"When the blue grass began to spring up on the campus, and the new leaves budded and the birds came back, Will and Ben Johnson would stand out in the sunshine with their arms around each other, talking of home and of how soon work would start on the range. There the colts and calves would be coming through the branding season, and the ponies would be shedding and growing sleek and fat, and everyone would be getting ready for the round-up. It was a call that both longed to answer; a call that Will Rogers would soon answer, for he was restless and wanted to wander around like a pony with its bridle off. He was tired of Kemper; tired of struggling with its rigid military routine with little change or variety, ten months in the year. The newness had worn off and he was ready to push on. He had talked a great deal to Bill Johnson, a boy who came from a ranch near Canadian, Texas, in the panhandle. Bill was a good scholar and a crack mathematician, but he was also a real Westerner who had been raised in the cattle country. "Why don't you go out to Perry Ewing's ranch at Higgins, Texas?" Bill asked Will Rogers one day, "You'll like it out there. The Ewings are fine folks and they'll let you stay. They've got a boy named Frank who's a good one. He don't like school any better than you do. Why don't you go out there?""