He owned and operated an extensive ranch from which he encouraged enough vegetation to feed himself, his pigs, his horses, his cattle, his chickens, and his dog; and this, apparently, was all they derived from the great, green earth.  But the asset side of our “mossback’s” yearly balance sheet always made the liability side ashamed of itself.  The asset increased annually, and the hidden treasure grew to alarming proportions.  This growth was carefully salted away at the appropriate salting-down season, when the pork barrels were brought out of the dark cellars, dusted, scrubbed, and refilled with the carcasses of those animals which had been his companions for the greater part of a year.  He was a standing joke with the “hands” on the ranch, for he was the most dilapidated of the whole gang, although the owner, and was reputed to be wealthy.

But he was a man with a purpose in life, and that was more than a great many could say.  He was chronically eccentric.  When he first located on the homestead which had since become so valuable an asset, he had determined to live with one purpose in view, and that was to expand financially with the toil of his hands and the sweat of his brow, and then, when he had acquired sufficient sinking fund, to emerge suddenly into the limelight of society and shine like a newly polished gem.  So he wandered up and down the trail which his own feet and the feet of his cayuse had worn through the woods, up the creek, along the face of the mountains, and away down to the limy waters of the Fraser on the other side of the perpetual snows.

There was a fascination for him on this old trail; it had become as part of his life, of his very soul.  Sometimes he would be rounding up cattle.  Sometimes he would be hunting mowich (deer), or driving off the coyotes.  All his plans and schemes were built on trail foundation.  He could not think unless he was tramping the trail through the woods, and down the valleys.  Here is where all his castles were constructed; and, from the trail observatory, he saw his new life spring into being, when the time would be ripe.

In time the coin grew so bulky that it became a burden to him.  It had grown very cumbersome.  He might at any time resurrect himself into that new world of his, but there was no occasion for haste; he was very happy and contented; besides, it would mean leaving the old trail and things.  He had his balance banked in a strong box which he buried in a hole under his bed, and the fear grew upon him that some mercenary might discover its lurking-place and relieve him of the burden of responsibility.  This was the only skeleton which lurked in the man’s closet.  It was the only cloud in his sky; the rest of the zenith was sunshine and gladness.  To the neighbors and itineraries he had been preaching hard times for twenty years, although the whole earth suspected the contrary.  He became known throughout the width and breadth of Yale, Lillooet and Cariboo as “Hard Times Hance.”  Although diplomatically reserved and unsociable, he was more popular and famed than he suspected.  Peculiarity is a valuable advertisement.