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      The Octopus, by Frank Norris
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Octopus, by Frank Norris

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Title: The Octopus

Author: Frank Norris

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Last Updated: March 11, 2018

Language: English

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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OCTOPUS ***




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</pre>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <h1>
      THE OCTOPUS
    </h1>
    <h3>
      A Story of California
    </h3>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      by Frank Norris
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p class="toc">
        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
      </p>
      <p>
        <br />
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <big><b>BOOK 1</b></big> </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
      </p>
      <p>
        <br />
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> <big><b>BOOK II</b></big> </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER I </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER II </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER III </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER IV </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER V. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER VI </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER VII </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER IX </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_CONC"> CONCLUSION </a>
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <h1>
      BOOK 1
    </h1>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER I
    </h2>
    <p>
      Just after passing Caraher's saloon, on the County Road that ran south
      from Bonneville, and that divided the Broderson ranch from that of Los
      Muertos, Presley was suddenly aware of the faint and prolonged blowing of
      a steam whistle that he knew must come from the railroad shops near the
      depot at Bonneville. In starting out from the ranch house that morning, he
      had forgotten his watch, and was now perplexed to know whether the whistle
      was blowing for twelve or for one o'clock. He hoped the former. Early that
      morning he had decided to make a long excursion through the neighbouring
      country, partly on foot and partly on his bicycle, and now noon was come
      already, and as yet he had hardly started. As he was leaving the house
      after breakfast, Mrs. Derrick had asked him to go for the mail at
      Bonneville, and he had not been able to refuse.
    </p>
    <p>
      He took a firmer hold of the cork grips of his handlebars&mdash;the road
      being in a wretched condition after the recent hauling of the crop&mdash;and
      quickened his pace. He told himself that, no matter what the time was, he
      would not stop for luncheon at the ranch house, but would push on to
      Guadalajara and have a Spanish dinner at Solotari's, as he had originally
      planned.
    </p>
    <p>
      There had not been much of a crop to haul that year. Half of the wheat on
      the Broderson ranch had failed entirely, and Derrick himself had hardly
      raised more than enough to supply seed for the winter's sowing. But such
      little hauling as there had been had reduced the roads thereabouts to a
      lamentable condition, and, during the dry season of the past few months,
      the layer of dust had deepened and thickened to such an extent that more
      than once Presley was obliged to dismount and trudge along on foot,
      pushing his bicycle in front of him.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the last half of September, the very end of the dry season, and all
      Tulare County, all the vast reaches of the San Joaquin Valley&mdash;in
      fact all South Central California, was bone dry, parched, and baked and
      crisped after four months of cloudless weather, when the day seemed always
      at noon, and the sun blazed white hot over the valley from the Coast Range
      in the west to the foothills of the Sierras in the east.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Presley drew near to the point where what was known as the Lower Road
      struck off through the Rancho de Los Muertos, leading on to Guadalajara,
      he came upon one of the county watering-tanks, a great, iron-hooped tower
      of wood, straddling clumsily on its four uprights by the roadside. Since
      the day of its completion, the storekeepers and retailers of Bonneville
      had painted their advertisements upon it. It was a landmark. In that reach
      of level fields, the white letters upon it could be read for miles. A
      watering-trough stood near by, and, as he was very thirsty, Presley
      resolved to stop for a moment to get a drink.
    </p>
    <p>
      He drew abreast of the tank and halted there, leaning his bicycle against
      the fence. A couple of men in white overalls were repainting the surface
      of the tank, seated on swinging platforms that hung by hooks from the
      roof. They were painting a sign&mdash;an advertisement. It was all but
      finished and read, &ldquo;S. Behrman, Real Estate, Mortgages, Main Street,
      Bonneville, Opposite the Post Office.&rdquo; On the horse-trough that stood in
      the shadow of the tank was another freshly painted inscription: &ldquo;S.
      Behrman Has Something To Say To You.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As Presley straightened up after drinking from the faucet at one end of
      the horse-trough, the watering-cart itself laboured into view around the
      turn of the Lower Road. Two mules and two horses, white with dust,
      strained leisurely in the traces, moving at a snail's pace, their limp
      ears marking the time; while perched high upon the seat, under a yellow
      cotton wagon umbrella, Presley recognised Hooven, one of Derrick's
      tenants, a German, whom every one called &ldquo;Bismarck,&rdquo; an excitable little
      man with a perpetual grievance and an endless flow of broken English.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, Bismarck,&rdquo; said Presley, as Hooven brought his team to a
      standstill by the tank, preparatory to refilling.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yoost der men I look for, Mist'r Praicely,&rdquo; cried the other, twisting the
      reins around the brake. &ldquo;Yoost one minute, you wait, hey? I wanta talk mit
      you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley was impatient to be on his way again. A little more time wasted,
      and the day would be lost. He had nothing to do with the management of the
      ranch, and if Hooven wanted any advice from him, it was so much breath
      wasted. These uncouth brutes of farmhands and petty ranchers, grimed with
      the soil they worked upon, were odious to him beyond words. Never could he
      feel in sympathy with them, nor with their lives, their ways, their
      marriages, deaths, bickerings, and all the monotonous round of their
      sordid existence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you must be quick about it, Bismarck,&rdquo; he answered sharply. &ldquo;I'm
      late for dinner, as it is.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Soh, now. Two minuten, und I be mit you.&rdquo; He drew down the overhanging
      spout of the tank to the vent in the circumference of the cart and pulled
      the chain that let out the water. Then he climbed down from the seat,
      jumping from the tire of the wheel, and taking Presley by the arm led him
      a few steps down the road.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; he began. &ldquo;Say, I want to hef some converzations mit you. Yoost der
      men I want to see. Say, Caraher, he tole me dis morgen&mdash;say, he tole
      me Mist'r Derrick gowun to farm der whole demn rench hisseluf der next
      yahr. No more tenants. Say, Caraher, he tole me all der tenants get der
      sach; Mist'r Derrick gowun to work der whole demn rench hisseluf, hey? ME,
      I get der sach alzoh, hey? You hef hear about dose ting? Say, me, I hef on
      der ranch been sieben yahr&mdash;seven yahr. Do I alzoh&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You'll have to see Derrick himself or Harran about that, Bismarck,&rdquo;
       interrupted Presley, trying to draw away. &ldquo;That's something outside of me
      entirely.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Hooven was not to be put off. No doubt he had been meditating his
      speech all the morning, formulating his words, preparing his phrases.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, no, no,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;Me, I wanta stay bei der place; seven yahr I
      hef stay. Mist'r Derrick, he doand want dot I should be ge-sacked. Who,
      den, will der ditch ge-tend? Say, you tell 'um Bismarck hef gotta sure
      stay bei der place. Say, you hef der pull mit der Governor. You speak der
      gut word for me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Harran is the man that has the pull with his father, Bismarck,&rdquo; answered
      Presley. &ldquo;You get Harran to speak for you, and you're all right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sieben yahr I hef stay,&rdquo; protested Hooven, &ldquo;and who will der ditch
      ge-tend, und alle dem cettles drive?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, Harran's your man,&rdquo; answered Presley, preparing to mount his
      bicycle.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, you hef hear about dose ting?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't hear about anything, Bismarck. I don't know the first thing about
      how the ranch is run.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;UND DER PIPE-LINE GE-MEND,&rdquo; Hooven burst out, suddenly remembering a
      forgotten argument. He waved an arm. &ldquo;Ach, der pipe-line bei der Mission
      Greek, und der waater-hole for dose cettles. Say, he doand doo ut
      HIMSELLUF, berhaps, I doand tink.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, talk to Harran about it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, he doand farm der whole demn rench bei hisseluf. Me, I gotta stay.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But on a sudden the water in the cart gushed over the sides from the vent
      in the top with a smart sound of splashing. Hooven was forced to turn his
      attention to it. Presley got his wheel under way.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hef some converzations mit Herran,&rdquo; Hooven called after him. &ldquo;He doand
      doo ut bei hisseluf, den, Mist'r Derrick; ach, no. I stay bei der rench to
      drive dose cettles.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He climbed back to his seat under the wagon umbrella, and, as he started
      his team again with great cracks of his long whip, turned to the painters
      still at work upon the sign and declared with some defiance:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sieben yahr; yais, sir, seiben yahr I hef been on dis rench. Git oop, you
      mule you, hoop!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Meanwhile Presley had turned into the Lower Road. He was now on Derrick's
      land, division No. I, or, as it was called, the Home ranch, of the great
      Los Muertos Rancho. The road was better here, the dust laid after the
      passage of Hooven's watering-cart, and, in a few minutes, he had come to
      the ranch house itself, with its white picket fence, its few flower beds,
      and grove of eucalyptus trees. On the lawn at the side of the house, he
      saw Harran in the act of setting out the automatic sprinkler. In the shade
      of the house, by the porch, were two or three of the greyhounds, part of
      the pack that were used to hunt down jack-rabbits, and Godfrey, Harran's
      prize deerhound.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley wheeled up the driveway and met Harran by the horse-block. Harran
      was Magnus Derrick's youngest son, a very well-looking young fellow of
      twenty-three or twenty-five. He had the fine carriage that marked his
      father, and still further resembled him in that he had the Derrick nose&mdash;hawk-like
      and prominent, such as one sees in the later portraits of the Duke of
      Wellington. He was blond, and incessant exposure to the sun had, instead
      of tanning him brown, merely heightened the colour of his cheeks. His
      yellow hair had a tendency to curl in a forward direction, just in front
      of the ears.
    </p>
    <p>
      Beside him, Presley made the sharpest of contrasts. Presley seemed to have
      come of a mixed origin; appeared to have a nature more composite, a
      temperament more complex. Unlike Harran Derrick, he seemed more of a
      character than a type. The sun had browned his face till it was almost
      swarthy. His eyes were a dark brown, and his forehead was the forehead of
      the intellectual, wide and high, with a certain unmistakable lift about it
      that argued education, not only of himself, but of his people before him.
      The impression conveyed by his mouth and chin was that of a delicate and
      highly sensitive nature, the lips thin and loosely shut together, the chin
      small and rather receding. One guessed that Presley's refinement had been
      gained only by a certain loss of strength. One expected to find him
      nervous, introspective, to discover that his mental life was not at all
      the result of impressions and sensations that came to him from without,
      but rather of thoughts and reflections germinating from within. Though
      morbidly sensitive to changes in his physical surroundings, he would be
      slow to act upon such sensations, would not prove impulsive, not because
      he was sluggish, but because he was merely irresolute. It could be
      foreseen that morally he was of that sort who avoid evil through good
      taste, lack of decision, and want of opportunity. His temperament was that
      of the poet; when he told himself he had been thinking, he deceived
      himself. He had, on such occasions, been only brooding.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some eighteen months before this time, he had been threatened with
      consumption, and, taking advantage of a standing invitation on the part of
      Magnus Derrick, had come to stay in the dry, even climate of the San
      Joaquin for an indefinite length of time. He was thirty years old, and had
      graduated and post-graduated with high honours from an Eastern college,
      where he had devoted himself to a passionate study of literature, and,
      more especially, of poetry.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was his insatiable ambition to write verse. But up to this time, his
      work had been fugitive, ephemeral, a note here and there, heard,
      appreciated, and forgotten. He was in search of a subject; something
      magnificent, he did not know exactly what; some vast, tremendous theme,
      heroic, terrible, to be unrolled in all the thundering progression of
      hexameters.
    </p>
    <p>
      But whatever he wrote, and in whatever fashion, Presley was determined
      that his poem should be of the West, that world's frontier of Romance,
      where a new race, a new people&mdash;hardy, brave, and passionate&mdash;were
      building an empire; where the tumultuous life ran like fire from dawn to
      dark, and from dark to dawn again, primitive, brutal, honest, and without
      fear. Something (to his idea not much) had been done to catch at that life
      in passing, but its poet had not yet arisen. The few sporadic attempts,
      thus he told himself, had only touched the keynote. He strove for the
      diapason, the great song that should embrace in itself a whole epoch, a
      complete era, the voice of an entire people, wherein all people should be
      included&mdash;they and their legends, their folk lore, their fightings,
      their loves and their lusts, their blunt, grim humour, their stoicism
      under stress, their adventures, their treasures found in a day and gambled
      in a night, their direct, crude speech, their generosity and cruelty,
      their heroism and bestiality, their religion and profanity, their
      self-sacrifice and obscenity&mdash;a true and fearless setting forth of a
      passing phase of history, un-compromising, sincere; each group in its
      proper environment; the valley, the plain, and the mountain; the ranch,
      the range, and the mine&mdash;all this, all the traits and types of every
      community from the Dakotas to the Mexicos, from Winnipeg to Guadalupe,
      gathered together, swept together, welded and riven together in one
      single, mighty song, the Song of the West. That was what he dreamed, while
      things without names&mdash;thoughts for which no man had yet invented
      words, terrible formless shapes, vague figures, colossal, monstrous,
      distorted&mdash;whirled at a gallop through his imagination.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Harran came up, Presley reached down into the pouches of the
      sun-bleached shooting coat he wore and drew out and handed him the packet
      of letters and papers.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here's the mail. I think I shall go on.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But dinner is ready,&rdquo; said Harran; &ldquo;we are just sitting down.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley shook his head. &ldquo;No, I'm in a hurry. Perhaps I shall have
      something to eat at Guadalajara. I shall be gone all day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He delayed a few moments longer, tightening a loose nut on his forward
      wheel, while Harran, recognising his father's handwriting on one of the
      envelopes, slit it open and cast his eye rapidly over its pages.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The Governor is coming home,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;to-morrow morning on the
      early train; wants me to meet him with the team at Guadalajara; AND,&rdquo; he
      cried between his clenched teeth, as he continued to read, &ldquo;we've lost the
      case.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What case? Oh, in the matter of rates?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran nodded, his eyes flashing, his face growing suddenly scarlet.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ulsteen gave his decision yesterday,&rdquo; he continued, reading from his
      father's letter. &ldquo;He holds, Ulsteen does, that 'grain rates as low as the
      new figure would amount to confiscation of property, and that, on such a
      basis, the railroad could not be operated at a legitimate profit. As he is
      powerless to legislate in the matter, he can only put the rates back at
      what they originally were before the commissioners made the cut, and it is
      so ordered.' That's our friend S. Behrman again,&rdquo; added Harran, grinding
      his teeth. &ldquo;He was up in the city the whole of the time the new schedule
      was being drawn, and he and Ulsteen and the Railroad Commission were as
      thick as thieves. He has been up there all this last week, too, doing the
      railroad's dirty work, and backing Ulsteen up. 'Legitimate profit,
      legitimate profit,'&rdquo; he broke out. &ldquo;Can we raise wheat at a legitimate
      profit with a tariff of four dollars a ton for moving it two hundred miles
      to tide-water, with wheat at eighty-seven cents? Why not hold us up with a
      gun in our faces, and say, 'hands up,' and be done with it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He dug his boot-heel into the ground and turned away to the house
      abruptly, cursing beneath his breath.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By the way,&rdquo; Presley called after him, &ldquo;Hooven wants to see you. He asked
      me about this idea of the Governor's of getting along without the tenants
      this year. Hooven wants to stay to tend the ditch and look after the
      stock. I told him to see you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran, his mind full of other things, nodded to say he understood.
      Presley only waited till he had disappeared indoors, so that he might not
      seem too indifferent to his trouble; then, remounting, struck at once into
      a brisk pace, and, turning out from the carriage gate, held on swiftly
      down the Lower Road, going in the direction of Guadalajara. These matters,
      these eternal fierce bickerings between the farmers of the San Joaquin and
      the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad irritated him and wearied him. He
      cared for none of these things. They did not belong to his world. In the
      picture of that huge romantic West that he saw in his imagination, these
      dissensions made the one note of harsh colour that refused to enter into
      the great scheme of harmony. It was material, sordid, deadly commonplace.
      But, however he strove to shut his eyes to it or his ears to it, the thing
      persisted and persisted. The romance seemed complete up to that point.
      There it broke, there it failed, there it became realism, grim, unlovely,
      unyielding. To be true&mdash;and it was the first article of his creed to
      be unflinchingly true&mdash;he could not ignore it. All the noble poetry
      of the ranch&mdash;the valley&mdash;seemed in his mind to be marred and
      disfigured by the presence of certain immovable facts. Just what he
      wanted, Presley hardly knew. On one hand, it was his ambition to portray
      life as he saw it&mdash;directly, frankly, and through no medium of
      personality or temperament. But, on the other hand, as well, he wished to
      see everything through a rose-coloured mist&mdash;a mist that dulled all
      harsh outlines, all crude and violent colours. He told himself that, as a
      part of the people, he loved the people and sympathised with their hopes
      and fears, and joys and griefs; and yet Hooven, grimy and perspiring, with
      his perpetual grievance and his contracted horizon, only revolted him. He
      had set himself the task of giving true, absolutely true, poetical
      expression to the life of the ranch, and yet, again and again, he brought
      up against the railroad, that stubborn iron barrier against which his
      romance shattered itself to froth and disintegrated, flying spume. His
      heart went out to the people, and his groping hand met that of a slovenly
      little Dutchman, whom it was impossible to consider seriously. He searched
      for the True Romance, and, in the end, found grain rates and unjust
      freight tariffs.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But the stuff is HERE,&rdquo; he muttered, as he sent his wheel rumbling across
      the bridge over Broderson Creek. &ldquo;The romance, the real romance, is here
      somewhere. I'll get hold of it yet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He shot a glance about him as if in search of the inspiration. By now he
      was not quite half way across the northern and narrowest corner of Los
      Muertos, at this point some eight miles wide. He was still on the Home
      ranch. A few miles to the south he could just make out the line of wire
      fence that separated it from the third division; and to the north, seen
      faint and blue through the haze and shimmer of the noon sun, a long file
      of telegraph poles showed the line of the railroad and marked Derrick's
      northeast boundary. The road over which Presley was travelling ran almost
      diametrically straight. In front of him, but at a great distance, he could
      make out the giant live-oak and the red roof of Hooven's barn that stood
      near it.
    </p>
    <p>
      All about him the country was flat. In all directions he could see for
      miles. The harvest was just over. Nothing but stubble remained on the
      ground. With the one exception of the live-oak by Hooven's place, there
      was nothing green in sight. The wheat stubble was of a dirty yellow; the
      ground, parched, cracked, and dry, of a cheerless brown. By the roadside
      the dust lay thick and grey, and, on either hand, stretching on toward the
      horizon, losing itself in a mere smudge in the distance, ran the
      illimitable parallels of the wire fence. And that was all; that and the
      burnt-out blue of the sky and the steady shimmer of the heat.
    </p>
    <p>
      The silence was infinite. After the harvest, small though that harvest had
      been, the ranches seemed asleep. It was as though the earth, after its
      period of reproduction, its pains of labour, had been delivered of the
      fruit of its loins, and now slept the sleep of exhaustion.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the period between seasons, when nothing was being done, when the
      natural forces seemed to hang suspended. There was no rain, there was no
      wind, there was no growth, no life; the very stubble had no force even to
      rot. The sun alone moved.
    </p>
    <p>
      Toward two o'clock, Presley reached Hooven's place, two or three grimy
      frame buildings, infested with a swarm of dogs. A hog or two wandered
      aimlessly about. Under a shed by the barn, a broken-down seeder lay
      rusting to its ruin. But overhead, a mammoth live-oak, the largest tree in
      all the country-side, towered superb and magnificent. Grey bunches of
      mistletoe and festoons of trailing moss hung from its bark. From its
      lowest branch hung Hooven's meat-safe, a square box, faced with wire
      screens.
    </p>
    <p>
      What gave a special interest to Hooven's was the fact that here was the
      intersection of the Lower Road and Derrick's main irrigating ditch, a vast
      trench not yet completed, which he and Annixter, who worked the Quien Sabe
      ranch, were jointly constructing. It ran directly across the road and at
      right angles to it, and lay a deep groove in the field between Hooven's
      and the town of Guadalajara, some three miles farther on. Besides this,
      the ditch was a natural boundary between two divisions of the Los Muertos
      ranch, the first and fourth.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley now had the choice of two routes. His objective point was the
      spring at the headwaters of Broderson Creek, in the hills on the eastern
      side of the Quien Sabe ranch. The trail afforded him a short cut
      thitherward. As he passed the house, Mrs. Hooven came to the door, her
      little daughter Hilda, dressed in a boy's overalls and clumsy boots, at
      her skirts. Minna, her oldest daughter, a very pretty girl, whose love
      affairs were continually the talk of all Los Muertos, was visible through
      a window of the house, busy at the week's washing. Mrs. Hooven was a
      faded, colourless woman, middle-aged and commonplace, and offering not the
      least characteristic that would distinguish her from a thousand other
      women of her class and kind. She nodded to Presley, watching him with a
      stolid gaze from under her arm, which she held across her forehead to
      shade her eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      But now Presley exerted himself in good earnest. His bicycle flew. He
      resolved that after all he would go to Guadalajara. He crossed the bridge
      over the irrigating ditch with a brusque spurt of hollow sound, and shot
      forward down the last stretch of the Lower Road that yet intervened
      between Hooven's and the town. He was on the fourth division of the ranch
      now, the only one whereon the wheat had been successful, no doubt because
      of the Little Mission Creek that ran through it. But he no longer occupied
      himself with the landscape. His only concern was to get on as fast as
      possible. He had looked forward to spending nearly the whole day on the
      crest of the wooded hills in the northern corner of the Quien Sabe ranch,
      reading, idling, smoking his pipe. But now he would do well if he arrived
      there by the middle of the afternoon. In a few moments he had reached the
      line fence that marked the limits of the ranch. Here were the railroad
      tracks, and just beyond&mdash;a huddled mass of roofs, with here and there
      an adobe house on its outskirts&mdash;the little town of Guadalajara.
      Nearer at hand, and directly in front of Presley, were the freight and
      passenger depots of the P. and S. W., painted in the grey and white, which
      seemed to be the official colours of all the buildings owned by the
      corporation. The station was deserted. No trains passed at this hour. From
      the direction of the ticket window, Presley heard the unsteady chittering
      of the telegraph key. In the shadow of one of the baggage trucks upon the
      platform, the great yellow cat that belonged to the agent dozed
      complacently, her paws tucked under her body. Three flat cars, loaded with
      bright-painted farming machines, were on the siding above the station,
      while, on the switch below, a huge freight engine that lacked its
      cow-catcher sat back upon its monstrous driving-wheels, motionless, solid,
      drawing long breaths that were punctuated by the subdued sound of its
      steam-pump clicking at exact intervals.
    </p>
    <p>
      But evidently it had been decreed that Presley should be stopped at every
      point of his ride that day, for, as he was pushing his bicycle across the
      tracks, he was surprised to hear his name called. &ldquo;Hello, there, Mr.
      Presley. What's the good word?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley looked up quickly, and saw Dyke, the engineer, leaning on his
      folded arms from the cab window of the freight engine. But at the prospect
      of this further delay, Presley was less troubled. Dyke and he were well
      acquainted and the best of friends. The picturesqueness of the engineer's
      life was always attractive to Presley, and more than once he had ridden on
      Dyke's engine between Guadalajara and Bonneville. Once, even, he had made
      the entire run between the latter town and San Francisco in the cab.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke's home was in Guadalajara. He lived in one of the remodelled 'dobe
      cottages, where his mother kept house for him. His wife had died some five
      years before this time, leaving him a little daughter, Sidney, to bring up
      as best he could. Dyke himself was a heavy built, well-looking fellow,
      nearly twice the weight of Presley, with great shoulders and massive,
      hairy arms, and a tremendous, rumbling voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, old man,&rdquo; answered Presley, coming up to the engine. &ldquo;What are you
      doing about here at this time of day? I thought you were on the night
      service this month.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We've changed about a bit,&rdquo; answered the other. &ldquo;Come up here and sit
      down, and get out of the sun. They've held us here to wait orders,&rdquo; he
      explained, as Presley, after leaning his bicycle against the tender,
      climbed to the fireman's seat of worn green leather. &ldquo;They are changing
      the run of one of the crack passenger engines down below, and are sending
      her up to Fresno. There was a smash of some kind on the Bakersfield
      division, and she's to hell and gone behind her time. I suppose when she
      comes, she'll come a-humming. It will be stand clear and an open track all
      the way to Fresno. They have held me here to let her go by.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He took his pipe, an old T. D. clay, but coloured to a beautiful shiny
      black, from the pocket of his jumper and filled and lit it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I don't suppose you object to being held here,&rdquo; observed Presley.
      &ldquo;Gives you a chance to visit your mother and the little girl.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And precisely they choose this day to go up to Sacramento,&rdquo; answered
      Dyke. &ldquo;Just my luck. Went up to visit my brother's people. By the way, my
      brother may come down here&mdash;locate here, I mean&mdash;and go into the
      hop-raising business. He's got an option on five hundred acres just back
      of the town here. He says there is going to be money in hops. I don't
      know; may be I'll go in with him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, what's the matter with railroading?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke drew a couple of puffs on his pipe, and fixed Presley with a glance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's this the matter with it,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I'm fired.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fired! You!&rdquo; exclaimed Presley, turning abruptly toward him. &ldquo;That's what
      I'm telling you,&rdquo; returned Dyke grimly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You don't mean it. Why, what for, Dyke?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, YOU tell me what for,&rdquo; growled the other savagely. &ldquo;Boy and man,
      I've worked for the P. and S. W. for over ten years, and never one yelp of
      a complaint did I ever hear from them. They know damn well they've not got
      a steadier man on the road. And more than that, more than that, I don't
      belong to the Brotherhood. And when the strike came along, I stood by them&mdash;stood
      by the company. You know that. And you know, and they know, that at
      Sacramento that time, I ran my train according to schedule, with a gun in
      each hand, never knowing when I was going over a mined culvert, and there
      was talk of giving me a gold watch at the time. To hell with their gold
      watches! I want ordinary justice and fair treatment. And now, when hard
      times come along, and they are cutting wages, what do they do? Do they
      make any discrimination in my case? Do they remember the man that stood by
      them and risked his life in their service? No. They cut my pay down just
      as off-hand as they do the pay of any dirty little wiper in the yard. Cut
      me along with&mdash;listen to this&mdash;cut me along with men that they
      had BLACK-LISTED; strikers that they took back because they were short of
      hands.&rdquo; He drew fiercely on his pipe. &ldquo;I went to them, yes, I did; I went
      to the General Office, and ate dirt. I told them I was a family man, and
      that I didn't see how I was going to get along on the new scale, and I
      reminded them of my service during the strike. The swine told me that it
      wouldn't be fair to discriminate in favour of one man, and that the cut
      must apply to all their employees alike. Fair!&rdquo; he shouted with laughter.
