Richmond P. Hobson - The Rancher Takes a Wife

Books by Richmond P. Hobson, Jr.

THE RANCHER TAKES A WIFE
NOTHING TOO GOOD FOR A COWBOY
GRASS BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS

Copyright 1961 by Richmond P. Hobson Jr.

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Hobson, Richmond P. (Richmond Pearson), 19071966.
The rancher takes a wife
eISBN: 978-1-55199-716-2

1. Hobson, Richmond P. (Richmond Pearson), 19071966.
2. Cowboys British Columbia Biography. 3. Ranch life British Columbia. 4. Frontier and pioneer life British Columbia I. Title.

FC 3826.l. H 63 A 3 1987a 971.12 C 87-094399-5
F 1088. H 63 A 3 1987a

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporations Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

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v3.1

TO
MY LITTLE DAUGHTER,
CATHY

F AR BACK in the interior of British Columbia, beyond the land of the Cariboo and the Chilcotin plateau, rises a vast and only partially explored wilderness slashed by deep gorges and dark mysterious mountain ranges inhabited by moose and timber wolves and giant grizzly bears.

This maze of jungles, swamps and grasslands is drained by an enormous system of creeks, streams, rivers and clear slow-flowing lakes all eventually merging to form the Nechako and the Blackwater rivers. In local Indian language Nechako means land of the clear waters.

During the spring and summer months the grass-loaded valleys on the headwaters of these mighty rivers are like oases in the hundreds of miles of green spruce jungles that surround them. High bunch-grass hills stretch up lush and naked above transparent waters, a paradise for geese and ducks and big game, cattle and man.

But when the long frosty winter nights settle over the valleys on the headwaters of the Nechako and the Blackwater, and the mountain passes fill with snow, the country suddenly changes to a cold isolated silent range cut off from the outside world for months at a timea frozen deserted wildernesswhere disaster and death allow animal or man few mistakes.

Into this strange land beyond the beyond I had the colossal audacity to transplant my city-raised, interior-decorator bride several years agoand this is the story of what happened.

A MIDWINTER sleigh trip through the frozen uninhabited backlands of British Columbias northern interior was routine business for me, for I had been manager of the Frontier Cattle Company for many years, but to land my young bride safely and happily on the remote snow-drifted Batnuni Ranch presented any number of problems.

From Glorias comfortable home in Vancouver we were traveling some five hundred miles north by train to the little one-hundred-horse village of Vanderhoof, where we would switch from the warmth of the stateroom on the Canadian National Railway to horse-drawn sleigh and saddle horses.

From Vanderhoof we would break trail for seventy-five miles across two minor mountain ranges. This last stage of our journey would take anywhere from four to eight days, depending on snow conditions in the mountains. We would be sleeping out in the snowdrifts for several nights.

The things that worried me most were that Gloria could catch pneumonia, freeze to death, or become completely disgusted with her husbands way of life before she became acclimatized.

And soas the train banged and rattled northward that January in 1944, I filled Gloria in with glowing and exaggerated descriptions of the beautiful bushland, the sleek Hereford cattle, the smart horses, the heroic people and my keen-brained mongrel dog that she would soon see. The way I painted the picture it must have sounded as if northern British Columbia were a sort of sunny Shangri-la instead of a vast frozen solitude with Vanderhoof one of the few man-made dots in a rugged maze of uninhabited mountains, canyons and swamps, larger than the states of Oregon, Washington and California all thrown together.

We had spent the first three weeks of our married life in the palatial comfort of the Empress Hotel in Victoria, and in Glorias spacious home in Vancouver, where nine fireplaces burned cheerfully, and the contrast in surroundings at five-thirty A.M. on that pitch-dark twenty-below-zero morning, when the train groaned across the frozen rails into Vanderhoof, must have given my bride quite a jolt.

In the pre-dawn darkness, Vanderhoofs dimly lit station was almost obscured in great hissing clouds of steam rolling up from beneath the cars.

The porter, Gloria and I hurriedly gathered together the vast assortment of Glorias luggage, while I threw my thirty years gatherings into my battered, long-suffering dunnage bag and beat-up suitcase, and we all slipped and slid around on the ice-crusted platform.

My ranch foreman, blond, square-jawed Harold Dwinnell, and his wife, Lucille, surged up out of the darkness with loud exclamations of relief.

Everythings all lined up for the newlyweds, yelled Harold over the creak and crunch of the departing train, but that winter trail over the mountains is as cold as ever.

The train noise grew faint in the distance; silence and darkness settled down around us. A horse stomped the hard-packed snow and snorted into the frost. Lucille led Gloria towards a white-frosted team and sleigh, tied behind the station.

Harold picked up the lines, and Mike and Bud, the wheel team of a four-up, swung the outfit around, the sleigh runners biting into the snow as we glided towards a single row of lights in the distance.

This is thrilling, Gloria called. I know Im going to love it all.

I hope so, I answered dubiously, shivering in my business suit and overcoat.

Vanderhoof was like home to me. I had trailed pack trains and beef drives into the village for the past eight years. I knew practically every man, and most of the horse and dog population, of the district.

Many bets and wagers had been made as to whether Rich Hobson would actually land a real live bride here in the back country. Speculation as to what Gloria would look like, how she would fit in and how long she would last had been rife ever since articles and pictures of our wedding had appeared in the Vancouver papers. I knew only too well that a rowdy but well-meaning celebration was inevitable and an enormous amount of liquid spirits would be consumed before we slid out of the little town. At thirty-six years of age, in top range condition, I not only looked forward to the ordeal but was outrageously optimistic about the outcome.

After I had become engaged to Gloria in Vancouver, I returned toVanderhoof to announce proudly at my bachelor party that I was going to bring back a strikingly beautiful, intelligent, young blond bride, a girl with a terrific sense of humor who understood politics, books, the world situation, men, horses and cows.