in New Mexico I went to live with a sheepman--a practical sheepman from Australia--to study the industry and see how I liked it.
In the neighbourhood was a cattle ranch and a lot of cowboys.