      &ldquo;Fair! Hear the P. and S. W. talking about fairness and discrimination.
      That's good, that is. Well, I got furious. I was a fool, I suppose. I told
      them that, in justice to myself, I wouldn't do first-class work for
      third-class pay. And they said, 'Well, Mr. Dyke, you know what you can
      do.' Well, I did know. I said, 'I'll ask for my time, if you please,' and
      they gave it to me just as if they were glad to be shut of me. So there
      you are, Presley. That's the P. &amp; S. W. Railroad Company of
      California. I am on my last run now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shameful,&rdquo; declared Presley, his sympathies all aroused, now that the
      trouble concerned a friend of his. &ldquo;It's shameful, Dyke. But,&rdquo; he added,
      an idea occurring to him, &ldquo;that don't shut you out from work. There are
      other railroads in the State that are not controlled by the P. and S. W.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke smote his knee with his clenched fist.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;NAME ONE.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley was silent. Dyke's challenge was unanswerable. There was a lapse
      in their talk, Presley drumming on the arm of the seat, meditating on this
      injustice; Dyke looking off over the fields beyond the town, his frown
      lowering, his teeth rasping upon his pipestem. The station agent came to
      the door of the depot, stretching and yawning. On ahead of the engine, the
      empty rails of the track, reaching out toward the horizon, threw off
      visible layers of heat. The telegraph key clicked incessantly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;So I'm going to quit,&rdquo; Dyke remarked after a while, his anger somewhat
      subsided. &ldquo;My brother and I will take up this hop ranch. I've saved a good
      deal in the last ten years, and there ought to be money in hops.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley went on, remounting his bicycle, wheeling silently through the
      deserted streets of the decayed and dying Mexican town. It was the hour of
      the siesta. Nobody was about. There was no business in the town. It was
      too close to Bonneville for that. Before the railroad came, and in the
      days when the raising of cattle was the great industry of the country, it
      had enjoyed a fierce and brilliant life. Now it was moribund. The drug
      store, the two bar-rooms, the hotel at the corner of the old Plaza, and
      the shops where Mexican &ldquo;curios&rdquo; were sold to those occasional Eastern
      tourists who came to visit the Mission of San Juan, sufficed for the
      town's activity.
    </p>
    <p>
      At Solotari's, the restaurant on the Plaza, diagonally across from the
      hotel, Presley ate his long-deferred Mexican dinner&mdash;an omelette in
      Spanish-Mexican style, frijoles and tortillas, a salad, and a glass of
      white wine. In a corner of the room, during the whole course of his
      dinner, two young Mexicans (one of whom was astonishingly handsome, after
      the melodramatic fashion of his race) and an old fellow! the centenarian
      of the town, decrepit beyond belief, sang an interminable love-song to the
      accompaniment of a guitar and an accordion.
    </p>
    <p>
      These Spanish-Mexicans, decayed, picturesque, vicious, and romantic, never
      failed to interest Presley. A few of them still remained in Guadalajara,
      drifting from the saloon to the restaurant, and from the restaurant to the
      Plaza, relics of a former generation, standing for a different order of
      things, absolutely idle, living God knew how, happy with their cigarette,
      their guitar, their glass of mescal, and their siesta. The centenarian
      remembered Fremont and Governor Alvarado, and the bandit Jesus Tejeda, and
      the days when Los Muertos was a Spanish grant, a veritable principality,
      leagues in extent, and when there was never a fence from Visalia to
      Fresno. Upon this occasion, Presley offered the old man a drink of mescal,
      and excited him to talk of the things he remembered. Their talk was in
      Spanish, a language with which Presley was familiar.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;De La Cuesta held the grant of Los Muertos in those days,&rdquo; the
      centenarian said; &ldquo;a grand man. He had the power of life and death over
      his people, and there was no law but his word. There was no thought of
      wheat then, you may believe. It was all cattle in those days, sheep,
      horses&mdash;steers, not so many&mdash;and if money was scarce, there was
      always plenty to eat, and clothes enough for all, and wine, ah, yes, by
      the vat, and oil too; the Mission Fathers had that. Yes, and there was
      wheat as well, now that I come to think; but a very little&mdash;in the
      field north of the Mission where now it is the Seed ranch; wheat fields
      were there, and also a vineyard, all on Mission grounds. Wheat, olives,
      and the vine; the Fathers planted those, to provide the elements of the
      Holy Sacrament&mdash;bread, oil, and wine, you understand. It was like
      that, those industries began in California&mdash;from the Church; and
      now,&rdquo; he put his chin in the air, &ldquo;what would Father Ullivari have said to
      such a crop as Senor Derrick plants these days? Ten thousand acres of
      wheat! Nothing but wheat from the Sierra to the Coast Range. I remember
      when De La Cuesta was married. He had never seen the young lady, only her
      miniature portrait, painted&rdquo;&mdash;he raised a shoulder&mdash;&ldquo;I do not
      know by whom, small, a little thing to be held in the palm. But he fell in
      love with that, and marry her he would. The affair was arranged between
      him and the girl's parents. But when the time came that De La Cuesta was
      to go to Monterey to meet and marry the girl, behold, Jesus Tejeda broke
      in upon the small rancheros near Terrabella. It was no time for De La
      Cuesta to be away, so he sent his brother Esteban to Monterey to marry the
      girl by proxy for him. I went with Esteban. We were a company, nearly a
      hundred men. And De La Cuesta sent a horse for the girl to ride, white,
      pure white; and the saddle was of red leather; the head-stall, the bit,
      and buckles, all the metal work, of virgin silver. Well, there was a
      ceremony in the Monterey Mission, and Esteban, in the name of his brother,
      was married to the girl. On our way back, De La Cuesta rode out to meet
      us. His company met ours at Agatha dos Palos. Never will I forget De La
      Cuesta's face as his eyes fell upon the girl. It was a look, a glance,
      come and gone like THAT,&rdquo; he snapped his fingers. &ldquo;No one but I saw it,
      but I was close by. There was no mistaking that look. De La Cuesta was
      disappointed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And the girl?&rdquo; demanded Presley.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She never knew. Ah, he was a grand gentleman, De La Cuesta. Always he
      treated her as a queen. Never was husband more devoted, more respectful,
      more chivalrous. But love?&rdquo; The old fellow put his chin in the air,
      shutting his eyes in a knowing fashion. &ldquo;It was not there. I could tell.
      They were married over again at the Mission San Juan de Guadalajara&mdash;OUR
      Mission&mdash;and for a week all the town of Guadalajara was in fete.
      There were bull-fights in the Plaza&mdash;this very one&mdash;for five
      days, and to each of his tenants-in-chief, De La Cuesta gave a horse, a
      barrel of tallow, an ounce of silver, and half an ounce of gold dust. Ah,
      those were days. That was a gay life. This&rdquo;&mdash;he made a comprehensive
      gesture with his left hand&mdash;&ldquo;this is stupid.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You may well say that,&rdquo; observed Presley moodily, discouraged by the
      other's talk. All his doubts and uncertainty had returned to him. Never
      would he grasp the subject of his great poem. To-day, the life was
      colourless. Romance was dead. He had lived too late. To write of the past
      was not what he desired. Reality was what he longed for, things that he
      had seen. Yet how to make this compatible with romance. He rose, putting
      on his hat, offering the old man a cigarette. The centenarian accepted
      with the air of a grandee, and extended his horn snuff-box. Presley shook
      his head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I was born too late for that,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;for that, and for many other
      things. Adios.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are travelling to-day, senor?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A little turn through the country, to get the kinks out of the muscles,&rdquo;
       Presley answered. &ldquo;I go up into the Quien Sabe, into the high country
      beyond the Mission.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, the Quien Sabe rancho. The sheep are grazing there this week.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Solotari, the keeper of the restaurant, explained:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Young Annixter sold his wheat stubble on the ground to the sheep raisers
      off yonder;&rdquo; he motioned eastward toward the Sierra foothills. &ldquo;Since
      Sunday the herd has been down. Very clever, that young Annixter. He gets a
      price for his stubble, which else he would have to burn, and also manures
      his land as the sheep move from place to place. A true Yankee, that
      Annixter, a good gringo.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      After his meal, Presley once more mounted his bicycle, and leaving the
      restaurant and the Plaza behind him, held on through the main street of
      the drowsing town&mdash;the street that farther on developed into the road
      which turned abruptly northward and led onward through the hop-fields and
      the Quien Sabe ranch toward the Mission of San Juan.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Home ranch of the Quien Sabe was in the little triangle bounded on the
      south by the railroad, on the northwest by Broderson Creek, and on the
      east by the hop fields and the Mission lands. It was traversed in all
      directions, now by the trail from Hooven's, now by the irrigating ditch&mdash;the
      same which Presley had crossed earlier in the day&mdash;and again by the
      road upon which Presley then found himself. In its centre were Annixter's
      ranch house and barns, topped by the skeleton-like tower of the artesian
      well that was to feed the irrigating ditch. Farther on, the course of
      Broderson Creek was marked by a curved line of grey-green willows, while
      on the low hills to the north, as Presley advanced, the ancient Mission of
      San Juan de Guadalajara, with its belfry tower and red-tiled roof, began
      to show itself over the crests of the venerable pear trees that clustered
      in its garden.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Presley reached Annixter's ranch house, he found young Annixter
      himself stretched in his hammock behind the mosquito-bar on the front
      porch, reading &ldquo;David Copperfield,&rdquo; and gorging himself with dried prunes.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter&mdash;after the two had exchanged greetings&mdash;complained of
      terrific colics all the preceding night. His stomach was out of whack, but
      you bet he knew how to take care of himself; the last spell, he had
      consulted a doctor at Bonneville, a gibbering busy-face who had filled him
      up to the neck with a dose of some hogwash stuff that had made him worse&mdash;a
      healthy lot the doctors knew, anyhow. HIS case was peculiar. HE knew;
      prunes were what he needed, and by the pound.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, who worked the Quien Sabe ranch&mdash;some four thousand acres
      of rich clay and heavy loams&mdash;was a very young man, younger even than
      Presley, like him a college graduate. He looked never a year older than he
      was. He was smooth-shaven and lean built. But his youthful appearance was
      offset by a certain male cast of countenance, the lower lip thrust out,
      the chin large and deeply cleft. His university course had hardened rather
      than polished him. He still remained one of the people, rough almost to
      insolence, direct in speech, intolerant in his opinions, relying upon
      absolutely no one but himself; yet, with all this, of an astonishing
      degree of intelligence, and possessed of an executive ability little short
      of positive genius. He was a ferocious worker, allowing himself no
      pleasures, and exacting the same degree of energy from all his
      subordinates. He was widely hated, and as widely trusted. Every one spoke
      of his crusty temper and bullying disposition, invariably qualifying the
      statement with a commendation of his resources and capabilities. The devil
      of a driver, a hard man to get along with, obstinate, contrary,
      cantankerous; but brains! No doubt of that; brains to his boots. One would
      like to see the man who could get ahead of him on a deal. Twice he had
      been shot at, once from ambush on Osterman's ranch, and once by one of his
      own men whom he had kicked from the sacking platform of his harvester for
      gross negligence. At college, he had specialised on finance, political
      economy, and scientific agriculture. After his graduation (he stood almost
      at the very top of his class) he had returned and obtained the degree of
      civil engineer. Then suddenly he had taken a notion that a practical
      knowledge of law was indispensable to a modern farmer. In eight months he
      did the work of three years, studying for his bar examinations. His method
      of study was characteristic. He reduced all the material of his text-books
      to notes. Tearing out the leaves of these note-books, he pasted them upon
      the walls of his room; then, in his shirt-sleeves, a cheap cigar in his
      teeth, his hands in his pockets, he walked around and around the room,
      scowling fiercely at his notes, memorising, devouring, digesting. At
      intervals, he drank great cupfuls of unsweetened, black coffee. When the
      bar examinations were held, he was admitted at the very head of all the
      applicants, and was complimented by the judge. Immediately afterwards, he
      collapsed with nervous prostration; his stomach &ldquo;got out of whack,&rdquo; and he
      all but died in a Sacramento boarding-house, obstinately refusing to have
      anything to do with doctors, whom he vituperated as a rabble of quacks,
      dosing himself with a patent medicine and stuffing himself almost to
      bursting with liver pills and dried prunes.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had taken a trip to Europe after this sickness to put himself
      completely to rights. He intended to be gone a year, but returned at the
      end of six weeks, fulminating abuse of European cooking. Nearly his entire
      time had been spent in Paris; but of this sojourn he had brought back but
      two souvenirs, an electro-plated bill-hook and an empty bird cage which
      had tickled his fancy immensely.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was wealthy. Only a year previous to this his father&mdash;a widower,
      who had amassed a fortune in land speculation&mdash;had died, and
      Annixter, the only son, had come into the inheritance.
    </p>
    <p>
      For Presley, Annixter professed a great admiration, holding in deep
      respect the man who could rhyme words, deferring to him whenever there was
      question of literature or works of fiction. No doubt, there was not much
      use in poetry, and as for novels, to his mind, there were only Dickens's
      works. Everything else was a lot of lies. But just the same, it took
      brains to grind out a poem. It wasn't every one who could rhyme &ldquo;brave&rdquo;
       and &ldquo;glaive,&rdquo; and make sense out of it. Sure not.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Presley's case was a notable exception. On no occasion was Annixter
      prepared to accept another man's opinion without reserve. In conversation
      with him, it was almost impossible to make any direct statement, however
      trivial, that he would accept without either modification or open
      contradiction. He had a passion for violent discussion. He would argue
      upon every subject in the range of human knowledge, from astronomy to the
      tariff, from the doctrine of predestination to the height of a horse.
      Never would he admit himself to be mistaken; when cornered, he would
      intrench himself behind the remark, &ldquo;Yes, that's all very well. In some
      ways, it is, and then, again, in some ways, it ISN'T.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Singularly enough, he and Presley were the best of friends. More than
      once, Presley marvelled at this state of affairs, telling himself that he
      and Annixter had nothing in common. In all his circle of acquaintances,
      Presley was the one man with whom Annixter had never quarrelled. The two
      men were diametrically opposed in temperament. Presley was easy-going;
      Annixter, alert. Presley was a confirmed dreamer, irresolute, inactive,
      with a strong tendency to melancholy; the young farmer was a man of
      affairs, decisive, combative, whose only reflection upon his interior
      economy was a morbid concern in the vagaries of his stomach. Yet the two
      never met without a mutual pleasure, taking a genuine interest in each
      other's affairs, and often putting themselves to great inconvenience to be
      of trifling service to help one another.
    </p>
    <p>
      As a last characteristic, Annixter pretended to be a woman-hater, for no
      other reason than that he was a very bull-calf of awkwardness in feminine
      surroundings. Feemales! Rot! There was a fine way for a man to waste his
      time and his good money, lally gagging with a lot of feemales. No, thank
      you; none of it in HIS, if you please. Once only he had an affair&mdash;a
      timid, little creature in a glove-cleaning establishment in Sacramento,
      whom he had picked up, Heaven knew how. After his return to his ranch, a
      correspondence had been maintained between the two, Annixter taking the
      precaution to typewrite his letters, and never affixing his signature, in
      an excess of prudence. He furthermore made carbon copies of all his
      letters, filing them away in a compartment of his safe. Ah, it would be a
      clever feemale who would get him into a mess. Then, suddenly smitten with
      a panic terror that he had committed himself, that he was involving
      himself too deeply, he had abruptly sent the little woman about her
      business. It was his only love affair. After that, he kept himself free.
      No petticoats should ever have a hold on him. Sure not.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Presley came up to the edge of the porch, pushing his bicycle in front
      of him, Annixter excused himself for not getting up, alleging that the
      cramps returned the moment he was off his back.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What are you doing up this way?&rdquo; he demanded.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, just having a look around,&rdquo; answered Presley. &ldquo;How's the ranch?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; observed the other, ignoring his question, &ldquo;what's this I hear
      about Derrick giving his tenants the bounce, and working Los Muertos
      himself&mdash;working ALL his land?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley made a sharp movement of impatience with his free hand. &ldquo;I've
      heard nothing else myself since morning. I suppose it must be so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Huh!&rdquo; grunted Annixter, spitting out a prune stone. &ldquo;You give Magnus
      Derrick my compliments and tell him he's a fool.&rdquo; &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose Derrick thinks he's still running his mine, and that the same
      principles will apply to getting grain out of the earth as to getting
      gold. Oh, let him go on and see where he brings up. That's right, there's
      your Western farmer,&rdquo; he exclaimed contemptuously. &ldquo;Get the guts out of
      your land; work it to death; never give it a rest. Never alternate your
      crop, and then when your soil is exhausted, sit down and roar about hard
      times.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose Magnus thinks the land has had rest enough these last two dry
      seasons,&rdquo; observed Presley. &ldquo;He has raised no crop to speak of for two
      years. The land has had a good rest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, yes, that sounds well,&rdquo; Annixter contradicted, unwilling to be
      convinced. &ldquo;In a way, the land's been rested, and then, again, in a way,
      it hasn't.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Presley, scenting an argument, refrained from answering, and bethought
      himself of moving on.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm going to leave my wheel here for a while, Buck,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if you
      don't mind. I'm going up to the spring, and the road is rough between here
      and there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stop in for dinner on your way back,&rdquo; said Annixter. &ldquo;There'll be a
      venison steak. One of the boys got a deer over in the foothills last week.
      Out of season, but never mind that. I can't eat it. This stomach of mine
      wouldn't digest sweet oil to-day. Get here about six.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, maybe I will, thank you,&rdquo; said Presley, moving off. &ldquo;By the way,&rdquo;
       he added, &ldquo;I see your barn is about done.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You bet,&rdquo; answered Annixter. &ldquo;In about a fortnight now she'll be all
      ready.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's a big barn,&rdquo; murmured Presley, glancing around the angle of the
      house toward where the great structure stood.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Guess we'll have to have a dance there before we move the stock in,&rdquo;
       observed Annixter. &ldquo;That's the custom all around here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley took himself off, but at the gate Annixter called after him, his
      mouth full of prunes, &ldquo;Say, take a look at that herd of sheep as you go
      up. They are right off here to the east of the road, about half a mile
      from here. I guess that's the biggest lot of sheep YOU ever saw. You might
      write a poem about 'em. Lamb&mdash;ram; sheep graze&mdash;sunny days.
      Catch on?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Beyond Broderson Creek, as Presley advanced, tramping along on foot now,
      the land opened out again into the same vast spaces of dull brown earth,
      sprinkled with stubble, such as had been characteristic of Derrick's
      ranch. To the east the reach seemed infinite, flat, cheerless,
      heat-ridden, unrolling like a gigantic scroll toward the faint shimmer of
      the distant horizons, with here and there an isolated live-oak to break
      the sombre monotony. But bordering the road to the westward, the surface
      roughened and raised, clambering up to the higher ground, on the crest of
      which the old Mission and its surrounding pear trees were now plainly
      visible.
    </p>
    <p>
      Just beyond the Mission, the road bent abruptly eastward, striking off
      across the Seed ranch. But Presley left the road at this point, going on
      across the open fields. There was no longer any trail. It was toward three
      o'clock. The sun still spun, a silent, blazing disc, high in the heavens,
      and tramping through the clods of uneven, broken plough was fatiguing
      work. The slope of the lowest foothills begun, the surface of the country
      became rolling, and, suddenly, as he topped a higher ridge, Presley came
      upon the sheep.
    </p>
    <p>
      Already he had passed the larger part of the herd&mdash;an intervening
      rise of ground having hidden it from sight. Now, as he turned half way
      about, looking down into the shallow hollow between him and the curve of
      the creek, he saw them very plainly. The fringe of the herd was some two
      hundred yards distant, but its farther side, in that illusive shimmer of
      hot surface air, seemed miles away. The sheep were spread out roughly in
      the shape of a figure eight, two larger herds connected by a smaller, and
      were headed to the southward, moving slowly, grazing on the wheat stubble
      as they proceeded. But the number seemed incalculable. Hundreds upon
      hundreds upon hundreds of grey, rounded backs, all exactly alike, huddled,
      close-packed, alive, hid the earth from sight. It was no longer an
      aggregate of individuals. It was a mass&mdash;a compact, solid, slowly
      moving mass, huge, without form, like a thick-pressed growth of mushrooms,
      spreading out in all directions over the earth. From it there arose a
      vague murmur, confused, inarticulate, like the sound of very distant surf,
      while all the air in the vicinity was heavy with the warm, ammoniacal
      odour of the thousands of crowding bodies.
    </p>
    <p>
      All the colours of the scene were sombre&mdash;the brown of the earth, the
      faded yellow of the dead stubble, the grey of the myriad of undulating
      backs. Only on the far side of the herd, erect, motionless&mdash;a single
      note of black, a speck, a dot&mdash;the shepherd stood, leaning upon an
      empty water-trough, solitary, grave, impressive.
    </p>
    <p>
      For a few moments, Presley stood, watching. Then, as he started to move
      on, a curious thing occurred. At first, he thought he had heard some one
      call his name. He paused, listening; there was no sound but the vague
      noise of the moving sheep. Then, as this first impression passed, it
      seemed to him that he had been beckoned to. Yet nothing stirred; except
      for the lonely figure beyond the herd there was no one in sight. He
      started on again, and in half a dozen steps found himself looking over his
      shoulder. Without knowing why, he looked toward the shepherd; then halted
      and looked a second time and a third. Had the shepherd called to him?
      Presley knew that he had heard no voice. Brusquely, all his attention
      seemed riveted upon this distant figure. He put one forearm over his eyes,
      to keep off the sun, gazing across the intervening herd. Surely, the
      shepherd had called him. But at the next instant he started, uttering an
      exclamation under his breath. The far-away speck of black became animated.
      Presley remarked a sweeping gesture. Though the man had not beckoned to
      him before, there was no doubt that he was beckoning now. Without any
      hesitation, and singularly interested in the incident, Presley turned
      sharply aside and hurried on toward the shepherd, skirting the herd,
      wondering all the time that he should answer the call with so little
      question, so little hesitation.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the shepherd came forward to meet Presley, followed by one of his
      dogs. As the two men approached each other, Presley, closely studying the
      other, began to wonder where he had seen him before. It must have been a
      very long time ago, upon one of his previous visits to the ranch.
      Certainly, however, there was something familiar in the shepherd's face
      and figure. When they came closer to each other, and Presley could see him
      more distinctly, this sense of a previous acquaintance was increased and
      sharpened.
    </p>
    <p>
      The shepherd was a man of about thirty-five. He was very lean and spare.
      His brown canvas overalls were thrust into laced boots. A cartridge belt
      without any cartridges encircled his waist. A grey flannel shirt, open at
      the throat, showed his breast, tanned and ruddy. He wore no hat. His hair
      was very black and rather long. A pointed beard covered his chin, growing
      straight and fine from the hollow cheeks. The absence of any covering for
      his head was, no doubt, habitual with him, for his face was as brown as an
      Indian's&mdash;a ruddy brown quite different from Presley's dark olive. To
      Presley's morbidly keen observation, the general impression of the
      shepherd's face was intensely interesting. It was uncommon to an
      astonishing degree. Presley's vivid imagination chose to see in it the
      face of an ascetic, of a recluse, almost that of a young seer. So must
      have appeared the half-inspired shepherds of the Hebraic legends, the
      younger prophets of Israel, dwellers in the wilderness, beholders of
      visions, having their existence in a continual dream, talkers with God,
      gifted with strange powers.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly, at some twenty paces distant from the approaching shepherd,
      Presley stopped short, his eyes riveted upon the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Vanamee!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
    </p>
    <p>
      The shepherd smiled and came forward, holding out his hands, saying, &ldquo;I
      thought it was you. When I saw you come over the hill, I called you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But not with your voice,&rdquo; returned Presley. &ldquo;I knew that some one wanted
      me. I felt it. I should have remembered that you could do that kind of
      thing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have never known it to fail. It helps with the sheep.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;With the sheep?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In a way. I can't tell exactly how. We don't understand these things yet.
      There are times when, if I close my eyes and dig my fists into my temples,
      I can hold the entire herd for perhaps a minute. Perhaps, though, it's
      imagination, who knows? But it's good to see you again. How long has it
      been since the last time? Two, three, nearly five years.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was more than that. It was six years since Presley and Vanamee had met,
      and then it had been for a short time only, during one of the shepherd's
      periodical brief returns to that part of the country. During a week he and
      Presley had been much together, for the two were devoted friends. Then, as
      abruptly, as mysteriously as he had come, Vanamee disappeared. Presley
      awoke one morning to find him gone. Thus, it had been with Vanamee for a
      period of sixteen years. He lived his life in the unknown, one could not
      tell where&mdash;in the desert, in the mountains, throughout all the vast
      and vague South-west, solitary, strange. Three, four, five years passed.
      The shepherd would be almost forgotten. Never the most trivial scrap of
      information as to his whereabouts reached Los Muertos. He had melted off
      into the surface-shimmer of the desert, into the mirage; he sank below the
      horizons; he was swallowed up in the waste of sand and sage. Then, without
      warning, he would reappear, coming in from the wilderness, emerging from
      the unknown. No one knew him well. In all that countryside he had but
      three friends, Presley, Magnus Derrick, and the priest at the Mission of
      San Juan de Guadalajara, Father Sarria. He remained always a mystery,
      living a life half-real, half-legendary. In all those years he did not
      seem to have grown older by a single day. At this time, Presley knew him
      to be thirty-six years of age. But since the first day the two had met,
      the shepherd's face and bearing had, to his eyes, remained the same. At
      this moment, Presley was looking into the same face he had first seen
      many, many years ago. It was a face stamped with an unspeakable sadness, a
      deathless grief, the permanent imprint of a tragedy long past, but yet a
      living issue. Presley told himself that it was impossible to look long
      into Vanamee's eyes without knowing that here was a man whose whole being
      had been at one time shattered and riven to its lowest depths, whose life
      had suddenly stopped at a certain moment of its development.
    </p>
    <p>
      The two friends sat down upon the ledge of the watering-trough, their eyes
      wandering incessantly toward the slow moving herd, grazing on the wheat
      stubble, moving southward as they grazed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where have you come from this time?&rdquo; Presley had asked. &ldquo;Where have you
      kept yourself?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other swept the horizon to the south and east with a vague gesture.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Off there, down to the south, very far off. So many places that I can't
      remember. I went the Long Trail this time; a long, long ways. Arizona, The
      Mexicos, and, then, afterwards, Utah and Nevada, following the horizon,
      travelling at hazard. Into Arizona first, going in by Monument Pass, and
      then on to the south, through the country of the Navajos, down by the Aga
      Thia Needle&mdash;a great blade of red rock jutting from out the desert,
      like a knife thrust. Then on and on through The Mexicos, all through the
      Southwest, then back again in a great circle by Chihuahua and Aldama to
      Laredo, to Torreon, and Albuquerque. From there across the Uncompahgre
      plateau into the Uintah country; then at last due west through Nevada to
      California and to the valley of the San Joaquin.&rdquo; His voice lapsed to a
      monotone, his eyes becoming fixed; he continued to speak as though half
      awake, his thoughts elsewhere, seeing again in the eye of his mind the
      reach of desert and red hill, the purple mountain, the level stretch of
      alkali, leper white, all the savage, gorgeous desolation of the Long
      Trail.
    </p>
    <p>
      He ignored Presley for the moment, but, on the other hand, Presley himself
      gave him but half his attention. The return of Vanamee had stimulated the
      poet's memory. He recalled the incidents of Vanamee's life, reviewing
      again that terrible drama which had uprooted his soul, which had driven
      him forth a wanderer, a shunner of men, a sojourner in waste places. He
      was, strangely enough, a college graduate and a man of wide reading and
      great intelligence, but he had chosen to lead his own life, which was that
      of a recluse.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of a temperament similar in many ways to Presley's, there were
      capabilities in Vanamee that were not ordinarily to be found in the rank
      and file of men. Living close to nature, a poet by instinct, where Presley
      was but a poet by training, there developed in him a great sensitiveness
      to beauty and an almost abnormal capacity for great happiness and great
      sorrow; he felt things intensely, deeply. He never forgot. It was when he
      was eighteen or nineteen, at the formative and most impressionable period
      of his life, that he had met Angele Varian. Presley barely remembered her
      as a girl of sixteen, beautiful almost beyond expression, who lived with
      an aged aunt on the Seed ranch back of the Mission. At this moment he was
      trying to recall how she looked, with her hair of gold hanging in two
      straight plaits on either side of her face, making three-cornered her
      round, white forehead; her wonderful eyes, violet blue, heavy lidded, with
      their astonishing upward slant toward the temples, the slant that gave a
      strange, oriental cast to her face, perplexing, enchanting. He remembered
      the Egyptian fulness of the lips, the strange balancing movement of her
      head upon her slender neck, the same movement that one sees in a snake at
      poise. Never had he seen a girl more radiantly beautiful, never a beauty
      so strange, so troublous, so out of all accepted standards. It was small
      wonder that Vanamee had loved her, and less wonder, still, that his love
      had been so intense, so passionate, so part of himself. Angele had loved
      him with a love no less than his own. It was one of those legendary
      passions that sometimes occur, idyllic, untouched by civilisation,
      spontaneous as the growth of trees, natural as dew-fall, strong as the
      firm-seated mountains.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the time of his meeting with Angele, Vanamee was living on the Los
      Muertos ranch. It was there he had chosen to spend one of his college
      vacations. But he preferred to pass it in out-of-door work, sometimes
      herding cattle, sometimes pitching hay, sometimes working with pick and
      dynamite-stick on the ditches in the fourth division of the ranch, riding
      the range, mending breaks in the wire fences, making himself generally
      useful. College bred though he was, the life pleased him. He was, as he
      desired, close to nature, living the full measure of life, a worker among
      workers, taking enjoyment in simple pleasures, healthy in mind and body.
      He believed in an existence passed in this fashion in the country, working
      hard, eating full, drinking deep, sleeping dreamlessly.
    </p>
    <p>
      But every night, after supper, he saddled his pony and rode over to the
      garden of the old Mission. The 'dobe dividing wall on that side, which
      once had separated the Mission garden and the Seed ranch, had long since
      crumbled away, and the boundary between the two pieces of ground was
      marked only by a line of venerable pear trees. Here, under these trees, he
      found Angele awaiting him, and there the two would sit through the hot,
      still evening, their arms about each other, watching the moon rise over
      the foothills, listening to the trickle of the water in the moss-encrusted
      fountain in the garden, and the steady croak of the great frogs that lived
      in the damp north corner of the enclosure. Through all one summer the
      enchantment of that new-found, wonderful love, pure and untainted, filled
      the lives of each of them with its sweetness. The summer passed, the
      harvest moon came and went. The nights were very dark. In the deep shade
      of the pear trees they could no longer see each other. When they met at
      the rendezvous, Vanamee found her only with his groping hands. They did
      not speak, mere words were useless between them. Silently as his reaching
      hands touched her warm body, he took her in his arms, searching for her
      lips with his. Then one night the tragedy had suddenly leaped from out the
      shadow with the abruptness of an explosion.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was impossible afterwards to reconstruct the manner of its occurrence.
      To Angele's mind&mdash;what there was left of it&mdash;the matter always
      remained a hideous blur, a blot, a vague, terrible confusion. No doubt
      they two had been watched; the plan succeeded too well for any other
      supposition. One moonless night, Angele, arriving under the black shadow
      of the pear trees a little earlier than usual, found the apparently
      familiar figure waiting for her. All unsuspecting she gave herself to the
      embrace of a strange pair of arms, and Vanamee arriving but a score of
      moments later, stumbled over her prostrate body, inert and unconscious, in
      the shadow of the overspiring trees.
    </p>
    <p>
      Who was the Other? Angele was carried to her home on the Seed ranch,
      delirious, all but raving, and Vanamee, with knife and revolver ready,
      ranged the country-side like a wolf. He was not alone. The whole county
      rose, raging, horror-struck. Posse after posse was formed, sent out, and
      returned, without so much as a clue. Upon no one could even the shadow of
      suspicion be thrown. The Other had withdrawn into an impenetrable mystery.
      There he remained. He never was found; he never was so much as heard of. A
      legend arose about him, this prowler of the night, this strange, fearful
      figure, with an unseen face, swooping in there from out the darkness, come
      and gone in an instant, but leaving behind him a track of terror and death
      and rage and undying grief. Within the year, in giving birth to the child,
      Angele had died.
    </p>
    <p>
      The little babe was taken by Angele's parents, and Angele was buried in
      the Mission garden near to the aged, grey sun dial. Vanamee stood by
      during the ceremony, but half conscious of what was going forward. At the
      last moment he had stepped forward, looked long into the dead face framed
      in its plaits of gold hair, the hair that made three-cornered the round,
      white forehead; looked again at the closed eyes, with their perplexing
      upward slant toward the temples, oriental, bizarre; at the lips with their
      Egyptian fulness; at the sweet, slender neck; the long, slim hands; then
      abruptly turned about. The last clods were filling the grave at a time
      when he was already far away, his horse's head turned toward the desert.
    </p>
    <p>
      For two years no syllable was heard of him. It was believed that he had
      killed himself. But Vanamee had no thought of that. For two years he
      wandered through Arizona, living in the desert, in the wilderness, a
      recluse, a nomad, an ascetic. But, doubtless, all his heart was in the
      little coffin in the Mission garden. Once in so often he must come back
      thither. One day he was seen again in the San Joaquin. The priest, Father
      Sarria, returning from a visit to the sick at Bonneville, met him on the
      Upper Road. Eighteen years had passed since Angele had died, but the
      thread of Vanamee's life had been snapped. Nothing remained now but the
      tangled ends. He had never forgotten. The long, dull ache, the poignant
      grief had now become a part of him. Presley knew this to be so.
    </p>
    <p>
      While Presley had been reflecting upon all this, Vanamee had continued to
      speak. Presley, however, had not been wholly inattentive. While his memory
      was busy reconstructing the details of the drama of the shepherd's life,
      another part of his brain had been swiftly registering picture after
      picture that Vanamee's monotonous flow of words struck off, as it were,
      upon a steadily moving scroll. The music of the unfamiliar names that
      occurred in his recital was a stimulant to the poet's imagination. Presley
      had the poet's passion for expressive, sonorous names. As these came and
      went in Vanamee's monotonous undertones, like little notes of harmony in a
      musical progression, he listened, delighted with their resonance.&mdash;Navajo,
      Quijotoa, Uintah, Sonora, Laredo, Uncompahgre&mdash;to him they were so
      many symbols. It was his West that passed, unrolling there before the eye
      of his mind: the open, heat-scourged round of desert; the mesa, like a
      vast altar, shimmering purple in the royal sunset; the still, gigantic
      mountains, heaving into the sky from out the canyons; the strenuous,
      fierce life of isolated towns, lost and forgotten, down there, far off,
      below the horizon. Abruptly his great poem, his Song of the West, leaped
      up again in his imagination. For the moment, he all but held it. It was
      there, close at hand. In another instant he would grasp it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;I can see it all. The desert, the mountains,
      all wild, primordial, untamed. How I should have loved to have been with
      you. Then, perhaps, I should have got hold of my idea.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your idea?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The great poem of the West. It's that which I want to write. Oh, to put
      it all into hexameters; strike the great iron note; sing the vast,
      terrible song; the song of the People; the forerunners of empire!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee understood him perfectly. He nodded gravely.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, it is there. It is Life, the primitive, simple, direct Life,
      passionate, tumultuous. Yes, there is an epic there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley caught at the word. It had never before occurred to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Epic, yes, that's it. It is the epic I'm searching for. And HOW I search
      for it. You don't know. It is sometimes almost an agony. Often and often I
      can feel it right there, there, at my finger-tips, but I never quite catch
      it. It always eludes me. I was born too late. Ah, to get back to that
      first clear-eyed view of things, to see as Homer saw, as Beowulf saw, as
      the Nibelungen poets saw. The life is here, the same as then; the Poem is
      here; my West is here; the primeval, epic life is here, here under our
      hands, in the desert, in the mountain, on the ranch, all over here, from
      Winnipeg to Guadalupe. It is the man who is lacking, the poet; we have
      been educated away from it all. We are out of touch. We are out of tune.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee heard him to the end, his grave, sad face thoughtful and
      attentive. Then he rose.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am going over to the Mission,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to see Father Sarria. I have
      not seen him yet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How about the sheep?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The dogs will keep them in hand, and I shall not be gone long. Besides
      that, I have a boy here to help. He is over yonder on the other side of
      the herd. We can't see him from here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley wondered at the heedlessness of leaving the sheep so slightly
      guarded, but made no comment, and the two started off across the field in
      the direction of the Mission church.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, yes, it is there&mdash;your epic,&rdquo; observed Vanamee, as they went
      along. &ldquo;But why write? Why not LIVE in it? Steep oneself in the heat of
      the desert, the glory of the sunset, the blue haze of the mesa and the
      canyon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As you have done, for instance?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee nodded.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, I could not do that,&rdquo; declared Presley; &ldquo;I want to go back, but not
      so far as you. I feel that I must compromise. I must find expression. I
      could not lose myself like that in your desert. When its vastness
      overwhelmed me, or its beauty dazzled me, or its loneliness weighed down
      upon me, I should have to record my impressions. Otherwise, I should
      suffocate.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Each to his own life,&rdquo; observed Vanamee.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Mission of San Juan, built of brown 'dobe blocks, covered with yellow
      plaster, that at many points had dropped away from the walls, stood on the
      crest of a low rise of the ground, facing to the south. A covered
      colonnade, paved with round, worn bricks, from whence opened the doors of
      the abandoned cells, once used by the monks, adjoined it on the left. The
      roof was of tiled half-cylinders, split longitudinally, and laid in
      alternate rows, now concave, now convex. The main body of the church
      itself was at right angles to the colonnade, and at the point of
      intersection rose the belfry tower, an ancient campanile, where swung the
      three cracked bells, the gift of the King of Spain. Beyond the church was
      the Mission garden and the graveyard that overlooked the Seed ranch in a
      little hollow beyond.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley and Vanamee went down the long colonnade to the last door next the
      belfry tower, and Vanamee pulled the leather thong that hung from a hole
      in the door, setting a little bell jangling somewhere in the interior. The
      place, but for this noise, was shrouded in a Sunday stillness, an absolute
      repose. Only at intervals, one heard the trickle of the unseen fountain,
      and the liquid cooing of doves in the garden.
    </p>
    <p>
      Father Sarria opened the door. He was a small man, somewhat stout, with a
      smooth and shiny face. He wore a frock coat that was rather dirty,
      slippers, and an old yachting cap of blue cloth, with a broken leather
      vizor. He was smoking a cheap cigar, very fat and black.
    </p>
    <p>
      But instantly he recognised Vanamee. His face went all alight with
      pleasure and astonishment. It seemed as if he would never have finished
      shaking both his hands; and, as it was, he released but one of them,
      patting him affectionately on the shoulder with the other. He was voluble
      in his welcome, talking partly in Spanish, partly in English. So he had
      come back again, this great fellow, tanned as an Indian, lean as an
      Indian, with an Indian's long, black hair. But he had not changed, not in
      the very least. His beard had not grown an inch. Aha! The rascal, never to
      give warning, to drop down, as it were, from out the sky. Such a hermit!
      To live in the desert! A veritable Saint Jerome. Did a lion feed him down
      there in Arizona, or was it a raven, like Elijah? The good God had not
      fattened him, at any rate, and, apropos, he was just about to dine
      himself. He had made a salad from his own lettuce. The two would dine with
      him, eh? For this, my son, that was lost is found again.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Presley excused himself. Instinctively, he felt that Sarria and
      Vanamee wanted to talk of things concerning which he was an outsider. It
      was not at all unlikely that Vanamee would spend half the night before the
      high altar in the church.
    </p>
    <p>
      He took himself away, his mind still busy with Vanamee's extraordinary
      life and character. But, as he descended the hill, he was startled by a
      prolonged and raucous cry, discordant, very harsh, thrice repeated at
      exact intervals, and, looking up, he saw one of Father Sarria's peacocks
      balancing himself upon the topmost wire of the fence, his long tail
      trailing, his neck outstretched, filling the air with his stupid outcry,
      for no reason than the desire to make a noise.
    </p>
    <p>
      About an hour later, toward four in the afternoon, Presley reached the
      spring at the head of the little canyon in the northeast corner of the
      Quien Sabe ranch, the point toward which he had been travelling since
      early in the forenoon. The place was not without its charm. Innumerable
      live-oaks overhung the canyon, and Broderson Creek&mdash;there a mere
      rivulet, running down from the spring&mdash;gave a certain coolness to the
      air. It was one of the few spots thereabouts that had survived the dry
      season of the last year. Nearly all the other springs had dried
      completely, while Mission Creek on Derrick's ranch was nothing better than
      a dusty cutting in the ground, filled with brittle, concave flakes of
      dried and sun-cracked mud.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley climbed to the summit of one of the hills&mdash;the highest&mdash;that
      rose out of the canyon, from the crest of which he could see for thirty,
      fifty, sixty miles down the valley, and, filling his pipe, smoked lazily
      for upwards of an hour, his head empty of thought, allowing himself to
      succumb to a pleasant, gentle inanition, a little drowsy comfortable in
      his place, prone upon the ground, warmed just enough by such sunlight as
      filtered through the live-oaks, soothed by the good tobacco and the
      prolonged murmur of the spring and creek. By degrees, the sense of his own
      personality became blunted, the little wheels and cogs of thought moved
      slower and slower; consciousness dwindled to a point, the animal in him
      stretched itself, purring. A delightful numbness invaded his mind and his
      body. He was not asleep, he was not awake, stupefied merely, lapsing back
      to the state of the faun, the satyr.
    </p>
    <p>
      After a while, rousing himself a little, he shifted his position and,
      drawing from the pocket of his shooting coat his little tree-calf edition
      of the Odyssey, read far into the twenty-first book, where, after the
      failure of all the suitors to bend Ulysses's bow, it is finally put, with
      mockery, into his own hands. Abruptly the drama of the story roused him
      from all his languor. In an instant he was the poet again, his nerves
      tingling, alive to every sensation, responsive to every impression. The
      desire of creation, of composition, grew big within him. Hexameters of his
      own clamoured, tumultuous, in his brain. Not for a long time had he &ldquo;felt
      his poem,&rdquo; as he called this sensation, so poignantly. For an instant he
      told himself that he actually held it.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was, no doubt, Vanamee's talk that had stimulated him to this point.
      The story of the Long Trail, with its desert and mountain, its
      cliff-dwellers, its Aztec ruins, its colour, movement, and romance, filled
      his mind with picture after picture. The epic defiled before his vision
      like a pageant. Once more, he shot a glance about him, as if in search of
      the inspiration, and this time he all but found it. He rose to his feet,
      looking out and off below him.
    </p>
    <p>
      As from a pinnacle, Presley, from where he now stood, dominated the entire
      country. The sun had begun to set, everything in the range of his vision
      was overlaid with a sheen of gold.
    </p>
    <p>
      First, close at hand, it was the Seed ranch, carpeting the little hollow
      behind the Mission with a spread of greens, some dark, some vivid, some
      pale almost to yellowness. Beyond that was the Mission itself, its
      venerable campanile, in whose arches hung the Spanish King's bells,
      already glowing ruddy in the sunset. Farther on, he could make out
      Annixter's ranch house, marked by the skeleton-like tower of the artesian
      well, and, a little farther to the east, the huddled, tiled roofs of
      Guadalajara. Far to the west and north, he saw Bonneville very plain, and
      the dome of the courthouse, a purple silhouette against the glare of the
      sky. Other points detached themselves, swimming in a golden mist,
      projecting blue shadows far before them; the mammoth live-oak by Hooven's,
      towering superb and magnificent; the line of eucalyptus trees, behind
      which he knew was the Los Muertos ranch house&mdash;his home; the
      watering-tank, the great iron-hooped tower of wood that stood at the
      joining of the Lower Road and the County Road; the long wind-break of
      poplar trees and the white walls of Caraher's saloon on the County Road.
    </p>
    <p>
      But all this seemed to be only foreground, a mere array of accessories&mdash;a
      mass of irrelevant details. Beyond Annixter's, beyond Guadalajara, beyond
      the Lower Road, beyond Broderson Creek, on to the south and west,
      infinite, illimitable, stretching out there under the sheen of the sunset
      forever and forever, flat, vast, unbroken, a huge scroll, unrolling
      between the horizons, spread the great stretches of the ranch of Los
      Muertos, bare of crops, shaved close in the recent harvest. Near at hand
      were hills, but on that far southern horizon only the curve of the great
      earth itself checked the view. Adjoining Los Muertos, and widening to the
      west, opened the Broderson ranch. The Osterman ranch to the northwest
      carried on the great sweep of landscape; ranch after ranch. Then, as the
      imagination itself expanded under the stimulus of that measureless range
      of vision, even those great ranches resolved themselves into mere
      foreground, mere accessories, irrelevant details. Beyond the fine line of
      the horizons, over the curve of the globe, the shoulder of the earth, were
      other ranches, equally vast, and beyond these, others, and beyond these,
      still others, the immensities multiplying, lengthening out vaster and
      vaster. The whole gigantic sweep of the San Joaquin expanded, Titanic,
      before the eye of the mind, flagellated with heat, quivering and
      shimmering under the sun's red eye. At long intervals, a faint breath of
      wind out of the south passed slowly over the levels of the baked and empty
      earth, accentuating the silence, marking off the stillness. It seemed to
      exhale from the land itself, a prolonged sigh as of deep fatigue. It was
      the season after the harvest, and the great earth, the mother, after its
      period of reproduction, its pains of labour, delivered of the fruit of its
      loins, slept the sleep of exhaustion, the infinite repose of the colossus,
      benignant, eternal, strong, the nourisher of nations, the feeder of an
      entire world. Ha! there it was, his epic, his inspiration, his West, his
      thundering progression of hexameters. A sudden uplift, a sense of
      exhilaration, of physical exaltation appeared abruptly to sweep Presley
      from his feet. As from a point high above the world, he seemed to dominate
      a universe, a whole order of things. He was dizzied, stunned, stupefied,
      his morbid supersensitive mind reeling, drunk with the intoxication of
      mere immensity. Stupendous ideas for which there were no names drove
      headlong through his brain. Terrible, formless shapes, vague figures,
      gigantic, monstrous, distorted, whirled at a gallop through his
      imagination.
    </p>
    <p>
      He started homeward, still in his dream, descending from the hill,
      emerging from the canyon, and took the short cut straight across the Quien
      Sabe ranch, leaving Guadalajara far to his left. He tramped steadily on
      through the wheat stubble, walking fast, his head in a whirl.
    </p>
    <p>
      Never had he so nearly grasped his inspiration as at that moment on the
      hilltop. Even now, though the sunset was fading, though the wide reach of
      valley was shut from sight, it still kept him company. Now the details
      came thronging back&mdash;the component parts of his poem, the signs and
      symbols of the West. It was there, close at hand, he had been in touch
      with it all day. It was in the centenarian's vividly coloured
      reminiscences&mdash;De La Cuesta, holding his grant from the Spanish
      crown, with his power of life and death; the romance of his marriage; the
      white horse with its pillion of red leather and silver bridle mountings;
      the bull-fights in the Plaza; the gifts of gold dust, and horses and
      tallow. It was in Vanamee's strange history, the tragedy of his love;
      Angele Varian, with her marvellous loveliness; the Egyptian fulness of her
      lips, the perplexing upward slant of her violet eyes, bizarre, oriental;
      her white forehead made three cornered by her plaits of gold hair; the
      mystery of the Other; her death at the moment of her child's birth. It was
      in Vanamee's flight into the wilderness; the story of the Long Trail, the
      sunsets behind the altar-like mesas, the baking desolation of the deserts;
      the strenuous, fierce life of forgotten towns, down there, far off, lost
      below the horizons of the southwest; the sonorous music of unfamiliar
      names&mdash;Quijotoa, Uintah, Sonora, Laredo, Uncompahgre. It was in the
      Mission, with its cracked bells, its decaying walls, its venerable sun
      dial, its fountain and old garden, and in the Mission Fathers themselves,
      the priests, the padres, planting the first wheat and oil and wine to
      produce the elements of the Sacrament&mdash;a trinity of great industries,
      taking their rise in a religious rite.
    </p>
    <p>
      Abruptly, as if in confirmation, Presley heard the sound of a bell from
      the direction of the Mission itself. It was the de Profundis, a note of
      the Old World; of the ancient regime, an echo from the hillsides of
      mediaeval Europe, sounding there in this new land, unfamiliar and strange
      at this end-of-the-century time.
    </p>
    <p>
      By now, however, it was dark. Presley hurried forward. He came to the line
      fence of the Quien Sabe ranch. Everything was very still. The stars were
      all out. There was not a sound other than the de Profundis, still sounding
      from very far away. At long intervals the great earth sighed dreamily in
      its sleep. All about, the feeling of absolute peace and quiet and security
      and untroubled happiness and content seemed descending from the stars like
      a benediction. The beauty of his poem, its idyl, came to him like a
      caress; that alone had been lacking. It was that, perhaps, which had left
      it hitherto incomplete. At last he was to grasp his song in all its
      entity. But suddenly there was an interruption. Presley had climbed the
      fence at the limit of the Quien Sabe ranch. Beyond was Los Muertos, but
      between the two ran the railroad. He had only time to jump back upon the
      embankment when, with a quivering of all the earth, a locomotive, single,
      unattached, shot by him with a roar, filling the air with the reek of hot
      oil, vomiting smoke and sparks; its enormous eye, cyclopean, red, throwing
      a glare far in advance, shooting by in a sudden crash of confused thunder;
      filling the night with the terrific clamour of its iron hoofs.
    </p>
    <p>
      Abruptly Presley remembered. This must be the crack passenger engine of
      which Dyke had told him, the one delayed by the accident on the
      Bakersfield division and for whose passage the track had been opened all
      the way to Fresno.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before Presley could recover from the shock of the irruption, while the
      earth was still vibrating, the rails still humming, the engine was far
      away, flinging the echo of its frantic gallop over all the valley. For a
      brief instant it roared with a hollow diapason on the Long Trestle over
      Broderson Creek, then plunged into a cutting farther on, the quivering
      glare of its fires losing itself in the night, its thunder abruptly
      diminishing to a subdued and distant humming. All at once this ceased. The
      engine was gone.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the moment the noise of the engine lapsed, Presley&mdash;about to
      start forward again&mdash;was conscious of a confusion of lamentable
      sounds that rose into the night from out the engine's wake. Prolonged
      cries of agony, sobbing wails of infinite pain, heart-rending, pitiful.
    </p>
    <p>
      The noises came from a little distance. He ran down the track, crossing
      the culvert, over the irrigating ditch, and at the head of the long reach
      of track&mdash;between the culvert and the Long Trestle&mdash;paused
      abruptly, held immovable at the sight of the ground and rails all about
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      In some way, the herd of sheep&mdash;Vanamee's herd&mdash;had found a
      breach in the wire fence by the right of way and had wandered out upon the
      tracks. A band had been crossing just at the moment of the engine's
      passage. The pathos of it was beyond expression. It was a slaughter, a
      massacre of innocents. The iron monster had charged full into the midst,
      merciless, inexorable. To the right and left, all the width of the right
      of way, the little bodies had been flung; backs were snapped against the
      fence posts; brains knocked out. Caught in the barbs of the wire, wedged
      in, the bodies hung suspended. Under foot it was terrible. The black
      blood, winking in the starlight, seeped down into the clinkers between the
      ties with a prolonged sucking murmur.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley turned away, horror-struck, sick at heart, overwhelmed with a
      quick burst of irresistible compassion for this brute agony he could not
      relieve. The sweetness was gone from the evening, the sense of peace, of
      security, and placid contentment was stricken from the landscape. The
      hideous ruin in the engine's path drove all thought of his poem from his
      mind. The inspiration vanished like a mist. The de Profundis had ceased to
      ring.
    </p>
    <p>
      He hurried on across the Los Muertos ranch, almost running, even putting
      his hands over his ears till he was out of hearing distance of that all
      but human distress. Not until he was beyond ear-shot did he pause, looking
      back, listening. The night had shut down again. For a moment the silence
      was profound, unbroken.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then, faint and prolonged, across the levels of the ranch, he heard the
      engine whistling for Bonneville. Again and again, at rapid intervals in
      its flying course, it whistled for road crossings, for sharp curves, for
      trestles; ominous notes, hoarse, bellowing, ringing with the accents of
      menace and defiance; and abruptly Presley saw again, in his imagination,
      the galloping monster, the terror of steel and steam, with its single eye,
      cyclopean, red, shooting from horizon to horizon; but saw it now as the
      symbol of a vast power, huge, terrible, flinging the echo of its thunder
      over all the reaches of the valley, leaving blood and destruction in its
      path; the leviathan, with tentacles of steel clutching into the soil, the
      soulless Force, the iron-hearted Power, the monster, the Colossus, the
      Octopus.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER II
    </h2>
    <p>
      On the following morning, Harran Derrick was up and about by a little
      after six o'clock, and a quarter of an hour later had breakfast in the
      kitchen of the ranch house, preferring not to wait until the Chinese cook
      laid the table in the regular dining-room. He scented a hard day's work
      ahead of him, and was anxious to be at it betimes. He was practically the
      manager of Los Muertos, and, with the aid of his foreman and three
      division superintendents, carried forward nearly the entire direction of
      the ranch, occupying himself with the details of his father's plans,
      executing his orders, signing contracts, paying bills, and keeping the
      books.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the last three weeks little had been done. The crop&mdash;such as it
      was&mdash;had been harvested and sold, and there had been a general
      relaxation of activity for upwards of a month. Now, however, the fall was
      coming on, the dry season was about at its end; any time after the
      twentieth of the month the first rains might be expected, softening the
      ground, putting it into condition for the plough. Two days before this,
      Harran had notified his superintendents on Three and Four to send in such
      grain as they had reserved for seed. On Two the wheat had not even shown
      itself above the ground, while on One, the Home ranch, which was under his
      own immediate supervision, the seed had already been graded and selected.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was Harran's intention to commence blue-stoning his seed that day, a
      delicate and important process which prevented rust and smut appearing in
      the crop when the wheat should come up. But, furthermore, he wanted to
      find time to go to Guadalajara to meet the Governor on the morning train.
      His day promised to be busy.
    </p>
    <p>
      But as Harran was finishing his last cup of coffee, Phelps, the foreman on
      the Home ranch, who also looked after the storage barns where the seed was
      kept, presented himself, cap in hand, on the back porch by the kitchen
      door.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I thought I'd speak to you about the seed from Four, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That
      hasn't been brought in yet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran nodded.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll see about it. You've got all the blue-stone you want, have you,
      Phelps?&rdquo; and without waiting for an answer he added, &ldquo;Tell the stableman I
      shall want the team about nine o'clock to go to Guadalajara. Put them in
      the buggy. The bays, you understand.&rdquo; When the other had gone, Harran
      drank off the rest of his coffee, and, rising, passed through the
      dining-room and across a stone-paved hallway with a glass roof into the
      office just beyond.
    </p>
    <p>
      The office was the nerve-centre of the entire ten thousand acres of Los
      Muertos, but its appearance and furnishings were not in the least
      suggestive of a farm. It was divided at about its middle by a wire
      railing, painted green and gold, and behind this railing were the high
      desks where the books were kept, the safe, the letter-press and
      letter-files, and Harran's typewriting machine. A great map of Los Muertos
      with every water-course, depression, and elevation, together with
      indications of the varying depths of the clays and loams in the soil,
      accurately plotted, hung against the wall between the windows, while near
      at hand by the safe was the telephone.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, no doubt, the most significant object in the office was the ticker.
      This was an innovation in the San Joaquin, an idea of shrewd, quick-witted
      young Annixter, which Harran and Magnus Derrick had been quick to adopt,
      and after them Broderson and Osterman, and many others of the wheat
      growers of the county. The offices of the ranches were thus connected by
      wire with San Francisco, and through that city with Minneapolis, Duluth,
      Chicago, New York, and at last, and most important of all, with Liverpool.
      Fluctuations in the price of the world's crop during and after the harvest
      thrilled straight to the office of Los Muertos, to that of the Quien Sabe,
      to Osterman's, and to Broderson's. During a flurry in the Chicago wheat
      pits in the August of that year, which had affected even the San Francisco
      market, Harran and Magnus had sat up nearly half of one night watching the
      strip of white tape jerking unsteadily from the reel. At such moments they
      no longer felt their individuality. The ranch became merely the part of an
      enormous whole, a unit in the vast agglomeration of wheat land the whole
      world round, feeling the effects of causes thousands of miles distant&mdash;a
      drought on the prairies of Dakota, a rain on the plains of India, a frost
      on the Russian steppes, a hot wind on the llanos of the Argentine.
    </p>
    <p>
      Harran crossed over to the telephone and rang six bells, the call for the
      division house on Four. It was the most distant, the most isolated point
      on all the ranch, situated at its far southeastern extremity, where few
      people ever went, close to the line fence, a dot, a speck, lost in the
      immensity of the open country. By the road it was eleven miles distant
      from the office, and by the trail to Hooven's and the Lower Road all of
      nine.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How about that seed?&rdquo; demanded Harran when he had got Cutter on the line.
    </p>
    <p>
      The other made excuses for an unavoidable delay, and was adding that he
      was on the point of starting out, when Harran cut in with:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You had better go the trail. It will save a little time and I am in a
      hurry. Put your sacks on the horses' backs. And, Cutter, if you see Hooven
      when you go by his place, tell him I want him, and, by the way, take a
      look at the end of the irrigating ditch when you get to it. See how they
      are getting along there and if Billy wants anything. Tell him we are
      expecting those new scoops down to-morrow or next day and to get along
      with what he has until then.... How's everything on Four? ... All right,
      then. Give your seed to Phelps when you get here if I am not about. I am
      going to Guadalajara to meet the Governor. He's coming down to-day. And
      that makes me think; we lost the case, you know. I had a letter from the
      Governor yesterday.... Yes, hard luck. S. Behrman did us up. Well,
      good-bye, and don't lose any time with that seed. I want to blue-stone
      to-day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      After telephoning Cutter, Harran put on his hat, went over to the barns,
      and found Phelps. Phelps had already cleaned out the vat which was to
      contain the solution of blue-stone, and was now at work regrading the
      seed. Against the wall behind him ranged the row of sacks. Harran cut the
      fastenings of these and examined the contents carefully, taking handfuls
      of wheat from each and allowing it to run through his fingers, or nipping
      the grains between his nails, testing their hardness.
    </p>
    <p>
      The seed was all of the white varieties of wheat and of a very high grade,
      the berries hard and heavy, rigid and swollen with starch.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If it was all like that, sir, hey?&rdquo; observed Phelps.
    </p>
    <p>
      Harran put his chin in the air.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Bread would be as good as cake, then,&rdquo; he answered, going from sack to
      sack, inspecting the contents and consulting the tags affixed to the
      mouths.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;here's a red wheat. Where did this come from?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's that red Clawson we sowed to the piece on Four, north the Mission
      Creek, just to see how it would do here. We didn't get a very good catch.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We can't do better than to stay by White Sonora and Propo,&rdquo; remarked
      Harran. &ldquo;We've got our best results with that, and European millers like
      it to mix with the Eastern wheats that have more gluten than ours. That
      is, if we have any wheat at all next year.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A feeling of discouragement for the moment bore down heavily upon him. At
      intervals this came to him and for the moment it was overpowering. The
      idea of &ldquo;what's-the-use&rdquo; was upon occasion a veritable oppression.
      Everything seemed to combine to lower the price of wheat. The extension of
      wheat areas always exceeded increase of population; competition was
      growing fiercer every year. The farmer's profits were the object of attack
      from a score of different quarters. It was a flock of vultures descending
      upon a common prey&mdash;the commission merchant, the elevator combine,
      the mixing-house ring, the banks, the warehouse men, the labouring man,
      and, above all, the railroad. Steadily the Liverpool buyers cut and cut
      and cut. Everything, every element of the world's markets, tended to force
      down the price to the lowest possible figure at which it could be
      profitably farmed. Now it was down to eighty-seven. It was at that figure
      the crop had sold that year; and to think that the Governor had seen wheat
      at two dollars and five cents in the year of the Turko-Russian War!
    </p>
    <p>
      He turned back to the house after giving Phelps final directions, gloomy,
      disheartened, his hands deep in his pockets, wondering what was to be the
      outcome. So narrow had the margin of profit shrunk that a dry season meant
      bankruptcy to the smaller farmers throughout all the valley. He knew very
      well how widespread had been the distress the last two years. With their
      own tenants on Los Muertos, affairs had reached the stage of desperation.
      Derrick had practically been obliged to &ldquo;carry&rdquo; Hooven and some of the
      others. The Governor himself had made almost nothing during the last
      season; a third year like the last, with the price steadily sagging, meant
      nothing else but ruin.
    </p>
    <p>
      But here he checked himself. Two consecutive dry seasons in California
      were almost unprecedented; a third would be beyond belief, and the
      complete rest for nearly all the land was a compensation. They had made no
      money, that was true; but they had lost none. Thank God, the homestead was
      free of mortgage; one good season would more than make up the difference.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was in a better mood by the time he reached the driveway that led up to
      the ranch house, and as he raised his eyes toward the house itself, he
      could not but feel that the sight of his home was cheering. The ranch
      house was set in a great grove of eucalyptus, oak, and cypress, enormous
      trees growing from out a lawn that was as green, as fresh, and as
      well-groomed as any in a garden in the city. This lawn flanked all one
      side of the house, and it was on this side that the family elected to
      spend most of its time. The other side, looking out upon the Home ranch
      toward Bonneville and the railroad, was but little used. A deep porch ran
      the whole length of the house here, and in the lower branches of a
      live-oak near the steps Harran had built a little summer house for his
      mother. To the left of the ranch house itself, toward the County Road, was
      the bunk-house and kitchen for some of the hands. From the steps of the
      porch the view to the southward expanded to infinity. There was not so
      much as a twig to obstruct the view. In one leap the eye reached the fine,
      delicate line where earth and sky met, miles away. The flat monotony of
      the land, clean of fencing, was broken by one spot only, the roof of the
      Division Superintendent's house on Three&mdash;a mere speck, just darker
      than the ground. Cutter's house on Four was not even in sight. That was
      below the horizon.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Harran came up he saw his mother at breakfast. The table had been set
      on the porch and Mrs. Derrick, stirring her coffee with one hand, held
      open with the other the pages of Walter Pater's &ldquo;Marius.&rdquo; At her feet,
      Princess Nathalie, the white Angora cat, sleek, over-fed, self-centred,
      sat on her haunches, industriously licking at the white fur of her breast,
      while near at hand, by the railing of the porch, Presley pottered with a
      new bicycle lamp, filling it with oil, adjusting the wicks.
    </p>
    <p>
      Harran kissed his mother and sat down in a wicker chair on the porch,
      removing his hat, running his fingers through his yellow hair.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus Derrick's wife looked hardly old enough to be the mother of two
      such big fellows as Harran and Lyman Derrick. She was not far into the
      fifties, and her brown hair still retained much of its brightness. She
      could yet be called pretty. Her eyes were large and easily assumed a look
      of inquiry and innocence, such as one might expect to see in a young girl.
      By disposition she was retiring; she easily obliterated herself. She was
      not made for the harshness of the world, and yet she had known these
      harshnesses in her younger days. Magnus had married her when she was
      twenty-one years old, at a time when she was a graduate of some years'
      standing from the State Normal School and was teaching literature, music,
      and penmanship in a seminary in the town of Marysville. She overworked
      herself here continually, loathing the strain of teaching, yet clinging to
      it with a tenacity born of the knowledge that it was her only means of
      support. Both her parents were dead; she was dependent upon herself. Her
      one ambition was to see Italy and the Bay of Naples. The &ldquo;Marble Faun,&rdquo;
       Raphael's &ldquo;Madonnas&rdquo; and &ldquo;Il Trovatore&rdquo; were her beau ideals of literature
      and art. She dreamed of Italy, Rome, Naples, and the world's great
      &ldquo;art-centres.&rdquo; There was no doubt that her affair with Magnus had been a
      love-match, but Annie Payne would have loved any man who would have taken
      her out of the droning, heart-breaking routine of the class and music
      room. She had followed his fortunes unquestioningly. First at Sacramento,
      during the turmoil of his political career, later on at Placerville in El
      Dorado County, after Derrick had interested himself in the Corpus Christi
      group of mines, and finally at Los Muertos, where, after selling out his
      fourth interest in Corpus Christi, he had turned rancher and had &ldquo;come in&rdquo;
       on the new tracts of wheat land just thrown open by the railroad. She had
      lived here now for nearly ten years. But never for one moment since the
      time her glance first lost itself in the unbroken immensity of the ranches
      had she known a moment's content. Continually there came into her pretty,
      wide-open eyes&mdash;the eyes of a young doe&mdash;a look of uneasiness,
      of distrust, and aversion. Los Muertos frightened her. She remembered the
      days of her young girlhood passed on a farm in eastern Ohio&mdash;five
      hundred acres, neatly partitioned into the water lot, the cow pasture, the
      corn lot, the barley field, and wheat farm; cosey, comfortable, home-like;
      where the farmers loved their land, caressing it, coaxing it, nourishing
      it as though it were a thing almost conscious; where the seed was sown by
      hand, and a single two-horse plough was sufficient for the entire farm;
      where the scythe sufficed to cut the harvest and the grain was thrashed
      with flails.
    </p>
    <p>
      But this new order of things&mdash;a ranch bounded only by the horizons,
      where, as far as one could see, to the north, to the east, to the south
      and to the west, was all one holding, a principality ruled with iron and
      steam, bullied into a yield of three hundred and fifty thousand bushels,
      where even when the land was resting, unploughed, unharrowed, and unsown,
      the wheat came up&mdash;troubled her, and even at times filled her with an
      undefinable terror. To her mind there was something inordinate about it
      all; something almost unnatural. The direct brutality of ten thousand
      acres of wheat, nothing but wheat as far as the eye could see, stunned her
      a little. The one-time writing-teacher of a young ladies' seminary, with
      her pretty deer-like eyes and delicate fingers, shrank from it. She did
      not want to look at so much wheat. There was something vaguely indecent in
      the sight, this food of the people, this elemental force, this basic
      energy, weltering here under the sun in all the unconscious nakedness of a
      sprawling, primordial Titan.
    </p>
    <p>
      The monotony of the ranch ate into her heart hour by hour, year by year.
      And with it all, when was she to see Rome, Italy, and the Bay of Naples?
      It was a different prospect truly. Magnus had given her his promise that
      once the ranch was well established, they two should travel. But
      continually he had been obliged to put her off, now for one reason, now
      for another; the machine would not as yet run of itself, he must still
      feel his hand upon the lever; next year, perhaps, when wheat should go to
      ninety, or the rains were good. She did not insist. She obliterated
      herself, only allowing, from time to time, her pretty, questioning eyes to
      meet his. In the meantime she retired within herself. She surrounded
      herself with books. Her taste was of the delicacy of point lace. She knew
      her Austin Dobson by heart. She read poems, essays, the ideas of the
      seminary at Marysville persisting in her mind. &ldquo;Marius the Epicurean,&rdquo;
       &ldquo;The Essays of Elia,&rdquo; &ldquo;Sesame and Lilies,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Stones of Venice,&rdquo; and the
      little toy magazines, full of the flaccid banalities of the &ldquo;Minor Poets,&rdquo;
       were continually in her hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Presley had appeared on Los Muertos, she had welcomed his arrival
      with delight. Here at last was a congenial spirit. She looked forward to
      long conversations with the young man on literature, art, and ethics. But
      Presley had disappointed her. That he&mdash;outside of his few chosen
      deities&mdash;should care little for literature, shocked her beyond words.
      His indifference to &ldquo;style,&rdquo; to elegant English, was a positive affront.
      His savage abuse and open ridicule of the neatly phrased rondeaux and
      sestinas and chansonettes of the little magazines was to her mind a wanton
      and uncalled-for cruelty. She found his Homer, with its slaughters and
      hecatombs and barbaric feastings and headstrong passions, violent and
      coarse. She could not see with him any romance, any poetry in the life
      around her; she looked to Italy for that. His &ldquo;Song of the West,&rdquo; which
      only once, incoherent and fierce, he had tried to explain to her, its
      swift, tumultous life, its truth, its nobility and savagery, its heroism
      and obscenity had revolted her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, Presley,&rdquo; she had murmured, &ldquo;that is not literature.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he had cried between his teeth, &ldquo;no, thank God, it is not.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A little later, one of the stablemen brought the buggy with the team of
      bays up to the steps of the porch, and Harran, putting on a different coat
      and a black hat, took himself off to Guadalajara. The morning was fine;
      there was no cloud in the sky, but as Harran's buggy drew away from the
      grove of trees about the ranch house, emerging into the open country on
      either side of the Lower Road, he caught himself looking sharply at the
      sky and the faint line of hills beyond the Quien Sabe ranch. There was a
      certain indefinite cast to the landscape that to Harran's eye was not to
      be mistaken. Rain, the first of the season, was not far off.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's good,&rdquo; he muttered, touching the bays with the whip, &ldquo;we can't get
      our ploughs to hand any too soon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      These ploughs Magnus Derrick had ordered from an Eastern manufacturer some
      months before, since he was dissatisfied with the results obtained from
      the ones he had used hitherto, which were of local make. However, there
      had been exasperating and unexpected delays in their shipment. Magnus and
      Harran both had counted upon having the ploughs in their implement barns
      that very week, but a tracer sent after them had only resulted in locating
      them, still en route, somewhere between The Needles and Bakersfield. Now
      there was likelihood of rain within the week. Ploughing could be
      undertaken immediately afterward, so soon as the ground was softened, but
      there was a fair chance that the ranch would lie idle for want of proper
      machinery.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was ten minutes before train time when Harran reached the depot at
      Guadalajara. The San Francisco papers of the preceding day had arrived on
      an earlier train. He bought a couple from the station agent and looked
      them over till a distant and prolonged whistle announced the approach of
      the down train.
    </p>
    <p>
      In one of the four passengers that alighted from the train, he recognised
      his father. He half rose in his seat, whistling shrilly between his teeth,
      waving his hand, and Magnus Derrick, catching sight of him, came forward
      quickly.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus&mdash;the Governor&mdash;was all of six feet tall, and though now
      well toward his sixtieth year, was as erect as an officer of cavalry. He
      was broad in proportion, a fine commanding figure, imposing an immediate
      respect, impressing one with a sense of gravity, of dignity and a certain
      pride of race. He was smooth-shaven, thin-lipped, with a broad chin, and a
      prominent hawk-like nose&mdash;the characteristic of the family&mdash;thin,
      with a high bridge, such as one sees in the later portraits of the Duke of
      Wellington. His hair was thick and iron-grey, and had a tendency to curl
      in a forward direction just in front of his ears. He wore a top-hat of
      grey, with a wide brim, and a frock coat, and carried a cane with a
      yellowed ivory head.
    </p>
    <p>
      As a young man it had been his ambition to represent his native State&mdash;North
      Carolina&mdash;in the United States Senate. Calhoun was his &ldquo;great man,&rdquo;
       but in two successive campaigns he had been defeated. His career checked
      in this direction, he had come to California in the fifties. He had known
      and had been the intimate friend of such men as Terry, Broderick, General
      Baker, Lick, Alvarado, Emerich, Larkin, and, above all, of the unfortunate
      and misunderstood Ralston. Once he had been put forward as the Democratic
      candidate for governor, but failed of election. After this Magnus had
      definitely abandoned politics and had invested all his money in the Corpus
      Christi mines. Then he had sold out his interest at a small profit&mdash;just
      in time to miss his chance of becoming a multi-millionaire in the Comstock
      boom&mdash;and was looking for reinvestments in other lines when the news
      that &ldquo;wheat had been discovered in California&rdquo; was passed from mouth to
      mouth. Practically it amounted to a discovery. Dr. Glenn's first harvest
      of wheat in Colusa County, quietly undertaken but suddenly realised with
      dramatic abruptness, gave a new matter for reflection to the thinking men
      of the New West. California suddenly leaped unheralded into the world's
      market as a competitor in wheat production. In a few years her output of
      wheat exceeded the value of her out-put of gold, and when, later on, the
      Pacific and Southwestern Railroad threw open to settlers the rich lands of
      Tulare County&mdash;conceded to the corporation by the government as a
      bonus for the construction of the road&mdash;Magnus had been quick to
      seize the opportunity and had taken up the ten thousand acres of Los
      Muertos. Wherever he had gone, Magnus had taken his family with him. Lyman
      had been born at Sacramento during the turmoil and excitement of Derrick's
      campaign for governor, and Harran at Shingle Springs, in El Dorado County,
      six years later.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Magnus was in every sense the &ldquo;prominent man.&rdquo; In whatever circle he
      moved he was the chief figure. Instinctively other men looked to him as
      the leader. He himself was proud of this distinction; he assumed the grand
      manner very easily and carried it well. As a public speaker he was one of
      the last of the followers of the old school of orators. He even carried
      the diction and manner of the rostrum into private life. It was said of
      him that his most colloquial conversation could be taken down in shorthand
      and read off as an admirable specimen of pure, well-chosen English. He
      loved to do things upon a grand scale, to preside, to dominate. In his
      good humour there was something Jovian. When angry, everybody around him
      trembled. But he had not the genius for detail, was not patient. The
      certain grandiose lavishness of his disposition occupied itself more with
      results than with means. He was always ready to take chances, to hazard
      everything on the hopes of colossal returns. In the mining days at
      Placerville there was no more redoubtable poker player in the county. He
      had been as lucky in his mines as in his gambling, sinking shafts and
      tunnelling in violation of expert theory and finding &ldquo;pay&rdquo; in every case.
      Without knowing it, he allowed himself to work his ranch much as if he was
      still working his mine. The old-time spirit of '49, hap-hazard,
      unscientific, persisted in his mind. Everything was a gamble&mdash;who
      took the greatest chances was most apt to be the greatest winner. The idea
      of manuring Los Muertos, of husbanding his great resources, he would have
      scouted as niggardly, Hebraic, ungenerous.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus climbed into the buggy, helping himself with Harran's outstretched
      hand which he still held. The two were immensely fond of each other, proud
      of each other. They were constantly together and Magnus kept no secrets
      from his favourite son.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, boy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, Governor.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am very pleased you came yourself, Harran. I feared that you might be
      too busy and send Phelps. It was thoughtful.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran was about to reply, but at that moment Magnus caught sight of the
      three flat cars loaded with bright-painted farming machines which still
      remained on the siding above the station. He laid his hands on the reins
      and Harran checked the team.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Harran,&rdquo; observed Magnus, fixing the machinery with a judicial frown,
      &ldquo;Harran, those look singularly like our ploughs. Drive over, boy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The train had by this time gone on its way and Harran brought the team up
      to the siding.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, I was right,&rdquo; said the Governor. &ldquo;'Magnus Derrick, Los Muertos,
      Bonneville, from Ditson &amp; Co., Rochester.' These are ours, boy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran breathed a sigh of relief.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;At last,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;and just in time, too. We'll have rain before the
      week is out. I think, now that I am here, I will telephone Phelps to send
      the wagon right down for these. I started blue-stoning to-day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus nodded a grave approval.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That was shrewd, boy. As to the rain, I think you are well informed; we
      will have an early season. The ploughs have arrived at a happy moment.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It means money to us, Governor,&rdquo; remarked Harran.
    </p>
    <p>
      But as he turned the horses to allow his father to get into the buggy
      again, the two were surprised to hear a thick, throaty voice wishing them
      good-morning, and turning about were aware of S. Behrman, who had come up
      while they were examining the ploughs. Harran's eyes flashed on the
      instant and through his nostrils he drew a sharp, quick breath, while a
      certain rigour of carriage stiffened the set of Magnus Derrick's shoulders
      and back. Magnus had not yet got into the buggy, but stood with the team
      between him and S. Behrman, eyeing him calmly across the horses' backs. S.
      Behrman came around to the other side of the buggy and faced Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was a large, fat man, with a great stomach; his cheek and the upper
      part of his thick neck ran together to form a great tremulous jowl, shaven
      and blue-grey in colour; a roll of fat, sprinkled with sparse hair, moist
      with perspiration, protruded over the back of his collar. He wore a heavy
      black moustache. On his head was a round-topped hat of stiff brown straw,
      highly varnished. A light-brown linen vest, stamped with innumerable
      interlocked horseshoes, covered his protuberant stomach, upon which a
      heavy watch chain of hollow links rose and fell with his difficult
      breathing, clinking against the vest buttons of imitation mother-of-pearl.
    </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman was the banker of Bonneville. But besides this he was many
      other things. He was a real estate agent. He bought grain; he dealt in
      mortgages. He was one of the local political bosses, but more important
      than all this, he was the representative of the Pacific and Southwestern
      Railroad in that section of Tulare County. The railroad did little
      business in that part of the country that S. Behrman did not supervise,
      from the consignment of a shipment of wheat to the management of a damage
      suit, or even to the repair and maintenance of the right of way. During
      the time when the ranchers of the county were fighting the grain-rate
      case, S. Behrman had been much in evidence in and about the San Francisco
      court rooms and the lobby of the legislature in Sacramento. He had
      returned to Bonneville only recently, a decision adverse to the ranchers
      being foreseen. The position he occupied on the salary list of the Pacific
      and Southwestern could not readily be defined, for he was neither freight
      agent, passenger agent, attorney, real-estate broker, nor political
      servant, though his influence in all these offices was undoubted and
      enormous. But for all that, the ranchers about Bonneville knew whom to
      look to as a source of trouble. There was no denying the fact that for
      Osterman, Broderson, Annixter and Derrick, S. Behrman was the railroad.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Derrick, good-morning,&rdquo; he cried as he came up. &ldquo;Good-morning,
      Harran. Glad to see you back, Mr. Derrick.&rdquo; He held out a thick hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus, head and shoulders above the other, tall, thin, erect, looked down
      upon S. Behrman, inclining his head, failing to see his extended hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-morning, sir,&rdquo; he observed, and waited for S. Behrman's further
      speech.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, Mr. Derrick,&rdquo; continued S. Behrman, wiping the back of his neck
      with his handkerchief, &ldquo;I saw in the city papers yesterday that our case
      had gone against you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I guess it wasn't any great news to YOU,&rdquo; commented Harran, his face
      scarlet. &ldquo;I guess you knew which way Ulsteen was going to jump after your
      very first interview with him. You don't like to be surprised in this sort
      of thing, S. Behrman.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, you know better than that, Harran,&rdquo; remonstrated S. Behrman blandly.
      &ldquo;I know what you mean to imply, but I ain't going to let it make me get
      mad. I wanted to say to your Governor&mdash;I wanted to say to you, Mr.
      Derrick&mdash;as one man to another&mdash;letting alone for the minute
      that we were on opposite sides of the case&mdash;that I'm sorry you didn't
      win. Your side made a good fight, but it was in a mistaken cause. That's
      the whole trouble. Why, you could have figured out before you ever went
      into the case that such rates are confiscation of property. You must allow
      us&mdash;must allow the railroad&mdash;a fair interest on the investment.
      You don't want us to go into the receiver's hands, do you now, Mr.
      Derrick?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The Board of Railroad Commissioners was bought,&rdquo; remarked Magnus sharply,
      a keen, brisk flash glinting in his eye.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It was part of the game,&rdquo; put in Harran, &ldquo;for the Railroad Commission to
      cut rates to a ridiculous figure, far below a REASONABLE figure, just so
      that it WOULD be confiscation. Whether Ulsteen is a tool of yours or not,
      he had to put the rates back to what they were originally.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If you enforced those rates, Mr. Harran,&rdquo; returned S. Behrman calmly, &ldquo;we
      wouldn't be able to earn sufficient money to meet operating expenses or
      fixed charges, to say nothing of a surplus left over to pay dividends&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tell me when the P. and S. W. ever paid dividends.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The lowest rates,&rdquo; continued S. Behrman, &ldquo;that the legislature can
      establish must be such as will secure us a fair interest on our
      investment.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, what's your standard? Come, let's hear it. Who is to say what's a
      fair rate? The railroad has its own notions of fairness sometimes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The laws of the State,&rdquo; returned S. Behrman, &ldquo;fix the rate of interest at
      seven per cent. That's a good enough standard for us. There is no reason,
      Mr. Harran, why a dollar invested in a railroad should not earn as much as
      a dollar represented by a promissory note&mdash;seven per cent. By
      applying your schedule of rates we would not earn a cent; we would be
      bankrupt.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Interest on your investment!&rdquo; cried Harran, furious. &ldquo;It's fine to talk
      about fair interest. I know and you know that the total earnings of the P.
      and S. W.&mdash;their main, branch and leased lines for last year&mdash;was
      between nineteen and twenty millions of dollars. Do you mean to say that
      twenty million dollars is seven per cent. of the original cost of the
      road?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman spread out his hands, smiling.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That was the gross, not the net figure&mdash;and how can you tell what
      was the original cost of the road?&rdquo; &ldquo;Ah, that's just it,&rdquo; shouted Harran,
      emphasising each word with a blow of his fist upon his knee, his eyes
      sparkling, &ldquo;you take cursed good care that we don't know anything about
      the original cost of the road. But we know you are bonded for treble your
      value; and we know this: that the road COULD have been built for
      fifty-four thousand dollars per mile and that you SAY it cost you
      eighty-seven thousand. It makes a difference, S. Behrman, on which of
      these two figures you are basing your seven per cent.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That all may show obstinacy, Harran,&rdquo; observed S. Behrman vaguely, &ldquo;but
      it don't show common sense.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We are threshing out old straw, I believe, gentlemen,&rdquo; remarked Magnus.
      &ldquo;The question was thoroughly sifted in the courts.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Quite right,&rdquo; assented S. Behrman. &ldquo;The best way is that the railroad and
      the farmer understand each other and get along peaceably. We are both
      dependent on each other. Your ploughs, I believe, Mr. Derrick.&rdquo; S. Behrman
      nodded toward the flat cars.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They are consigned to me,&rdquo; admitted Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It looks a trifle like rain,&rdquo; observed S. Behrman, easing his neck and
      jowl in his limp collar. &ldquo;I suppose you will want to begin ploughing next
      week.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Possibly,&rdquo; said Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll see that your ploughs are hurried through for you then, Mr. Derrick.
      We will route them by fast freight for you and it won't cost you anything
      extra.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; demanded Harran. &ldquo;The ploughs are here. We have
      nothing more to do with the railroad. I am going to have my wagons down
      here this afternoon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am sorry,&rdquo; answered S. Behrman, &ldquo;but the cars are going north, not, as
      you thought, coming FROM the north. They have not been to San Francisco
      yet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus made a slight movement of the head as one who remembers a fact
      hitherto forgotten. But Harran was as yet unenlightened.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To San Francisco!&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;we want them here&mdash;what are you
      talking about?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you know, of course, the regulations,&rdquo; answered S. Behrman.
      &ldquo;Freight of this kind coming from the Eastern points into the State must
      go first to one of our common points and be reshipped from there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran did remember now, but never before had the matter so struck home.
      He leaned back in his seat in dumb amazement for the instant. Even Magnus
      had turned a little pale. Then, abruptly, Harran broke out violent and
      raging.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What next? My God, why don't you break into our houses at night? Why
      don't you steal the watch out of my pocket, steal the horses out of the
      harness, hold us up with a shot-gun; yes, 'stand and deliver; your money
      or your life.' Here we bring our ploughs from the East over your lines,
      but you're not content with your long-haul rate between Eastern points and
      Bonneville. You want to get us under your ruinous short-haul rate between
      Bonneville and San Francisco, AND RETURN. Think of it! Here's a load of
      stuff for Bonneville that can't stop at Bonneville, where it is consigned,
      but has got to go up to San Francisco first BY WAY OF Bonneville, at forty
      cents per ton and then be reshipped from San Francisco back to Bonneville
      again at FIFTY-ONE cents per ton, the short-haul rate. And we have to pay
      it all or go without. Here are the ploughs right here, in sight of the
      land they have got to be used on, the season just ready for them, and we
      can't touch them. Oh,&rdquo; he exclaimed in deep disgust, &ldquo;isn't it a pretty
      mess! Isn't it a farce! the whole dirty business!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman listened to him unmoved, his little eyes blinking under his fat
      forehead, the gold chain of hollow links clicking against the pearl
      buttons of his waistcoat as he breathed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It don't do any good to let loose like that, Harran,&rdquo; he said at length.
      &ldquo;I am willing to do what I can for you. I'll hurry the ploughs through,
      but I can't change the freight regulation of the road.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's your blackmail for this?&rdquo; vociferated Harran. &ldquo;How much do you
      want to let us go? How much have we got to pay you to be ALLOWED to use
      our own ploughs&mdash;what's your figure? Come, spit it out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see you are trying to make me angry, Harran,&rdquo; returned S. Behrman, &ldquo;but
      you won't succeed. Better give up trying, my boy. As I said, the best way
      is to have the railroad and the farmer get along amicably. It is the only
      way we can do business. Well, s'long, Governor, I must trot along. S'long,
      Harran.&rdquo; He took himself off.
    </p>
    <p>
      But before leaving Guadalajara Magnus dropped into the town's small
      grocery store to purchase a box of cigars of a certain Mexican brand,
      unprocurable elsewhere. Harran remained in the buggy.
    </p>
    <p>
      While he waited, Dyke appeared at the end of the street, and, seeing
      Derrick's younger son, came over to shake hands with him. He explained his
      affair with the P. and S. W., and asked the young man what he thought of
      the expected rise in the price of hops.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hops ought to be a good thing,&rdquo; Harran told him. &ldquo;The crop in Germany and
      in New York has been a dead failure for the last three years, and so many
      people have gone out of the business that there's likely to be a shortage
      and a stiff advance in the price. They ought to go to a dollar next year.
      Sure, hops ought to be a good thing. How's the old lady and Sidney, Dyke?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, fairly well, thank you, Harran. They're up to Sacramento just now to
      see my brother. I was thinking of going in with my brother into this hop
      business. But I had a letter from him this morning. He may not be able to
      meet me on this proposition. He's got other business on hand. If he pulls
      out&mdash;and he probably will&mdash;I'll have to go it alone, but I'll
      have to borrow. I had thought with his money and mine we would have enough
      to pull off the affair without mortgaging anything. As it is, I guess I'll
      have to see S. Behrman.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll be cursed if I would!&rdquo; exclaimed Harran.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, S. Behrman is a screw,&rdquo; admitted the engineer, &ldquo;and he is
      'railroad' to his boots; but business is business, and he would have to
      stand by a contract in black and white, and this chance in hops is too
      good to let slide. I guess we'll try it on, Harran. I can get a good
      foreman that knows all about hops just now, and if the deal pays&mdash;well,
      I want to send Sid to a seminary up in San Francisco.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, mortgage the crops, but don't mortgage the homestead, Dyke,&rdquo; said
      Harran. &ldquo;And, by the way, have you looked up the freight rates on hops?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, I haven't yet,&rdquo; answered Dyke, &ldquo;and I had better be sure of that,
      hadn't I? I hear that the rate is reasonable, though.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You be sure to have a clear understanding with the railroad first about
      the rate,&rdquo; Harran warned him.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Magnus came out of the grocery store and once more seated himself in
      the buggy, he said to Harran, &ldquo;Boy, drive over here to Annixter's before
      we start home. I want to ask him to dine with us to-night. Osterman and
      Broderson are to drop in, I believe, and I should like to have Annixter as
      well.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus was lavishly hospitable. Los Muertos's doors invariably stood open
      to all the Derricks' neighbours, and once in so often Magnus had a few of
      his intimates to dinner.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Harran and his father drove along the road toward Annixter's ranch
      house, Magnus asked about what had happened during his absence.
    </p>
    <p>
      He inquired after his wife and the ranch, commenting upon the work on the
      irrigating ditch. Harran gave him the news of the past week, Dyke's
      discharge, his resolve to raise a crop of hops; Vanamee's return, the
      killing of the sheep, and Hooven's petition to remain upon the ranch as
      Magnus's tenant. It needed only Harran's recommendation that the German
      should remain to have Magnus consent upon the instant. &ldquo;You know more
      about it than I, boy,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and whatever you think is wise shall be
      done.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran touched the bays with the whip, urging them to their briskest pace.
      They were not yet at Annixter's and he was anxious to get back to the
      ranch house to supervise the blue-stoning of his seed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By the way, Governor,&rdquo; he demanded suddenly, &ldquo;how is Lyman getting on?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Lyman, Magnus's eldest son, had never taken kindly toward ranch life. He
      resembled his mother more than he did Magnus, and had inherited from her a
      distaste for agriculture and a tendency toward a profession. At a time
      when Harran was learning the rudiments of farming, Lyman was entering the
      State University, and, graduating thence, had spent three years in the
      study of law. But later on, traits that were particularly his father's
      developed. Politics interested him. He told himself he was a born
      politician, was diplomatic, approachable, had a talent for intrigue, a
      gift of making friends easily and, most indispensable of all, a veritable
      genius for putting influential men under obligations to himself. Already
      he had succeeded in gaining for himself two important offices in the
      municipal administration of San Francisco&mdash;where he had his home&mdash;sheriff's
      attorney, and, later on, assistant district attorney. But with these small
      achievements he was by no means satisfied. The largeness of his father's
      character, modified in Lyman by a counter-influence of selfishness, had
      produced in him an inordinate ambition. Where his father during his
      political career had considered himself only as an exponent of principles
      he strove to apply, Lyman saw but the office, his own personal
      aggrandisement. He belonged to the new school, wherein objects were
      attained not by orations before senates and assemblies, but by sessions of
      committees, caucuses, compromises and expedients. His goal was to be in
      fact what Magnus was only in name&mdash;governor. Lyman, with shut teeth,
      had resolved that some day he would sit in the gubernatorial chair in
      Sacramento.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lyman is doing well,&rdquo; answered Magnus. &ldquo;I could wish he was more
      pronounced in his convictions, less willing to compromise, but I believe
      him to be earnest and to have a talent for government and civics. His
      ambition does him credit, and if he occupied himself a little more with
      means and a little less with ends, he would, I am sure, be the ideal
      servant of the people. But I am not afraid. The time will come when the
      State will be proud of him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As Harran turned the team into the driveway that led up to Annixter's
      house, Magnus remarked:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Harran, isn't that young Annixter himself on the porch?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran nodded and remarked:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By the way, Governor, I wouldn't seem too cordial in your invitation to
      Annixter. He will be glad to come, I know, but if you seem to want him too
      much, it is just like his confounded obstinacy to make objections.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There is something in that,&rdquo; observed Magnus, as Harran drew up at the
      porch of the house. &ldquo;He is a queer, cross-grained fellow, but in many ways
      sterling.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter was lying in the hammock on the porch, precisely as Presley had
      found him the day before, reading &ldquo;David Copperfield&rdquo; and stuffing himself
      with dried prunes. When he recognised Magnus, however, he got up, though
      careful to give evidence of the most poignant discomfort. He explained his
      difficulty at great length, protesting that his stomach was no better than
      a spongebag. Would Magnus and Harran get down and have a drink? There was
      whiskey somewhere about.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus, however, declined. He stated his errand, asking Annixter to come
      over to Los Muertos that evening for seven o'clock dinner. Osterman and
      Broderson would be there.
    </p>
    <p>
      At once Annixter, even to Harran's surprise, put his chin in the air,
      making excuses, fearing to compromise himself if he accepted too readily.
      No, he did not think he could get around&mdash;was sure of it, in fact.
      There were certain businesses he had on hand that evening. He had
      practically made an appointment with a man at Bonneville; then, too, he
      was thinking of going up to San Francisco to-morrow and needed his sleep;
      would go to bed early; and besides all that, he was a very sick man; his
      stomach was out of whack; if he moved about it brought the gripes back.
      No, they must get along without him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus, knowing with whom he had to deal, did not urge the point, being
      convinced that Annixter would argue over the affair the rest of the
      morning. He re-settled himself in the buggy and Harran gathered up the
      reins.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he observed, &ldquo;you know your business best. Come if you can. We
      dine at seven.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hear you are going to farm the whole of Los Muertos this season,&rdquo;
       remarked Annixter, with a certain note of challenge in his voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We are thinking of it,&rdquo; replied Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter grunted scornfully.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Did you get the message I sent you by Presley?&rdquo; he began.
    </p>
    <p>
      Tactless, blunt, and direct, Annixter was quite capable of calling even
      Magnus a fool to his face. But before he could proceed, S. Behrman in his
      single buggy turned into the gate, and driving leisurely up to the porch
      halted on the other side of Magnus's team.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-morning, gentlemen,&rdquo; he remarked, nodding to the two Derricks as
      though he had not seen them earlier in the day. &ldquo;Mr. Annixter, how do you
      do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What in hell do YOU want?&rdquo; demanded Annixter with a stare.
    </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman hiccoughed slightly and passed a fat hand over his waistcoat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, not very much, Mr. Annixter,&rdquo; he replied, ignoring the belligerency
      in the young ranchman's voice, &ldquo;but I will have to lodge a protest against
      you, Mr. Annixter, in the matter of keeping your line fence in repair. The
      sheep were all over the track last night, this side the Long Trestle, and
      I am afraid they have seriously disturbed our ballast along there. We&mdash;the
      railroad&mdash;can't fence along our right of way. The farmers have the
      prescriptive right of that, so we have to look to you to keep your fence
      in repair. I am sorry, but I shall have to protest&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; Annixter
      returned to the hammock and stretched himself out in it to his full
      length, remarking tranquilly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Go to the devil!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is as much to your interest as to ours that the safety of the public&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You heard what I said. Go to the devil!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That all may show obstinacy, Mr. Annixter, but&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly Annixter jumped up again and came to the edge of the porch; his
      face flamed scarlet to the roots of his stiff yellow hair. He thrust out
      his jaw aggressively, clenching his teeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You,&rdquo; he vociferated, &ldquo;I'll tell you what you are. You're a&mdash;a&mdash;a
      PIP!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      To his mind it was the last insult, the most outrageous calumny. He had no
      worse epithet at his command.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;may show obstinacy,&rdquo; pursued S. Behrman, bent upon
      finishing the phrase, &ldquo;but it don't show common sense.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll mend my fence, and then, again, maybe I won't mend my fence,&rdquo;
       shouted Annixter. &ldquo;I know what you mean&mdash;that wild engine last night.
      Well, you've no right to run at that speed in the town limits.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How the town limits? The sheep were this side the Long Trestle.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that's in the town limits of Guadalajara.&rdquo; &ldquo;Why, Mr. Annixter, the
      Long Trestle is a good two miles out of Guadalajara.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter squared himself, leaping to the chance of an argument.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Two miles! It's not a mile and a quarter. No, it's not a mile. I'll leave
      it to Magnus here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I know nothing about it,&rdquo; declared Magnus, refusing to be involved.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, you do. Yes, you do, too. Any fool knows how far it is from
      Guadalajara to the Long Trestle. It's about five-eighths of a mile.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;From the depot of the town,&rdquo; remarked S. Behrman placidly, &ldquo;to the head
      of the Long Trestle is about two miles.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's a lie and you know it's a lie,&rdquo; shouted the other, furious at S.
      Behrman's calmness, &ldquo;and I can prove it's a lie. I've walked that distance
      on the Upper Road, and I know just how fast I walk, and if I can walk four
      miles in one hour.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus and Harran drove on, leaving Annixter trying to draw S. Behrman
      into a wrangle.
    </p>
    <p>
      When at length S. Behrman as well took himself away, Annixter returned to
      his hammock, finished the rest of his prunes and read another chapter of
      &ldquo;Copperfield.&rdquo; Then he put the book, open, over his face and went to
      sleep.
    </p>
    <p>
      An hour later, toward noon, his own terrific snoring woke him up suddenly,
      and he sat up, rubbing his face and blinking at the sunlight. There was a
      bad taste in his mouth from sleeping with it wide open, and going into the
      dining-room of the house, he mixed himself a drink of whiskey and soda and
      swallowed it in three great gulps. He told himself that he felt not only
      better but hungry, and pressed an electric button in the wall near the
      sideboard three times to let the kitchen&mdash;situated in a separate
      building near the ranch house&mdash;know that he was ready for his dinner.
      As he did so, an idea occurred to him. He wondered if Hilma Tree would
      bring up his dinner and wait on the table while he ate it.
    </p>
    <p>
      In connection with his ranch, Annixter ran a dairy farm on a very small
      scale, making just enough butter and cheese for the consumption of the
      ranch's PERSONNEL. Old man Tree, his wife, and his daughter Hilma looked
      after the dairy. But there was not always work enough to keep the three of
      them occupied and Hilma at times made herself useful in other ways. As
      often as not she lent a hand in the kitchen, and two or three times a week
      she took her mother's place in looking after Annixter's house, making the
      beds, putting his room to rights, bringing his meals up from the kitchen.
      For the last summer she had been away visiting with relatives in one of
      the towns on the coast. But the week previous to this she had returned and
      Annixter had come upon her suddenly one day in the dairy, making cheese,
      the sleeves of her crisp blue shirt waist rolled back to her very
      shoulders. Annixter had carried away with him a clear-cut recollection of
      these smooth white arms of hers, bare to the shoulder, very round and cool
      and fresh. He would not have believed that a girl so young should have had
      arms so big and perfect. To his surprise he found himself thinking of her
      after he had gone to bed that night, and in the morning when he woke he
      was bothered to know whether he had dreamed about Hilma's fine white arms
      over night. Then abruptly he had lost patience with himself for being so
      occupied with the subject, raging and furious with all the breed of
      feemales&mdash;a fine way for a man to waste his time. He had had his
      experience with the timid little creature in the glove-cleaning
      establishment in Sacramento. That was enough. Feemales! Rot! None of them
      in HIS, thank you. HE had seen Hilma Tree give him a look in the dairy.
      Aha, he saw through her! She was trying to get a hold on him, was she? He
      would show her. Wait till he saw her again. He would send her about her
      business in a hurry. He resolved upon a terrible demeanour in the presence
      of the dairy girl&mdash;a great show of indifference, a fierce masculine
      nonchalance; and when, the next morning, she brought him his breakfast, he
      had been smitten dumb as soon as she entered the room, glueing his eyes
      upon his plate, his elbows close to his side, awkward, clumsy, overwhelmed
      with constraint.
    </p>
    <p>
      While true to his convictions as a woman-hater and genuinely despising
      Hilma both as a girl and as an inferior, the idea of her worried him. Most
      of all, he was angry with himself because of his inane sheepishness when
      she was about. He at first had told himself that he was a fool not to be
      able to ignore her existence as hitherto, and then that he was a greater
      fool not to take advantage of his position. Certainly he had not the
      remotest idea of any affection, but Hilma was a fine looking girl. He
      imagined an affair with her.
    </p>
    <p>
      As he reflected upon the matter now, scowling abstractedly at the button
      of the electric bell, turning the whole business over in his mind, he
      remembered that to-day was butter-making day and that Mrs. Tree would be
      occupied in the dairy. That meant that Hilma would take her place. He
      turned to the mirror of the sideboard, scrutinising his reflection with
      grim disfavour. After a moment, rubbing the roughened surface of his chin
      the wrong way, he muttered to his image in the glass:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That a mug! Good Lord! what a looking mug!&rdquo; Then, after a moment's
      silence, &ldquo;Wonder if that fool feemale will be up here to-day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He crossed over into his bedroom and peeped around the edge of the lowered
      curtain. The window looked out upon the skeleton-like tower of the
      artesian well and the cook-house and dairy-house close beside it. As he
      watched, he saw Hilma come out from the cook-house and hurry across toward
      the kitchen. Evidently, she was going to see about his dinner. But as she
      passed by the artesian well, she met young Delaney, one of Annixter's
      hands, coming up the trail by the irrigating ditch, leading his horse
      toward the stables, a great coil of barbed wire in his gloved hands and a
      pair of nippers thrust into his belt. No doubt, he had been mending the
      break in the line fence by the Long Trestle. Annixter saw him take off his
      wide-brimmed hat as he met Hilma, and the two stood there for some moments
      talking together. Annixter even heard Hilma laughing very gayly at
      something Delaney was saying. She patted his horse's neck affectionately,
      and Delaney, drawing the nippers from his belt, made as if to pinch her
      arm with them. She caught at his wrist and pushed him away, laughing
      again. To Annixter's mind the pair seemed astonishingly intimate.
      Brusquely his anger flamed up.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ah, that was it, was it? Delaney and Hilma had an understanding between
      themselves. They carried on their affair right out there in the open,
      under his very eyes. It was absolutely disgusting. Had they no sense of
      decency, those two? Well, this ended it. He would stop that sort of thing
      short off; none of that on HIS ranch if he knew it. No, sir. He would pack
      that girl off before he was a day older. He wouldn't have that kind about
      the place. Not much! She'd have to get out. He would talk to old man Tree
      about it this afternoon. Whatever happened, HE insisted upon morality.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And my dinner!&rdquo; he suddenly exclaimed. &ldquo;I've got to wait and go hungry&mdash;and
      maybe get sick again&mdash;while they carry on their disgusting
      love-making.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He turned about on the instant, and striding over to the electric bell,
      rang it again with all his might.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;When that feemale gets up here,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;I'll just find out why
      I've got to wait like this. I'll take her down, to the Queen's taste. I'm
      lenient enough, Lord knows, but I don't propose to be imposed upon ALL the
      time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A few moments later, while Annixter was pretending to read the county
      newspaper by the window in the dining-room, Hilma came in to set the
      table. At the time Annixter had his feet cocked on the window ledge and
      was smoking a cigar, but as soon as she entered the room he&mdash;without
      premeditation&mdash;brought his feet down to the floor and crushed out the
      lighted tip of his cigar under the window ledge. Over the top of the paper
      he glanced at her covertly from time to time.
    </p>
    <p>
      Though Hilma was only nineteen years old, she was a large girl with all
      the development of a much older woman. There was a certain generous
      amplitude to the full, round curves of her hips and shoulders that
      suggested the precocious maturity of a healthy, vigorous animal life
      passed under the hot southern sun of a half-tropical country. She was, one
      knew at a glance, warm-blooded, full-blooded, with an even, comfortable
      balance of temperament. Her neck was thick, and sloped to her shoulders,
      with full, beautiful curves, and under her chin and under her ears the
      flesh was as white and smooth as floss satin, shading exquisitely to a
      faint delicate brown on her nape at the roots of her hair. Her throat
      rounded to meet her chin and cheek, with a soft swell of the skin, tinted
      pale amber in the shadows, but blending by barely perceptible gradations
      to the sweet, warm flush of her cheek. This colour on her temples was just
      touched with a certain blueness where the flesh was thin over the fine
      veining underneath. Her eyes were light brown, and so wide open that on
      the slightest provocation the full disc of the pupil was disclosed; the
      lids&mdash;just a fraction of a shade darker than the hue of her face&mdash;were
      edged with lashes that were almost black. While these lashes were not
      long, they were thick and rimmed her eyes with a fine, thin line. Her
      mouth was rather large, the lips shut tight, and nothing could have been
      more graceful, more charming than the outline of these full lips of hers,
      and her round white chin, modulating downward with a certain delicious
      roundness to her neck, her throat and the sweet feminine amplitude of her
      breast. The slightest movement of her head and shoulders sent a gentle
      undulation through all this beauty of soft outlines and smooth surfaces,
      the delicate amber shadows deepening or fading or losing themselves
      imperceptibly in the pretty rose-colour of her cheeks, or the dark,
      warm-tinted shadow of her thick brown hair.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her hair seemed almost to have a life of its own, almost Medusa-like,
      thick, glossy and moist, lying in heavy, sweet-smelling masses over her
      forehead, over her small ears with their pink lobes, and far down upon her
      nape. Deep in between the coils and braids it was of a bitumen brownness,
      but in the sunlight it vibrated with a sheen like tarnished gold.
    </p>
    <p>
      Like most large girls, her movements were not hurried, and this indefinite
      deliberateness of gesture, this slow grace, this certain ease of attitude,
      was a charm that was all her own.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Hilma's greatest charm of all was her simplicity&mdash;a simplicity
      that was not only in the calm regularity of her face, with its statuesque
      evenness of contour, its broad surface of cheek and forehead and the
      masses of her straight smooth hair, but was apparent as well in the long
      line of her carriage, from her foot to her waist and the single deep swell
      from her waist to her shoulder. Almost unconsciously she dressed in
      harmony with this note of simplicity, and on this occasion wore a skirt of
      plain dark blue calico and a white shirt waist crisp from the laundry.
    </p>
    <p>
      And yet, for all the dignity of this rigourous simplicity, there were
      about Hilma small contradictory suggestions of feminine daintiness,
      charming beyond words. Even Annixter could not help noticing that her feet
      were narrow and slender, and that the little steel buckles of her low
      shoes were polished bright, and that her fingertips and nails were of a
      fine rosy pink.
    </p>
    <p>
      He found himself wondering how it was that a girl in Hilma's position
      should be able to keep herself so pretty, so trim, so clean and feminine,
      but he reflected that her work was chiefly in the dairy, and even there of
      the lightest order. She was on the ranch more for the sake of being with
      her parents than from any necessity of employment. Vaguely he seemed to
      understand that, in that great new land of the West, in the open-air,
      healthy life of the ranches, where the conditions of earning a livelihood
      were of the easiest, refinement among the younger women was easily to be
      found&mdash;not the refinement of education, nor culture, but the natural,
      intuitive refinement of the woman, not as yet defiled and crushed out by
      the sordid, strenuous life-struggle of over-populated districts. It was
      the original, intended and natural delicacy of an elemental existence,
      close to nature, close to life, close to the great, kindly earth.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Hilma laid the table-spread, her arms opened to their widest reach, the
      white cloth setting a little glisten of reflected light underneath the
      chin, Annixter stirred in his place uneasily.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, it's you, is it, Miss Hilma?&rdquo; he remarked, for the sake of saying
      something. &ldquo;Good-morning. How do you do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-morning, sir,&rdquo; she answered, looking up, resting for a moment on her
      outspread palms. &ldquo;I hope you are better.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Her voice was low in pitch and of a velvety huskiness, seeming to come
      more from her chest than from her throat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I'm some better,&rdquo; growled Annixter. Then suddenly he demanded,
      &ldquo;Where's that dog?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A decrepit Irish setter sometimes made his appearance in and about the
      ranch house, sleeping under the bed and eating when anyone about the place
      thought to give him a plate of bread.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter had no particular interest in the dog. For weeks at a time he
      ignored its existence. It was not his dog. But to-day it seemed as if he
      could not let the subject rest. For no reason that he could explain even
      to himself, he recurred to it continually. He questioned Hilma minutely
      all about the dog. Who owned him? How old did she think he was? Did she
      imagine the dog was sick? Where had he got to? Maybe he had crawled off to
      die somewhere. He recurred to the subject all through the meal;
      apparently, he could talk of nothing else, and as she finally went away
      after clearing off the table, he went onto the porch and called after her:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, Miss Hilma.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If that dog turns up again you let me know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very well, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter returned to the dining-room and sat down in the chair he had just
      vacated. &ldquo;To hell with the dog!&rdquo; he muttered, enraged, he could not tell
      why.
    </p>
    <p>
      When at length he allowed his attention to wander from Hilma Tree, he
      found that he had been staring fixedly at a thermometer upon the wall
      opposite, and this made him think that it had long been his intention to
      buy a fine barometer, an instrument that could be accurately depended on.
      But the barometer suggested the present condition of the weather and the
      likelihood of rain. In such case, much was to be done in the way of
      getting the seed ready and overhauling his ploughs and drills. He had not
      been away from the house in two days. It was time to be up and doing. He
      determined to put in the afternoon &ldquo;taking a look around,&rdquo; and have a late
      supper. He would not go to Los Muertos; he would ignore Magnus Derrick's
      invitation. Possibly, though, it might be well to run over and see what
      was up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If I do,&rdquo; he said to himself, &ldquo;I'll ride the buckskin.&rdquo; The buckskin was
      a half-broken broncho that fought like a fiend under the saddle until the
      quirt and spur brought her to her senses. But Annixter remembered that the
      Trees' cottage, next the dairy-house, looked out upon the stables, and
      perhaps Hilma would see him while he was mounting the horse and be
      impressed with his courage.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Huh!&rdquo; grunted Annixter under his breath, &ldquo;I should like to see that fool
      Delaney try to bust that bronch. That's what I'D like to see.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      However, as Annixter stepped from the porch of the ranch house, he was
      surprised to notice a grey haze over all the sky; the sunlight was gone;
      there was a sense of coolness in the air; the weather-vane on the barn&mdash;a
      fine golden trotting horse with flamboyant mane and tail&mdash;was veering
      in a southwest wind. Evidently the expected rain was close at hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter crossed over to the stables reflecting that he could ride the
      buckskin to the Trees' cottage and tell Hilma that he would not be home to
      supper. The conference at Los Muertos would be an admirable excuse for
      this, and upon the spot he resolved to go over to the Derrick ranch house,
      after all.
    </p>
    <p>
      As he passed the Trees' cottage, he observed with satisfaction that Hilma
      was going to and fro in the front room. If he busted the buckskin in the
      yard before the stable she could not help but see. Annixter found the
      stableman in the back of the barn greasing the axles of the buggy, and
      ordered him to put the saddle on the buckskin.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, I don't think she's here, sir,&rdquo; answered the stableman, glancing
      into the stalls. &ldquo;No, I remember now. Delaney took her out just after
      dinner. His other horse went lame and he wanted to go down by the Long
      Trestle to mend the fence. He started out, but had to come back.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Delaney got her, did he?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir. He had a circus with her, but he busted her right enough. When
      it comes to horse, Delaney can wipe the eye of any cow-puncher in the
      county, I guess.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He can, can he?&rdquo; observed Annixter. Then after a silence, &ldquo;Well, all
      right, Billy; put my saddle on whatever you've got here. I'm going over to
      Los Muertos this afternoon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Want to look out for the rain, Mr. Annixter,&rdquo; remarked Billy. &ldquo;Guess
      we'll have rain before night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll take a rubber coat,&rdquo; answered Annixter. &ldquo;Bring the horse up to the
      ranch house when you're ready.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter returned to the house to look for his rubber coat in deep
      disgust, not permitting himself to glance toward the dairy-house and the
      Trees' cottage. But as he reached the porch he heard the telephone ringing
      his call. It was Presley, who rang up from Los Muertos. He had heard from
      Harran that Annixter was, perhaps, coming over that evening. If he came,
      would he mind bringing over his&mdash;Presley's&mdash;bicycle. He had left
      it at the Quien Sabe ranch the day before and had forgotten to come back
      that way for it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; objected Annixter, a surly note in his voice, &ldquo;I WAS going to RIDE
      over.&rdquo; &ldquo;Oh, never mind, then,&rdquo; returned Presley easily. &ldquo;I was to blame
      for forgetting it. Don't bother about it. I'll come over some of these
      days and get it myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter hung up the transmitter with a vehement wrench and stamped out of
      the room, banging the door. He found his rubber coat hanging in the
      hallway and swung into it with a fierce movement of the shoulders that all
      but started the seams. Everything seemed to conspire to thwart him. It was
      just like that absent-minded, crazy poet, Presley, to forget his wheel.
      Well, he could come after it himself. He, Annixter, would ride SOME horse,
      anyhow. When he came out upon the porch he saw the wheel leaning against
      the fence where Presley had left it. If it stayed there much longer the
      rain would catch it. Annixter ripped out an oath. At every moment his
      ill-humour was increasing. Yet, for all that, he went back to the stable,
      pushing the bicycle before him, and countermanded his order, directing the
      stableman to get the buggy ready. He himself carefully stowed Presley's
      bicycle under the seat, covering it with a couple of empty sacks and a
      tarpaulin carriage cover.
    </p>
    <p>
      While he was doing this, the stableman uttered an exclamation and paused
      in the act of backing the horse into the shafts, holding up a hand,
      listening.
    </p>
    <p>
      From the hollow roof of the barn and from the thick velvet-like padding of
      dust over the ground outside, and from among the leaves of the few nearby
      trees and plants there came a vast, monotonous murmur that seemed to issue
      from all quarters of the horizon at once, a prolonged and subdued rustling
      sound, steady, even, persistent.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's your rain,&rdquo; announced the stableman. &ldquo;The first of the season.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And I got to be out in it,&rdquo; fumed Annixter, &ldquo;and I suppose those swine
      will quit work on the big barn now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When the buggy was finally ready, he put on his rubber coat, climbed in,
      and without waiting for the stableman to raise the top, drove out into the
      rain, a new-lit cigar in his teeth. As he passed the dairy-house, he saw
      Hilma standing in the doorway, holding out her hand to the rain, her face
      turned upward toward the grey sky, amused and interested at this first
      shower of the wet season. She was so absorbed that she did not see
      Annixter, and his clumsy nod in her direction passed unnoticed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She did it on purpose,&rdquo; Annixter told himself, chewing fiercely on his
      cigar. &ldquo;Cuts me now, hey? Well, this DOES settle it. She leaves this ranch
      before I'm a day older.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He decided that he would put off his tour of inspection till the next day.
      Travelling in the buggy as he did, he must keep to the road which led to
      Derrick's, in very roundabout fashion, by way of Guadalajara. This rain
      would reduce the thick dust of the road to two feet of viscid mud. It
      would take him quite three hours to reach the ranch house on Los Muertos.
      He thought of Delaney and the buckskin and ground his teeth. And all this
      trouble, if you please, because of a fool feemale girl. A fine way for him
      to waste his time. Well, now he was done with it. His decision was taken
      now. She should pack.
    </p>
    <p>
      Steadily the rain increased. There was no wind. The thick veil of wet
      descended straight from sky to earth, blurring distant outlines, spreading
      a vast sheen of grey over all the landscape. Its volume became greater,
      the prolonged murmuring note took on a deeper tone. At the gate to the
      road which led across Dyke's hop-fields toward Guadalajara, Annixter was
      obliged to descend and raise the top of the buggy. In doing so he caught
      the flesh of his hand in the joint of the iron elbow that supported the
      top and pinched it cruelly. It was the last misery, the culmination of a
      long train of wretchedness. On the instant he hated Hilma Tree so fiercely
      that his sharply set teeth all but bit his cigar in two.
    </p>
    <p>
      While he was grabbing and wrenching at the buggy-top, the water from his
      hat brim dripping down upon his nose, the horse, restive under the drench
      of the rain, moved uneasily.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yah-h-h you!&rdquo; he shouted, inarticulate with exasperation. &ldquo;You&mdash;you&mdash;Gor-r-r,
      wait till I get hold of you. WHOA, you!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But there was an interruption. Delaney, riding the buckskin, came around a
      bend in the road at a slow trot and Annixter, getting into the buggy
      again, found himself face to face with him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, hello, Mr. Annixter,&rdquo; said he, pulling up. &ldquo;Kind of sort of wet,
      isn't it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, his face suddenly scarlet, sat back in his place abruptly,
      exclaiming:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;oh, there you are, are you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I've been down there,&rdquo; explained Delaney, with a motion of his head
      toward the railroad, &ldquo;to mend that break in the fence by the Long Trestle
      and I thought while I was about it I'd follow down along the fence toward
      Guadalajara to see if there were any more breaks. But I guess it's all
      right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you guess it's all right, do you?&rdquo; observed Annixter through his
      teeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;yes,&rdquo; returned the other, bewildered at the truculent
      ring in Annixter's voice. &ldquo;I mended that break by the Long Trestle just
      now and&mdash;&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, why didn't you mend it a week ago?&rdquo; shouted Annixter wrathfully.
      &ldquo;I've been looking for you all the morning, I have, and who told you you
      could take that buckskin? And the sheep were all over the right of way
      last night because of that break, and here that filthy pip, S. Behrman,
      comes down here this morning and wants to make trouble for me.&rdquo; Suddenly
      he cried out, &ldquo;What do I FEED you for? What do I keep you around here for?
      Think it's just to fatten up your carcass, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, Mr. Annixter&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; began Delaney.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And don't TALK to me,&rdquo; vociferated the other, exciting himself with his
      own noise. &ldquo;Don't you say a word to me even to apologise. If I've spoken
      to you once about that break, I've spoken fifty times.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, sir,&rdquo; declared Delaney, beginning to get indignant, &ldquo;the sheep did
      it themselves last night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I told you not to TALK to me,&rdquo; clamoured Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, say, look here&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Get off the ranch. You get off the ranch. And taking that buckskin
      against my express orders. I won't have your kind about the place, not
      much. I'm easy-going enough, Lord knows, but I don't propose to be imposed
      on ALL the time. Pack off, you understand and do it lively. Go to the
      foreman and tell him I told him to pay you off and then clear out. And,
      you hear me,&rdquo; he concluded, with a menacing outthrust of his lower jaw,
      &ldquo;you hear me, if I catch you hanging around the ranch house after this, or
      if I so much as see you on Quien Sabe, I'll show you the way off of it, my
      friend, at the toe of my boot. Now, then, get out of the way and let me
      pass.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Angry beyond the power of retort, Delaney drove the spurs into the
      buckskin and passed the buggy in a single bound. Annixter gathered up the
      reins and drove on muttering to himself, and occasionally looking back to
      observe the buckskin flying toward the ranch house in a spattering shower
      of mud, Delaney urging her on, his head bent down against the falling
      rain.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Huh,&rdquo; grunted Annixter with grim satisfaction, a certain sense of good
      humour at length returning to him, &ldquo;that just about takes the saleratus
      out of YOUR dough, my friend.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A little farther on, Annixter got out of the buggy a second time to open
      another gate that let him out upon the Upper Road, not far distant from
      Guadalajara. It was the road that connected that town with Bonneville and
      that ran parallel with the railroad tracks. On the other side of the track
      he could see the infinite extension of the brown, bare land of Los
      Muertos, turning now to a soft, moist welter of fertility under the
      insistent caressing of the rain. The hard, sun-baked clods were
      decomposing, the crevices between drinking the wet with an eager, sucking
      noise. But the prospect was dreary; the distant horizons were blotted
      under drifting mists of rain; the eternal monotony of the earth lay open
      to the sombre low sky without a single adornment, without a single
      variation from its melancholy flatness. Near at hand the wires between the
      telegraph poles vibrated with a faint humming under the multitudinous
      fingering of the myriad of falling drops, striking among them and dripping
      off steadily from one to another. The poles themselves were dark and
      swollen and glistening with wet, while the little cones of glass on the
      transverse bars reflected the dull grey light of the end of the afternoon.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Annixter was about to drive on, a freight train passed, coming from
      Guadalajara, going northward toward Bonneville, Fresno and San Francisco.
      It was a long train, moving slowly, methodically, with a measured coughing
      of its locomotive and a rhythmic cadence of its trucks over the
      interstices of the rails. On two or three of the flat cars near its end,
      Annixter plainly saw Magnus Derrick's ploughs, their bright coating of red
      and green paint setting a single brilliant note in all this array of grey
      and brown.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter halted, watching the train file past, carrying Derrick's ploughs
      away from his ranch, at this very time of the first rain, when they would
      be most needed. He watched it, silent, thoughtful, and without articulate
      comment. Even after it passed he sat in his place a long time, watching it
      lose itself slowly in the distance, its prolonged rumble diminishing to a
      faint murmur. Soon he heard the engine sounding its whistle for the Long
      Trestle.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the moving train no longer carried with it that impression of terror
      and destruction that had so thrilled Presley's imagination the night
      before. It passed slowly on its way with a mournful roll of wheels, like
      the passing of a cortege, like a file of artillery-caissons charioting
      dead bodies; the engine's smoke enveloping it in a mournful veil, leaving
      a sense of melancholy in its wake, moving past there, lugubrious,
      lamentable, infinitely sad under the grey sky and under the grey mist of
      rain which continued to fall with a subdued, rustling sound, steady,
      persistent, a vast monotonous murmur that seemed to come from all quarters
      of the horizon at once.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER III
    </h2>
    <p>
      When Annixter arrived at the Los Muertos ranch house that same evening, he
      found a little group already assembled in the dining-room. Magnus Derrick,
      wearing the frock coat of broadcloth that he had put on for the occasion,
      stood with his back to the fireplace. Harran sat close at hand, one leg
      thrown over the arm of his chair. Presley lounged on the sofa, in
      corduroys and high laced boots, smoking cigarettes. Broderson leaned on
      his folded arms at one corner of the dining table, and Genslinger, editor
      and proprietor of the principal newspaper of the county, the &ldquo;Bonneville
      Mercury,&rdquo; stood with his hat and driving gloves under his arm, opposite
      Derrick, a half-emptied glass of whiskey and water in his hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Annixter entered he heard Genslinger observe: &ldquo;I'll have a leader in
      the 'Mercury' to-morrow that will interest you people. There's some talk
      of your ranch lands being graded in value this winter. I suppose you will
      all buy?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In an instant the editor's words had riveted upon him the attention of
      every man in the room. Annixter broke the moment's silence that followed
      with the remark:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, it's about time they graded these lands of theirs.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The question in issue in Genslinger's remark was of the most vital
      interest to the ranchers around Bonneville and Guadalajara. Neither Magnus
      Derrick, Broderson, Annixter, nor Osterman actually owned all the ranches
      which they worked. As yet, the vast majority of these wheat lands were the
      property of the P. and S. W. The explanation of this condition of affairs
      went back to the early history of the Pacific and Southwestern, when, as a
      bonus for the construction of the road, the national government had
      granted to the company the odd numbered sections of land on either side of
      the proposed line of route for a distance of twenty miles. Indisputably,
      these sections belonged to the P. and S. W. The even-numbered sections
      being government property could be and had been taken up by the ranchers,
      but the railroad sections, or, as they were called, the &ldquo;alternate
      sections,&rdquo; would have to be purchased direct from the railroad itself.
    </p>
    <p>
      But this had not prevented the farmers from &ldquo;coming in&rdquo; upon that part of
      the San Joaquin. Long before this the railroad had thrown open these
      lands, and, by means of circulars, distributed broadcast throughout the
      State, had expressly invited settlement thereon. At that time patents had
      not been issued to the railroad for their odd-numbered sections, but as
      soon as the land was patented the railroad would grade it in value and
      offer it for sale, the first occupants having the first chance of
      purchase. The price of these lands was to be fixed by the price the
      government put upon its own adjoining lands&mdash;about two dollars and a
      half per acre.
    </p>
    <p>
      With cultivation and improvement the ranches must inevitably appreciate in
      value. There was every chance to make fortunes. When the railroad lands
      about Bonneville had been thrown open, there had been almost a rush in the
      matter of settlement, and Broderson, Annixter, Derrick, and Osterman,
      being foremost with their claims, had secured the pick of the country. But
      the land once settled upon, the P. and S. W. seemed to be in no hurry as
      to fixing exactly the value of its sections included in the various
      ranches and offering them for sale. The matter dragged along from year to
      year, was forgotten for months together, being only brought to mind on
      such occasions as this, when the rumour spread that the General Office was
      about to take definite action in the affair.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As soon as the railroad wants to talk business with me,&rdquo; observed
      Annixter, &ldquo;about selling me their interest in Quien Sabe, I'm ready. The
      land has more than quadrupled in value. I'll bet I could sell it to-morrow
      for fifteen dollars an acre, and if I buy of the railroad for two and a
      half an acre, there's boodle in the game.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;For two and a half!&rdquo; exclaimed Genslinger. &ldquo;You don't suppose the
      railroad will let their land go for any such figure as that, do you?
      Wherever did you get that idea?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;From the circulars and pamphlets,&rdquo; answered Harran, &ldquo;that the railroad
      issued to us when they opened these lands. They are pledged to that. Even
      the P. and S. W. couldn't break such a pledge as that. You are new in the
      country, Mr. Genslinger. You don't remember the conditions upon which we
      took up this land.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And our improvements,&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter. &ldquo;Why, Magnus and I have put
      about five thousand dollars between us into that irrigating ditch already.
      I guess we are not improving the land just to make it valuable for the
      railroad people. No matter how much we improve the land, or how much it
      increases in value, they have got to stick by their agreement on the basis
      of two-fifty per acre. Here's one case where the P. and S. W. DON'T get
      everything in sight.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Genslinger frowned, perplexed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I AM new in the country, as Harran says,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;but it seems to
      me that there's no fairness in that proposition. The presence of the
      railroad has helped increase the value of your ranches quite as much as
      your improvements. Why should you get all the benefit of the rise in value
      and the railroad nothing? The fair way would be to share it between you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't care anything about that,&rdquo; declared Annixter. &ldquo;They agreed to
      charge but two-fifty, and they've got to stick to it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; murmured Genslinger, &ldquo;from what I know of the affair, I don't
      believe the P. and S. W. intends to sell for two-fifty an acre, at all.
      The managers of the road want the best price they can get for everything
      in these hard times.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Times aren't ever very hard for the railroad,&rdquo; hazards old Broderson.
    </p>
    <p>
      Broderson was the oldest man in the room. He was about sixty-five years of
      age, venerable, with a white beard, his figure bent earthwards with hard
      work.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was a narrow-minded man, painfully conscientious in his statements lest
      he should be unjust to somebody; a slow thinker, unable to let a subject
      drop when once he had started upon it. He had no sooner uttered his remark
      about hard times than he was moved to qualify it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hard times,&rdquo; he repeated, a troubled, perplexed note in his voice; &ldquo;well,
      yes&mdash;yes. I suppose the road DOES have hard times, maybe. Everybody
      does&mdash;of course. I didn't mean that exactly. I believe in being just
      and fair to everybody. I mean that we've got to use their lines and pay
      their charges good years AND bad years, the P. and S. W. being the only
      road in the State. That is&mdash;well, when I say the only road&mdash;no,
      I won't say the ONLY road. Of course there are other roads. There's the D.
      P. and M. and the San Francisco and North Pacific, that runs up to Ukiah.
      I got a brother-in-law in Ukiah. That's not much of a wheat country round
      Ukiah though they DO grow SOME wheat there, come to think. But I guess
      it's too far north. Well, of course there isn't MUCH. Perhaps sixty
      thousand acres in the whole county&mdash;if you include barley and oats. I
      don't know; maybe it's nearer forty thousand. I don't remember very well.
      That's a good many years ago. I&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Annixter, at the end of all patience, turned to Genslinger, cutting
      short the old man:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, rot! Of course the railroad will sell at two-fifty,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;We've
      got the contracts.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look to them, then, Mr. Annixter,&rdquo; retorted Genslinger significantly,
      &ldquo;look to them. Be sure that you are protected.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Soon after this Genslinger took himself away, and Derrick's Chinaman came
      in to set the table.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do you suppose he meant?&rdquo; asked Broderson, when Genslinger was gone.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;About this land business?&rdquo; said Annixter. &ldquo;Oh, I don't know. Some tom
      fool idea. Haven't we got their terms printed in black and white in their
      circulars? There's their pledge.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, as to pledges,&rdquo; murmured Broderson, &ldquo;the railroad is not always TOO
      much hindered by those.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where's Osterman?&rdquo; demanded Annixter, abruptly changing the subject as if
      it were not worth discussion. &ldquo;Isn't that goat Osterman coming down here
      to-night?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You telephoned him, didn't you, Presley?&rdquo; inquired Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley had taken Princess Nathalie upon his knee stroking her long, sleek
      hair, and the cat, stupefied with beatitude, had closed her eyes to two
      fine lines, clawing softly at the corduroy of Presley's trousers with
      alternate paws.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; returned Presley. &ldquo;He said he would be here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And as he spoke, young Osterman arrived.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was a young fellow, but singularly inclined to baldness. His ears, very
      red and large, stuck out at right angles from either side of his head, and
      his mouth, too, was large&mdash;a great horizontal slit beneath his nose.
      His cheeks were of a brownish red, the cheek bones a little salient. His
      face was that of a comic actor, a singer of songs, a man never at a loss
      for an answer, continually striving to make a laugh. But he took no great
      interest in ranching and left the management of his land to his
      superintendents and foremen, he, himself, living in Bonneville. He was a
      poser, a wearer of clothes, forever acting a part, striving to create an
      impression, to draw attention to himself. He was not without a certain
      energy, but he devoted it to small ends, to perfecting himself in little
      accomplishments, continually running after some new thing, incapable of
      persisting long in any one course. At one moment his mania would be
      fencing; the next, sleight-of-hand tricks; the next, archery. For upwards
      of one month he had devoted himself to learning how to play two banjos
      simultaneously, then abandoning this had developed a sudden passion for
      stamped leather work and had made a quantity of purses, tennis belts, and
      hat bands, which he presented to young ladies of his acquaintance. It was
      his policy never to make an enemy. He was liked far better than he was
      respected. People spoke of him as &ldquo;that goat Osterman,&rdquo; or &ldquo;that fool
      Osterman kid,&rdquo; and invited him to dinner. He was of the sort who somehow
      cannot be ignored. If only because of his clamour he made himself
      important. If he had one abiding trait, it was his desire of astonishing
      people, and in some way, best known to himself, managed to cause the
      circulation of the most extraordinary stories wherein he, himself, was the
      chief actor. He was glib, voluble, dexterous, ubiquitous, a teller of
      funny stories, a cracker of jokes.
    </p>
    <p>
      Naturally enough, he was heavily in debt, but carried the burden of it
      with perfect nonchalance. The year before S. Behrman had held mortgages
      for fully a third of his crop and had squeezed him viciously for interest.
      But for all that, Osterman and S. Behrman were continually seen arm-in-arm
      on the main street of Bonneville. Osterman was accustomed to slap S.
      Behrman on his fat back, declaring:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You're a good fellow, old jelly-belly, after all, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As Osterman entered from the porch, after hanging his cavalry poncho and
      dripping hat on the rack outside, Mrs. Derrick appeared in the door that
      opened from the dining-room into the glass-roofed hallway just beyond.
      Osterman saluted her with effusive cordiality and with ingratiating
      blandness.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am not going to stay,&rdquo; she explained, smiling pleasantly at the group
      of men, her pretty, wide-open brown eyes, with their look of inquiry and
      innocence, glancing from face to face, &ldquo;I only came to see if you wanted
      anything and to say how do you do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She began talking to old Broderson, making inquiries as to his wife, who
      had been sick the last week, and Osterman turned to the company, shaking
      hands all around, keeping up an incessant stream of conversation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, boys and girls. Hello, Governor. Sort of a gathering of the clans
      to-night. Well, if here isn't that man Annixter. Hello, Buck. What do you
      know? Kind of dusty out to-night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      At once Annixter began to get red in the face, retiring towards a corner
      of the room, standing in an awkward position by the case of stuffed birds,
      shambling and confused, while Mrs. Derrick was present, standing rigidly
      on both feet, his elbows close to his sides. But he was angry with
      Osterman, muttering imprecations to himself, horribly vexed that the young
      fellow should call him &ldquo;Buck&rdquo; before Magnus's wife. This goat Osterman!
      Hadn't he any sense, that fool? Couldn't he ever learn how to behave
      before a feemale? Calling him &ldquo;Buck&rdquo; like that while Mrs. Derrick was
      there. Why a stable-boy would know better; a hired man would have better
      manners. All through the dinner that followed Annixter was out of sorts,
      sulking in his place, refusing to eat by way of vindicating his
      self-respect, resolving to bring Osterman up with a sharp turn if he
      called him &ldquo;Buck&rdquo; again.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Chinaman had made a certain kind of plum pudding for dessert, and
      Annixter, who remembered other dinners at the Derrick's, had been saving
      himself for this, and had meditated upon it all through the meal. No
      doubt, it would restore all his good humour, and he believed his stomach
      was so far recovered as to be able to stand it.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, unfortunately, the pudding was served with a sauce that he abhorred&mdash;a
      thick, gruel-like, colourless mixture, made from plain water and sugar.
      Before he could interfere, the Chinaman had poured a quantity of it upon
      his plate.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Faugh!&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter. &ldquo;It makes me sick. Such&mdash;such SLOOP.
      Take it away. I'll have mine straight, if you don't mind.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's good for your stomach, Buck,&rdquo; observed young Osterman; &ldquo;makes it
      go down kind of sort of slick; don't you see? Sloop, hey? That's a good
      name.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look here, don't you call me Buck. You don't seem to have any sense, and,
      besides, it ISN'T good for my stomach. I know better. What do YOU know
      about my stomach, anyhow? Just looking at sloop like that makes me sick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A little while after this the Chinaman cleared away the dessert and
      brought in coffee and cigars. The whiskey bottle and the syphon of
      soda-water reappeared. The men eased themselves in their places, pushing
      back from the table, lighting their cigars, talking of the beginning of
      the rains and the prospects of a rise in wheat. Broderson began an
      elaborate mental calculation, trying to settle in his mind the exact date
      of his visit to Ukiah, and Osterman did sleight-of-hand tricks with bread
      pills. But Princess Nathalie, the cat, was uneasy. Annixter was occupying
      her own particular chair in which she slept every night. She could not go
      to sleep, but spied upon him continually, watching his every movement with
      her lambent, yellow eyes, clear as amber.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then, at length, Magnus, who was at the head of the table, moved in his
      place, assuming a certain magisterial attitude. &ldquo;Well, gentlemen,&rdquo; he
      observed, &ldquo;I have lost my case against the railroad, the grain-rate case.
      Ulsteen decided against me, and now I hear rumours to the effect that
      rates for the hauling of grain are to be advanced.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When Magnus had finished, there was a moment's silence, each member of the
      group maintaining his attitude of attention and interest. It was Harran
      who first spoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;S. Behrman manipulated the whole affair. There's a big deal of some kind
      in the air, and if there is, we all know who is back of it; S. Behrman, of
      course, but who's back of him? It's Shelgrim.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Shelgrim! The name fell squarely in the midst of the conversation, abrupt,
      grave, sombre, big with suggestion, pregnant with huge associations. No
      one in the group who was not familiar with it; no one, for that matter, in
      the county, the State, the whole reach of the West, the entire Union, that
      did not entertain convictions as to the man who carried it; a giant figure
      in the end-of-the-century finance, a product of circumstance, an
      inevitable result of conditions, characteristic, typical, symbolic of
      ungovernable forces. In the New Movement, the New Finance, the
      reorganisation of capital, the amalgamation of powers, the consolidation
      of enormous enterprises&mdash;no one individual was more constantly in the
      eye of the world; no one was more hated, more dreaded, no one more
      compelling of unwilling tribute to his commanding genius, to the colossal
      intellect operating the width of an entire continent than the president
      and owner of the Pacific and Southwestern.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't think, however, he has moved yet,&rdquo; said Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The thing for us, then,&rdquo; exclaimed Osterman, &ldquo;is to stand from under
      before he does.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Moved yet!&rdquo; snorted Annixter. &ldquo;He's probably moved so long ago that we've
      never noticed it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In any case,&rdquo; hazarded Magnus, &ldquo;it is scarcely probable that the deal&mdash;whatever
      it is to be&mdash;has been consummated. If we act quickly, there may be a
      chance.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Act quickly! How?&rdquo; demanded Annixter. &ldquo;Good Lord! what can you do? We're
      cinched already. It all amounts to just this: YOU CAN'T BUCK AGAINST THE
      RAILROAD. We've tried it and tried it, and we are stuck every time. You,
      yourself, Derrick, have just lost your grain-rate case. S. Behrman did you
      up. Shelgrim owns the courts. He's got men like Ulsteen in his pocket.
      He's got the Railroad Commission in his pocket. He's got the Governor of
      the State in his pocket. He keeps a million-dollar lobby at Sacramento
      every minute of the time the legislature is in session; he's got his own
      men on the floor of the United States Senate. He has the whole thing
      organised like an army corps. What ARE you going to do? He sits in his
      office in San Francisco and pulls the strings and we've got to dance.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But&mdash;well&mdash;but,&rdquo; hazarded Broderson, &ldquo;but there's the
      Interstate Commerce Commission. At least on long-haul rates they&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hoh, yes, the Interstate Commerce Commission,&rdquo; shouted Annixter,
      scornfully, &ldquo;that's great, ain't it? The greatest Punch and Judy; show on
      earth. It's almost as good as the Railroad Commission. There never was and
      there never will be a California Railroad Commission not in the pay of the
      P. and S. W.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is to the Railroad Commission, nevertheless,&rdquo; remarked Magnus, &ldquo;that
      the people of the State must look for relief. That is our only hope. Once
      elect Commissioners who would be loyal to the people, and the whole system
      of excessive rates falls to the ground.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, why not HAVE a Railroad Commission of our own, then?&rdquo; suddenly
      declared young Osterman.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Because it can't be done,&rdquo; retorted Annixter. &ldquo;YOU CAN'T BUCK AGAINST THE
      RAILROAD and if you could you can't organise the farmers in the San
      Joaquin. We tried it once, and it was enough to turn your stomach. The
      railroad quietly bought delegates through S. Behrman and did us up.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that's the game to play,&rdquo; said Osterman decisively, &ldquo;buy
      delegates.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's the only game that seems to win,&rdquo; admitted Harran gloomily. &ldquo;Or ever
      will win,&rdquo; exclaimed Osterman, a sudden excitement seeming to take
      possession of him. His face&mdash;the face of a comic actor, with its
      great slit of mouth and stiff, red ears&mdash;went abruptly pink.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;this thing is getting desperate. We've fought and
      fought in the courts and out and we've tried agitation and&mdash;and all
      the rest of it and S. Behrman sacks us every time. Now comes the time when
      there's a prospect of a big crop; we've had no rain for two years and the
      land has had a long rest. If there is any rain at all this winter, we'll
      have a bonanza year, and just at this very moment when we've got our
      chance&mdash;a chance to pay off our mortgages and get clear of debt and
      make a strike&mdash;here is Shelgrim making a deal to cinch us and put up
      rates. And now here's the primaries coming off and a new Railroad
      Commission going in. That's why Shelgrim chose this time to make his deal.
      If we wait till Shelgrim pulls it off, we're done for, that's flat. I tell
      you we're in a fix if we don't keep an eye open. Things are getting
      desperate. Magnus has just said that the key to the whole thing is the
      Railroad Commission. Well, why not have a Commission of our own? Never
      mind how we get it, let's get it. If it's got to be bought, let's buy it
      and put our own men on it and dictate what the rates will be. Suppose it
      costs a hundred thousand dollars. Well, we'll get back more than that in
      cheap rates.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Osterman,&rdquo; said Magnus, fixing the young man with a swift glance,
      &ldquo;Mr. Osterman, you are proposing a scheme of bribery, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am proposing,&rdquo; repeated Osterman, &ldquo;a scheme of bribery. Exactly so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And a crazy, wild-eyed scheme at that,&rdquo; said Annixter gruffly. &ldquo;Even
      supposing you bought a Railroad Commission and got your schedule of low
      rates, what happens? The P. and S. W. crowd get out an injunction and tie
      you up.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They would tie themselves up, too. Hauling at low rates is better than no
      hauling at all. The wheat has got to be moved.&rdquo; &ldquo;Oh, rot!&rdquo; cried Annixter.
      &ldquo;Aren't you ever going to learn any sense? Don't you know that cheap
      transportation would benefit the Liverpool buyers and not us? Can't it be
      FED into you that you can't buck against the railroad? When you try to buy
      a Board of Commissioners don't you see that you'll have to bid against the
      railroad, bid against a corporation that can chuck out millions to our
      thousands? Do you think you can bid against the P. and S. W.?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The railroad don't need to know we are in the game against them till
      we've got our men seated.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And when you've got them seated, what's to prevent the corporation buying
      them right over your head?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If we've got the right kind of men in they could not be bought that way,&rdquo;
       interposed Harran. &ldquo;I don't know but what there's something in what
      Osterman says. We'd have the naming of the Commission and we'd name honest
      men.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter struck the table with his fist in exasperation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Honest men!&rdquo; he shouted; &ldquo;the kind of men you could get to go into such a
      scheme would have to be DIS-honest to begin with.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Broderson, shifting uneasily in his place, fingering his beard with a
      vague, uncertain gesture, spoke again:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It would be the CHANCE of them&mdash;our Commissioners&mdash;selling out
      against the certainty of Shelgrim doing us up. That is,&rdquo; he hastened to
      add, &ldquo;ALMOST a certainty; pretty near a certainty.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Of course, it would be a chance,&rdquo; exclaimed Osterman. &ldquo;But it's come to
      the point where we've got to take chances, risk a big stake to make a big
      strike, and risk is better than sure failure.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can be no party to a scheme of avowed bribery and corruption, Mr.
      Osterman,&rdquo; declared Magnus, a ring of severity in his voice. &ldquo;I am
      surprised, sir, that you should even broach the subject in my hearing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; cried Annixter, &ldquo;it can't be done.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; muttered Harran, &ldquo;maybe it just wants a little spark like
      this to fire the whole train.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus glanced at his son in considerable surprise. He had not expected
      this of Harran. But so great was his affection for his son, so accustomed
      had he become to listening to his advice, to respecting his opinions,
      that, for the moment, after the first shock of surprise and
      disappointment, he was influenced to give a certain degree of attention to
      this new proposition. He in no way countenanced it. At any moment he was
      prepared to rise in his place and denounce it and Osterman both. It was
      trickery of the most contemptible order, a thing he believed to be unknown
      to the old school of politics and statesmanship to which he was proud to
      belong; but since Harran, even for one moment, considered it, he, Magnus,
      who trusted Harran implicitly, would do likewise&mdash;if it was only to
      oppose and defeat it in its very beginnings.
    </p>
    <p>
      And abruptly the discussion began. Gradually Osterman, by dint of his
      clamour, his strident reiteration, the plausibility of his glib, ready
      assertions, the ease with which he extricated himself when apparently
      driven to a corner, completely won over old Broderson to his way of
      thinking. Osterman bewildered him with his volubility, the lightning
      rapidity with which he leaped from one subject to another, garrulous,
      witty, flamboyant, terrifying the old man with pictures of the swift
      approach of ruin, the imminence of danger.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, who led the argument against him&mdash;loving argument though he
      did&mdash;appeared to poor advantage, unable to present his side
      effectively. He called Osterman a fool, a goat, a senseless, crazy-headed
      jackass, but was unable to refute his assertions. His debate was the
      clumsy heaving of brickbats, brutal, direct. He contradicted everything
      Osterman said as a matter of principle, made conflicting assertions,
      declarations that were absolutely inconsistent, and when Osterman or
      Harran used these against him, could only exclaim:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, in a way it's so, and then again in a way it isn't.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But suddenly Osterman discovered a new argument. &ldquo;If we swing this deal,&rdquo;
       he cried, &ldquo;we've got old jelly-belly Behrman right where we want him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He's the man that does us every time,&rdquo; cried Harran. &ldquo;If there is dirty
      work to be done in which the railroad doesn't wish to appear, it is S.
      Behrman who does it. If the freight rates are to be 'adjusted' to squeeze
      us a little harder, it is S. Behrman who regulates what we can stand. If
      there's a judge to be bought, it is S. Behrman who does the bargaining. If
      there is a jury to be bribed, it is S. Behrman who handles the money. If
      there is an election to be jobbed, it is S. Behrman who manipulates it.
      It's Behrman here and Behrman there. It is Behrman we come against every
      time we make a move. It is Behrman who has the grip of us and will never
      let go till he has squeezed us bone dry. Why, when I think of it all
      sometimes I wonder I keep my hands off the man.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Osterman got on his feet; leaning across the table, gesturing wildly with
      his right hand, his serio-comic face, with its bald forehead and stiff,
      red ears, was inflamed with excitement. He took the floor, creating an
      impression, attracting all attention to himself, playing to the gallery,
      gesticulating, clamourous, full of noise.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, now is your chance to get even,&rdquo; he vociferated. &ldquo;It is now or
      never. You can take it and save the situation for yourselves and all
      California or you can leave it and rot on your own ranches. Buck, I know
      you. I know you're not afraid of anything that wears skin. I know you've
      got sand all through you, and I know if I showed you how we could put our
      deal through and seat a Commission of our own, you wouldn't hang back.
      Governor, you're a brave man. You know the advantage of prompt and
      fearless action. You are not the sort to shrink from taking chances. To
      play for big stakes is just your game&mdash;to stake a fortune on the turn
      of a card. You didn't get the reputation of being the strongest poker
      player in El Dorado County for nothing. Now, here's the biggest gamble
      that ever came your way. If we stand up to it like men with guts in us,
      we'll win out. If we hesitate, we're lost.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't suppose you can help playing the goat, Osterman,&rdquo; remarked
      Annixter, &ldquo;but what's your idea? What do you think we can do? I'm not
      saying,&rdquo; he hastened to interpose, &ldquo;that you've anyways convinced me by
      all this cackling. I know as well as you that we are in a hole. But I knew
      that before I came here to-night. YOU'VE not done anything to make me
      change my mind. But just what do you propose? Let's hear it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I say the first thing to do is to see Disbrow. He's the political
      boss of the Denver, Pueblo, and Mojave road. We will have to get in with
      the machine some way and that's particularly why I want Magnus with us. He
      knows politics better than any of us and if we don't want to get sold
      again we will have to have some one that's in the know to steer us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The only politics I understand, Mr. Osterman,&rdquo; answered Magnus sternly,
      &ldquo;are honest politics. You must look elsewhere for your political manager.
      I refuse to have any part in this matter. If the Railroad Commission can
      be nominated legitimately, if your arrangements can be made without
      bribery, I am with you to the last iota of my ability.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you can't get what you want without paying for it,&rdquo; contradicted
      Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      Broderson was about to speak when Osterman kicked his foot under the
      table. He, himself, held his peace. He was quick to see that if he could
      involve Magnus and Annixter in an argument, Annixter, for the mere love of
      contention, would oppose the Governor and, without knowing it, would
      commit himself to his&mdash;Osterman's&mdash;scheme.
    </p>
    <p>
      This was precisely what happened. In a few moments Annixter was declaring
      at top voice his readiness to mortgage the crop of Quien Sabe, if
      necessary, for the sake of &ldquo;busting S. Behrman.&rdquo; He could see no great
      obstacle in the way of controlling the nominating convention so far as
      securing the naming of two Railroad Commissioners was concerned. Two was
      all they needed. Probably it WOULD cost money. You didn't get something
      for nothing. It would cost them all a good deal more if they sat like
      lumps on a log and played tiddledy-winks while Shelgrim sold out from
      under them. Then there was this, too: the P. and S. W. were hard up just
      then. The shortage on the State's wheat crop for the last two years had
      affected them, too. They were retrenching in expenditures all along the
      line. Hadn't they just cut wages in all departments? There was this affair
      of Dyke's to prove it. The railroad didn't always act as a unit, either.
      There was always a party in it that opposed spending too much money. He
      would bet that party was strong just now. He was kind of sick himself of
      being kicked by S. Behrman. Hadn't that pip turned up on his ranch that
      very day to bully him about his own line fence? Next he would be telling
      him what kind of clothes he ought to wear. Harran had the right idea.
      Somebody had got to be busted mighty soon now and he didn't propose that
      it should be he.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now you are talking something like sense,&rdquo; observed Osterman. &ldquo;I thought
      you would see it like that when you got my idea.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your idea, YOUR idea!&rdquo; cried Annixter. &ldquo;Why, I've had this idea myself
      for over three years.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What about Disbrow?&rdquo; asked Harran, hastening to interrupt. &ldquo;Why do we
      want to see Disbrow?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Disbrow is the political man for the Denver, Pueblo, and Mojave,&rdquo;
       answered Osterman, &ldquo;and you see it's like this: the Mojave road don't run
      up into the valley at all. Their terminus is way to the south of us, and
      they don't care anything about grain rates through the San Joaquin. They
      don't care how anti-railroad the Commission is, because the Commission's
      rulings can't affect them. But they divide traffic with the P. and S. W.
      in the southern part of the State and they have a good deal of influence
      with that road. I want to get the Mojave road, through Disbrow, to
      recommend a Commissioner of our choosing to the P. and S. W. and have the
      P. and S. W. adopt him as their own.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who, for instance?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Darrell, that Los Angeles man&mdash;remember?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, Darrell is no particular friend of Disbrow,&rdquo; said Annixter. &ldquo;Why
      should Disbrow take him up?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;PREE-cisely,&rdquo; cried Osterman. &ldquo;We make it worth Disbrow's while to do it.
      We go to him and say, 'Mr. Disbrow, you manage the politics for the Mojave
      railroad, and what you say goes with your Board of Directors. We want you
      to adopt our candidate for Railroad Commissioner for the third district.
      How much do you want for doing it?' I KNOW we can buy Disbrow. That gives
      us one Commissioner. We need not bother about that any more. In the first
      district we don't make any move at all. We let the political managers of
      the P. and S. W. nominate whoever they like. Then we concentrate all our
      efforts to putting in our man in the second district. There is where the
      big fight will come.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see perfectly well what you mean, Mr. Osterman,&rdquo; observed Magnus, &ldquo;but
      make no mistake, sir, as to my attitude in this business. You may count me
      as out of it entirely.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, suppose we win,&rdquo; put in Annixter truculently, already acknowledging
      himself as involved in the proposed undertaking; &ldquo;suppose we win and get
      low rates for hauling grain. How about you, then? You count yourself IN
      then, don't you? You get all the benefit of lower rates without sharing
      any of the risks we take to secure them. No, nor any of the expense,
      either. No, you won't dirty your fingers with helping us put this deal
      through, but you won't be so cursed particular when it comes to sharing
      the profits, will you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus rose abruptly to his full height, the nostrils of his thin,
      hawk-like nose vibrating, his smooth-shaven face paler than ever.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stop right where you are, sir,&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;You forget yourself, Mr.
      Annixter. Please understand that I tolerate such words as you have
      permitted yourself to make use of from no man, not even from my guest. I
      shall ask you to apologise.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In an instant he dominated the entire group, imposing a respect that was
      as much fear as admiration. No one made response. For the moment he was
      the Master again, the Leader. Like so many delinquent school-boys, the
      others cowered before him, ashamed, put to confusion, unable to find their
      tongues. In that brief instant of silence following upon Magnus's
      outburst, and while he held them subdued and over-mastered, the fabric of
      their scheme of corruption and dishonesty trembled to its base. It was the
      last protest of the Old School, rising up there in denunciation of the new
      order of things, the statesman opposed to the politician; honesty,
      rectitude, uncompromising integrity, prevailing for the last time against
      the devious manoeuvring, the evil communications, the rotten expediency of
      a corrupted institution.
    </p>
    <p>
      For a few seconds no one answered. Then, Annixter, moving abruptly and
      uneasily in his place, muttered:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I spoke upon provocation. If you like, we'll consider it unsaid. I don't
      know what's going to become of us&mdash;go out of business, I presume.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I understand Magnus all right,&rdquo; put in Osterman. &ldquo;He don't have to go
      into this thing, if it's against his conscience. That's all right. Magnus
      can stay out if he wants to, but that won't prevent us going ahead and
      seeing what we can do. Only there's this about it.&rdquo; He turned again to
      Magnus, speaking with every degree of earnestness, every appearance of
      conviction. &ldquo;I did not deny, Governor, from the very start that this would
      mean bribery. But you don't suppose that I like the idea either. If there
      was one legitimate hope that was yet left untried, no matter how forlorn
      it was, I would try it. But there's not. It is literally and soberly true
      that every means of help&mdash;every honest means&mdash;has been
      attempted. Shelgrim is going to cinch us. Grain rates are increasing,
      while, on the other hand, the price of wheat is sagging lower and lower
      all the time. If we don't do something we are ruined.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Osterman paused for a moment, allowing precisely the right number of
      seconds to elapse, then altering and lowering his voice, added:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I respect the Governor's principles. I admire them. They do him every
      degree of credit.&rdquo; Then, turning directly to Magnus, he concluded with,
      &ldquo;But I only want you to ask yourself, sir, if, at such a crisis, one ought
      to think of oneself, to consider purely personal motives in such a
      desperate situation as this? Now, we want you with us, Governor; perhaps
      not openly, if you don't wish it, but tacitly, at least. I won't ask you
      for an answer to-night, but what I do ask of you is to consider this
      matter seriously and think over the whole business. Will you do it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Osterman ceased definitely to speak, leaning forward across the table, his
      eyes fixed on Magnus's face. There was a silence. Outside, the rain fell
      continually with an even, monotonous murmur. In the group of men around
      the table no one stirred nor spoke. They looked steadily at Magnus, who,
      for the moment, kept his glance fixed thoughtfully upon the table before
      him. In another moment he raised his head and looked from face to face
      around the group. After all, these were his neighbours, his friends, men
      with whom he had been upon the closest terms of association. In a way they
      represented what now had come to be his world. His single swift glance
      took in the men, one after another. Annixter, rugged, crude, sitting
      awkwardly and uncomfortably in his chair, his unhandsome face, with its
      outthrust lower lip and deeply cleft masculine chin, flushed and eager,
      his yellow hair disordered, the one tuft on the crown standing stiffly
      forth like the feather in an Indian's scalp lock; Broderson, vaguely
      combing at his long beard with a persistent maniacal gesture, distressed,
      troubled and uneasy; Osterman, with his comedy face, the face of a
      music-hall singer, his head bald and set off by his great red ears,
      leaning back in his place, softly cracking the knuckle of a forefinger,
      and, last of all and close to his elbow, his son, his support, his
      confidant and companion, Harran, so like himself, with his own erect, fine
      carriage, his thin, beak-like nose and his blond hair, with its tendency
      to curl in a forward direction in front of the ears, young, strong,
      courageous, full of the promise of the future years. His blue eyes looked
      straight into his father's with what Magnus could fancy a glance of
      appeal. Magnus could see that expression in the faces of the others very
      plainly. They looked to him as their natural leader, their chief who was
      to bring them out from this abominable trouble which was closing in upon
      them, and in them all he saw many types. They&mdash;these men around his
      table on that night of the first rain of a coming season&mdash;seemed to
      stand in his imagination for many others&mdash;all the farmers, ranchers,
      and wheat growers of the great San Joaquin. Their words were the words of
      a whole community; their distress, the distress of an entire State,
      harried beyond the bounds of endurance, driven to the wall, coerced,
      exploited, harassed to the limits of exasperation. &ldquo;I will think of it,&rdquo;
       he said, then hastened to add, &ldquo;but I can tell you beforehand that you may
      expect only a refusal.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      After Magnus had spoken, there was a prolonged silence. The conference
      seemed of itself to have come to an end for that evening. Presley lighted
      another cigarette from the butt of the one he had been smoking, and the
      cat, Princess Nathalie, disturbed by his movement and by a whiff of
      drifting smoke, jumped from his knee to the floor and picking her way
      across the room to Annixter, rubbed gently against his legs, her tail in
      the air, her back delicately arched. No doubt she thought it time to
      settle herself for the night, and as Annixter gave no indication of
      vacating his chair, she chose this way of cajoling him into ceding his
      place to her. But Annixter was irritated at the Princess's attentions,
      misunderstanding their motive.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Get out!&rdquo; he exclaimed, lifting his feet to the rung of the chair. &ldquo;Lord
      love me, but I sure do hate a cat.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By the way,&rdquo; observed Osterman, &ldquo;I passed Genslinger by the gate as I
      came in to-night. Had he been here?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, he was here,&rdquo; said Harran, &ldquo;and&mdash;&rdquo; but Annixter took the words
      out of his mouth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He says there's some talk of the railroad selling us their sections this
      winter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, he did, did he?&rdquo; exclaimed Osterman, interested at once. &ldquo;Where did
      he hear that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where does a railroad paper get its news? From the General Office, I
      suppose.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hope he didn't get it straight from headquarters that the land was to
      be graded at twenty dollars an acre,&rdquo; murmured Broderson.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo; demanded Osterman. &ldquo;Twenty dollars! Here, put me on,
      somebody. What's all up? What did Genslinger say?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you needn't get scared,&rdquo; said Annixter. &ldquo;Genslinger don't know,
      that's all. He thinks there was no understanding that the price of the
      land should not be advanced when the P. and S. W. came to sell to us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; muttered Osterman relieved. Magnus, who had gone out into the office
      on the other side of the glass-roofed hallway, returned with a long,
      yellow envelope in his hand, stuffed with newspaper clippings and thin,
      closely printed pamphlets.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here is the circular,&rdquo; he remarked, drawing out one of the pamphlets.
      &ldquo;The conditions of settlement to which the railroad obligated itself are
      very explicit.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He ran over the pages of the circular, then read aloud:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'The Company invites settlers to go upon its lands before patents are
      issued or the road is completed, and intends in such cases to sell to them
      in preference to any other applicants and at a price based upon the value
      of the land without improvements,' and on the other page here,&rdquo; he
      remarked, &ldquo;they refer to this again. 'In ascertaining the value of the
      lands, any improvements that a settler or any other person may have on the
      lands will not be taken into consideration, neither will the price be
      increased in consequence thereof.... Settlers are thus insured that in
      addition to being accorded the first privilege of purchase, at the graded
      price, they will also be protected in their improvements.' And here,&rdquo; he
      commented, &ldquo;in Section IX. it reads, 'The lands are not uniform in price,
      but are offered at various figures from $2.50 upward per acre. Usually
      land covered with tall timber is held at $5.00 per acre, and that with
      pine at $10.00. Most is for sale at $2.50 and $5.00.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;When you come to read that carefully,&rdquo; hazarded old Broderson, &ldquo;it&mdash;it's
      not so VERY REASSURING. 'MOST is for sale at two-fifty an acre,' it says.
      That don't mean 'ALL,' that only means SOME. I wish now that I had secured
      a more iron-clad agreement from the P. and S. W. when I took up its
      sections on my ranch, and&mdash;and Genslinger is in a position to know
      the intentions of the railroad. At least, he&mdash;he&mdash;he is in TOUCH
      with them. All newspaper men are. Those, I mean, who are subsidised by the
      General Office. But, perhaps, Genslinger isn't subsidised, I don't know. I&mdash;I
      am not sure. Maybe&mdash;perhaps&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you don't know and you do know, and maybe and perhaps, and you're not
      so sure,&rdquo; vociferated Annixter. &ldquo;How about ignoring the value of our
      improvements? Nothing hazy about THAT statement, I guess. It says in so
      many words that any improvements we make will not be considered when the
      land is appraised and that's the same thing, isn't it? The unimproved land
      is worth two-fifty an acre; only timber land is worth more and there's
      none too much timber about here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, one thing at a time,&rdquo; said Harran. &ldquo;The thing for us now is to get
      into this primary election and the convention and see if we can push our
      men for Railroad Commissioners.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Right,&rdquo; declared Annixter. He rose, stretching his arms above his head.
      &ldquo;I've about talked all the wind out of me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Think I'll be moving
      along. It's pretty near midnight.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But when Magnus's guests turned their attention to the matter of returning
      to their different ranches, they abruptly realised that the downpour had
      doubled and trebled in its volume since earlier in the evening. The fields
      and roads were veritable seas of viscid mud, the night absolutely
      black-dark; assuredly not a night in which to venture out. Magnus insisted
      that the three ranchers should put up at Los Muertos. Osterman accepted at
      once, Annixter, after an interminable discussion, allowed himself to be
      persuaded, in the end accepting as though granting a favour. Broderson
      protested that his wife, who was not well, would expect him to return that
      night and would, no doubt, fret if he did not appear. Furthermore, he
      lived close by, at the junction of the County and Lower Road. He put a
      sack over his head and shoulders, persistently declining Magnus's offered
      umbrella and rubber coat, and hurried away, remarking that he had no
      foreman on his ranch and had to be up and about at five the next morning
      to put his men to work.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fool!&rdquo; muttered Annixter when the old man had gone. &ldquo;Imagine farming a
      ranch the size of his without a foreman.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran showed Osterman and Annixter where they were to sleep, in adjoining
      rooms. Magnus soon afterward retired.
    </p>
    <p>
      Osterman found an excuse for going to bed, but Annixter and Harran
      remained in the latter's room, in a haze of blue tobacco smoke, talking,
      talking. But at length, at the end of all argument, Annixter got up,
      remarking:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I'm going to turn in. It's nearly two o'clock.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He went to his room, closing the door, and Harran, opening his window to
      clear out the tobacco smoke, looked out for a moment across the country
      toward the south.
    </p>
    <p>
      The darkness was profound, impenetrable; the rain fell with an
      uninterrupted roar. Near at hand one could hear the sound of dripping
      eaves and foliage and the eager, sucking sound of the drinking earth, and
      abruptly while Harran stood looking out, one hand upon the upraised sash,
      a great puff of the outside air invaded the room, odourous with the reek
      of the soaking earth, redolent with fertility, pungent, heavy, tepid. He
      closed the window again and sat for a few moments on the edge of the bed,
      one shoe in his hand, thoughtful and absorbed, wondering if his father
      would involve himself in this new scheme, wondering if, after all, he
      wanted him to.
    </p>
    <p>
      But suddenly he was aware of a commotion, issuing from the direction of
      Annixter's room, and the voice of Annixter himself upraised in
      expostulation and exasperation. The door of the room to which Annixter had
      been assigned opened with a violent wrench and an angry voice exclaimed to
      anybody who would listen:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes, funny, isn't it? In a way, it's funny, and then, again, in a way
      it isn't.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The door banged to so that all the windows of the house rattled in their
      frames.
    </p>
    <p>
      Harran hurried out into the dining-room and there met Presley and his
      father, who had been aroused as well by Annixter's clamour. Osterman was
      there, too, his bald head gleaming like a bulb of ivory in the light of
      the lamp that Magnus carried.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's all up?&rdquo; demanded Osterman. &ldquo;Whatever in the world is the matter
      with Buck?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Confused and terrible sounds came from behind the door of Annixter's room.
      A prolonged monologue of grievance, broken by explosions of wrath and the
      vague noise of some one in a furious hurry. All at once and before Harran
      had a chance to knock on the door, Annixter flung it open. His face was
      blazing with anger, his outthrust lip more prominent than ever, his wiry,
      yellow hair in disarray, the tuft on the crown sticking straight into the
      air like the upraised hackles of an angry hound. Evidently he had been
      dressing himself with the most headlong rapidity; he had not yet put on
      his coat and vest, but carried them over his arm, while with his
      disengaged hand he kept hitching his suspenders over his shoulders with a
      persistent and hypnotic gesture. Without a moment's pause he gave vent to
      his indignation in a torrent of words.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, yes, in my bed, sloop, aha! I know the man who put it there,&rdquo; he went
      on, glaring at Osterman, &ldquo;and that man is a PIP. Sloop! Slimy, disgusting
      stuff; you heard me say I didn't like it when the Chink passed it to me at
      dinner&mdash;and just for that reason you put it in my bed, and I stick my
      feet into it when I turn in. Funny, isn't it? Oh, yes, too funny for any
      use. I'd laugh a little louder if I was you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, Buck,&rdquo; protested Harran, as he noticed the hat in Annixter's hand,
      &ldquo;you're not going home just for&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter turned on him with a shout.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll get plumb out of here,&rdquo; he trumpeted. &ldquo;I won't stay here another
      minute.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He swung into his waistcoat and coat, scrabbling at the buttons in the
      violence of his emotions. &ldquo;And I don't know but what it will make me sick
      again to go out in a night like this. NO, I won't stay. Some things are
      funny, and then, again, there are some things that are not. Ah, yes,
      sloop! Well, that's all right. I can be funny, too, when you come to that.
      You don't get a cent of money out of me. You can do your dirty bribery in
      your own dirty way. I won't come into this scheme at all. I wash my hands
      of the whole business. It's rotten and it's wild-eyed; it's dirt from
      start to finish; and you'll all land in State's prison. You can count me
      out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, Buck, look here, you crazy fool,&rdquo; cried Harran, &ldquo;I don't know who
      put that stuff in your bed, but I'm not going; to let you go back to Quien
      Sabe in a rain like this.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know who put it in,&rdquo; clamoured the other, shaking his fists, &ldquo;and don't
      call me Buck and I'll do as I please. I WILL go back home. I'll get plumb
      out of here. Sorry I came. Sorry I ever lent myself to such a disgusting,
      dishonest, dirty bribery game as this all to-night. I won't put a dime
      into it, no, not a penny.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He stormed to the door leading out upon the porch, deaf to all reason.
      Harran and Presley followed him, trying to dissuade him from going home at
      that time of night and in such a storm, but Annixter was not to be
      placated. He stamped across to the barn where his horse and buggy had been
      stabled, splashing through the puddles under foot, going out of his way to
      drench himself, refusing even to allow Presley and Harran to help him
      harness the horse.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's the use of making a fool of yourself, Annixter?&rdquo; remonstrated
      Presley, as Annixter backed the horse from the stall. &ldquo;You act just like a
      ten-year-old boy. If Osterman wants to play the goat, why should you help
      him out?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He's a PIP,&rdquo; vociferated Annixter. &ldquo;You don't understand, Presley. It
      runs in my family to hate anything sticky. It's&mdash;it's&mdash;it's
      heredity. How would you like to get into bed at two in the morning and jam
      your feet down into a slimy mess like that? Oh, no. It's not so funny
      then. And you mark my words, Mr. Harran Derrick,&rdquo; he continued, as he
      climbed into the buggy, shaking the whip toward Harran, &ldquo;this business we
      talked over to-night&mdash;I'm OUT of it. It's yellow. It's too CURSED
      dishonest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He cut the horse across the back with the whip and drove out into the
      pelting rain. In a few seconds the sound of his buggy wheels was lost in
      the muffled roar of the downpour.
    </p>
    <p>
      Harran and Presley closed the barn and returned to the house, sheltering
      themselves under a tarpaulin carriage cover. Once inside, Harran went to
      remonstrate with Osterman, who was still up. Magnus had again retired. The
      house had fallen quiet again.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Presley crossed the dining-room on the way to his own apartment in the
      second story of the house, he paused for a moment, looking about him. In
      the dull light of the lowered lamps, the redwood panelling of the room
      showed a dark crimson as though stained with blood. On the massive slab of
      the dining table the half-emptied glasses and bottles stood about in the
      confusion in which they had been left, reflecting themselves deep into the
      polished wood; the glass doors of the case of stuffed birds was a subdued
      shimmer; the many-coloured Navajo blanket over the couch seemed a mere
      patch of brown.
    </p>
    <p>
      Around the table the chairs in which the men had sat throughout the
      evening still ranged themselves in a semi-circle, vaguely suggestive of
      the conference of the past few hours, with all its possibilities of good
      and evil, its significance of a future big with portent. The room was
      still. Only on the cushions of the chair that Annixter had occupied, the
      cat, Princess Nathalie, at last comfortably settled in her accustomed
      place, dozed complacently, her paws tucked under her breast, filling the
      deserted room with the subdued murmur of her contented purr.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IV
    </h2>
    <p>
      On the Quien Sabe ranch, in one of its western divisions, near the line
      fence that divided it from the Osterman holding, Vanamee was harnessing
      the horses to the plough to which he had been assigned two days before, a
      stable-boy from the division barn helping him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Promptly discharged from the employ of the sheep-raisers after the
      lamentable accident near the Long Trestle, Vanamee had presented himself
      to Harran, asking for employment. The season was beginning; on all the
      ranches work was being resumed. The rain had put the ground into admirable
      condition for ploughing, and Annixter, Broderson, and Osterman all had
      their gangs at work. Thus, Vanamee was vastly surprised to find Los
      Muertos idle, the horses still in the barns, the men gathering in the
      shade of the bunk-house and eating-house, smoking, dozing, or going
      aimlessly about, their arms dangling. The ploughs for which Magnus and
      Harran were waiting in a fury of impatience had not yet arrived, and since
      the management of Los Muertos had counted upon having these in hand long
      before this time, no provision had been made for keeping the old stock in
      repair; many of these old ploughs were useless, broken, and out of order;
      some had been sold. It could not be said definitely when the new ploughs
      would arrive. Harran had decided to wait one week longer, and then, in
      case of their non-appearance, to buy a consignment of the old style of
      plough from the dealers in Bonneville. He could afford to lose the money
      better than he could afford to lose the season.
    </p>
    <p>
      Failing of work on Los Muertos, Vanamee had gone to Quien Sabe. Annixter,
      whom he had spoken to first, had sent him across the ranch to one of his
      division superintendents, and this latter, after assuring himself of
      Vanamee's familiarity with horses and his previous experience&mdash;even
      though somewhat remote&mdash;on Los Muertos, had taken him on as a driver
      of one of the gang ploughs, then at work on his division.
    </p>
    <p>
      The evening before, when the foreman had blown his whistle at six o'clock,
      the long line of ploughs had halted upon the instant, and the drivers,
      unharnessing their teams, had taken them back to the division barns&mdash;leaving
      the ploughs as they were in the furrows. But an hour after daylight the
      next morning the work was resumed. After breakfast, Vanamee, riding one
      horse and leading the others, had returned to the line of ploughs together
      with the other drivers. Now he was busy harnessing the team. At the
      division blacksmith shop&mdash;temporarily put up&mdash;he had been
      obliged to wait while one of his lead horses was shod, and he had thus
      been delayed quite five minutes. Nearly all the other teams were
      harnessed, the drivers on their seats, waiting for the foreman's signal.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All ready here?&rdquo; inquired the foreman, driving up to Vanamee's team in
      his buggy.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All ready, sir,&rdquo; answered Vanamee, buckling the last strap.
    </p>
    <p>
      He climbed to his seat, shaking out the reins, and turning about, looked
      back along the line, then all around him at the landscape inundated with
      the brilliant glow of the early morning.
    </p>
    <p>
      The day was fine. Since the first rain of the season, there had been no
      other. Now the sky was without a cloud, pale blue, delicate, luminous,
      scintillating with morning. The great brown earth turned a huge flank to
      it, exhaling the moisture of the early dew. The atmosphere, washed clean
      of dust and mist, was translucent as crystal. Far off to the east, the
      hills on the other side of Broderson Creek stood out against the pallid
      saffron of the horizon as flat and as sharply outlined as if pasted on the
      sky. The campanile of the ancient Mission of San Juan seemed as fine as
      frost work. All about between the horizons, the carpet of the land
      unrolled itself to infinity. But now it was no longer parched with heat,
      cracked and warped by a merciless sun, powdered with dust. The rain had
      done its work; not a clod that was not swollen with fertility, not a
      fissure that did not exhale the sense of fecundity. One could not take a
      dozen steps upon the ranches without the brusque sensation that underfoot
      the land was alive; roused at last from its sleep, palpitating with the
      desire of reproduction. Deep down there in the recesses of the soil, the
      great heart throbbed once more, thrilling with passion, vibrating with
      desire, offering itself to the caress of the plough, insistent, eager,
      imperious. Dimly one felt the deep-seated trouble of the earth, the uneasy
      agitation of its members, the hidden tumult of its womb, demanding to be
      made fruitful, to reproduce, to disengage the eternal renascent germ of
      Life that stirred and struggled in its loins.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ploughs, thirty-five in number, each drawn by its team of ten,
      stretched in an interminable line, nearly a quarter of a mile in length,
      behind and ahead of Vanamee. They were arranged, as it were, en echelon,
      not in file&mdash;not one directly behind the other, but each succeeding
      plough its own width farther in the field than the one in front of it.
      Each of these ploughs held five shears, so that when the entire company
      was in motion, one hundred and seventy-five furrows were made at the same
      instant. At a distance, the ploughs resembled a great column of field
      artillery. Each driver was in his place, his glance alternating between
      his horses and the foreman nearest at hand. Other foremen, in their
      buggies or buckboards, were at intervals along the line, like battery
      lieutenants. Annixter himself, on horseback, in boots and campaign hat, a
      cigar in his teeth, overlooked the scene.
    </p>
    <p>
      The division superintendent, on the opposite side of the line, galloped
      past to a position at the head. For a long moment there was a silence. A
      sense of preparedness ran from end to end of the column. All things were
      ready, each man in his place. The day's work was about to begin.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly, from a distance at the head of the line came the shrill trilling
      of a whistle. At once the foreman nearest Vanamee repeated it, at the same
      time turning down the line, and waving one arm. The signal was repeated,
      whistle answering whistle, till the sounds lost themselves in the
      distance. At once the line of ploughs lost its immobility, moving forward,
      getting slowly under way, the horses straining in the traces. A prolonged
      movement rippled from team to team, disengaging in its passage a multitude
      of sounds&mdash;-the click of buckles, the creak of straining leather, the
      subdued clash of machinery, the cracking of whips, the deep breathing of
      nearly four hundred horses, the abrupt commands and cries of the drivers,
      and, last of all, the prolonged, soothing murmur of the thick brown earth
      turning steadily from the multitude of advancing shears.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ploughing thus commenced, continued. The sun rose higher. Steadily the
      hundred iron hands kneaded and furrowed and stroked the brown, humid
      earth, the hundred iron teeth bit deep into the Titan's flesh. Perched on
      his seat, the moist living reins slipping and tugging in his hands,
      Vanamee, in the midst of this steady confusion of constantly varying
      sensation, sight interrupted by sound, sound mingling with sight, on this
      swaying, vibrating seat, quivering with the prolonged thrill of the earth,
      lapsed to a sort of pleasing numbness, in a sense, hypnotised by the
      weaving maze of things in which he found himself involved. To keep his
      team at an even, regular gait, maintaining the precise interval, to run
      his furrows as closely as possible to those already made by the plough in
      front&mdash;this for the moment was the entire sum of his duties. But
      while one part of his brain, alert and watchful, took cognisance of these
      matters, all the greater part was lulled and stupefied with the long
      monotony of the affair.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ploughing, now in full swing, enveloped him in a vague, slow-moving
      whirl of things. Underneath him was the jarring, jolting, trembling
      machine; not a clod was turned, not an obstacle encountered, that he did
      not receive the swift impression of it through all his body, the very
      friction of the damp soil, sliding incessantly from the shiny surface of
      the shears, seemed to reproduce itself in his finger-tips and along the
      back of his head. He heard the horse-hoofs by the myriads crushing down
      easily, deeply, into the loam, the prolonged clinking of trace-chains, the
      working of the smooth brown flanks in the harness, the clatter of wooden
      hames, the champing of bits, the click of iron shoes against pebbles, the
      brittle stubble of the surface ground crackling and snapping as the
      furrows turned, the sonorous, steady breaths wrenched from the deep,
      labouring chests, strap-bound, shining with sweat, and all along the line
      the voices of the men talking to the horses. Everywhere there were visions
      of glossy brown backs, straining, heaving, swollen with muscle; harness
      streaked with specks of froth, broad, cup-shaped hoofs, heavy with brown
      loam, men's faces red with tan, blue overalls spotted with axle-grease;
      muscled hands, the knuckles whitened in their grip on the reins, and
      through it all the ammoniacal smell of the horses, the bitter reek of
      perspiration of beasts and men, the aroma of warm leather, the scent of
      dead stubble&mdash;and stronger and more penetrating than everything else,
      the heavy, enervating odour of the upturned, living earth.
    </p>
    <p>
      At intervals, from the tops of one of the rare, low swells of the land,
      Vanamee overlooked a wider horizon. On the other divisions of Quien Sabe
      the same work was in progress. Occasionally he could see another column of
      ploughs in the adjoining division&mdash;sometimes so close at hand that
      the subdued murmur of its movements reached his ear; sometimes so distant
      that it resolved itself into a long, brown streak upon the grey of the
      ground. Farther off to the west on the Osterman ranch other columns came
      and went, and, once, from the crest of the highest swell on his division,
      Vanamee caught a distant glimpse of the Broderson ranch. There, too,
      moving specks indicated that the ploughing was under way. And farther away
      still, far off there beyond the fine line of the horizons, over the curve
      of the globe, the shoulder of the earth, he knew were other ranches, and
      beyond these others, and beyond these still others, the immensities
      multiplying to infinity.
    </p>
    <p>
      Everywhere throughout the great San Joaquin, unseen and unheard, a
      thousand ploughs up-stirred the land, tens of thousands of shears clutched
      deep into the warm, moist soil.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the long stroking caress, vigorous, male, powerful, for which the
      Earth seemed panting. The heroic embrace of a multitude of iron hands,
      gripping deep into the brown, warm flesh of the land that quivered
      responsive and passionate under this rude advance, so robust as to be
      almost an assault, so violent as to be veritably brutal. There, under the
      sun and under the speckless sheen of the sky, the wooing of the Titan
      began, the vast primal passion, the two world-forces, the elemental Male
      and Female, locked in a colossal embrace, at grapples in the throes of an
      infinite desire, at once terrible and divine, knowing no law, untamed,
      savage, natural, sublime.
    </p>
    <p>
      From time to time the gang in which Vanamee worked halted on the signal
      from foreman or overseer. The horses came to a standstill, the vague
      clamour of the work lapsed away. Then the minutes passed. The whole work
      hung suspended. All up and down the line one demanded what had happened.
      The division superintendent galloped past, perplexed and anxious. For the
      moment, one of the ploughs was out of order, a bolt had slipped, a lever
      refused to work, or a machine had become immobilised in heavy ground, or a
      horse had lamed himself. Once, even, toward noon, an entire plough was
      taken out of the line, so out of gear that a messenger had to be sent to
      the division forge to summon the machinist.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter had disappeared. He had ridden farther on to the other divisions
      of his ranch, to watch the work in progress there. At twelve o'clock,
      according to his orders, all the division superintendents put themselves
      in communication with him by means of the telephone wires that connected
      each of the division houses, reporting the condition of the work, the
      number of acres covered, the prospects of each plough traversing its daily
      average of twenty miles.
    </p>
    <p>
      At half-past twelve, Vanamee and the rest of the drivers ate their lunch
      in the field, the tin buckets having been distributed to them that morning
      after breakfast. But in the evening, the routine of the previous day was
      repeated, and Vanamee, unharnessing his team, riding one horse and leading
      the others, returned to the division barns and bunk-house.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was between six and seven o'clock. The half hundred men of the gang
      threw themselves upon the supper the Chinese cooks had set out in the shed
      of the eating-house, long as a bowling alley, unpainted, crude, the seats
      benches, the table covered with oil cloth. Overhead a half-dozen kerosene
      lamps flared and smoked.
    </p>
    <p>
      The table was taken as if by assault; the clatter of iron knives upon the
      tin plates was as the reverberation of hail upon a metal roof. The
      ploughmen rinsed their throats with great draughts of wine, and, their
      elbows wide, their foreheads flushed, resumed the attack upon the beef and
      bread, eating as though they would never have enough. All up and down the
      long table, where the kerosene lamps reflected themselves deep in the
      oil-cloth cover, one heard the incessant sounds of mastication, and saw
      the uninterrupted movement of great jaws. At every moment one or another
      of the men demanded a fresh portion of beef, another pint of wine, another
      half-loaf of bread. For upwards of an hour the gang ate. It was no longer
      a supper. It was a veritable barbecue, a crude and primitive feasting,
      barbaric, homeric.
    </p>
    <p>
      But in all this scene Vanamee saw nothing repulsive. Presley would have
      abhorred it&mdash;this feeding of the People, this gorging of the human
      animal, eager for its meat. Vanamee, simple, uncomplicated, living so
      close to nature and the rudimentary life, understood its significance. He
      knew very well that within a short half-hour after this meal the men would
      throw themselves down in their bunks to sleep without moving, inert and
      stupefied with fatigue, till the morning. Work, food, and sleep, all life
      reduced to its bare essentials, uncomplex, honest, healthy. They were
      strong, these men, with the strength of the soil they worked, in touch
      with the essential things, back again to the starting point of
      civilisation, coarse, vital, real, and sane.
    </p>
    <p>
      For a brief moment immediately after the meal, pipes were lit, and the air
      grew thick with fragrant tobacco smoke. On a corner of the dining-room
      table, a game of poker was begun. One of the drivers, a Swede, produced an
      accordion; a group on the steps of the bunk-house listened, with alternate
      gravity and shouts of laughter, to the acknowledged story-teller of the
      gang. But soon the men began to turn in, stretching themselves at full
      length on the horse blankets in the racklike bunks. The sounds of heavy
      breathing increased steadily, lights were put out, and before the
      afterglow had faded from the sky, the gang was asleep.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee, however, remained awake. The night was fine, warm; the sky
      silver-grey with starlight. By and by there would be a moon. In the first
      watch after the twilight, a faint puff of breeze came up out of the south.
      From all around, the heavy penetrating smell of the new-turned earth
      exhaled steadily into the darkness. After a while, when the moon came up,
      he could see the vast brown breast of the earth turn toward it. Far off,
      distant objects came into view: The giant oak tree at Hooven's ranch house
      near the irrigating ditch on Los Muertos, the skeleton-like tower of the
      windmill on Annixter's Home ranch, the clump of willows along Broderson
      Creek close to the Long Trestle, and, last of all, the venerable tower of
      the Mission of San Juan on the high ground beyond the creek.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thitherward, like homing pigeons, Vanamee's thoughts turned irresistibly.
      Near to that tower, just beyond, in the little hollow, hidden now from his
      sight, was the Seed ranch where Angele Varian had lived. Straining his
      eyes, peering across the intervening levels, Vanamee fancied he could
      almost see the line of venerable pear trees in whose shadow she had been
      accustomed to wait for him. On many such a night as this he had crossed
      the ranches to find her there. His mind went back to that wonderful time
      of his life sixteen years before this, when Angele was alive, when they
      two were involved in the sweet intricacies of a love so fine, so pure, so
      marvellous that it seemed to them a miracle, a manifestation, a thing
      veritably divine, put into the life of them and the hearts of them by God
      Himself. To that they had been born. For this love's sake they had come
      into the world, and the mingling of their lives was to be the Perfect
      Life, the intended, ordained union of the soul of man with the soul of
      woman, indissoluble, harmonious as music, beautiful beyond all thought, a
      foretaste of Heaven, a hostage of immortality.
    </p>
    <p>
      No, he, Vanamee, could never, never forget, never was the edge of his
      grief to lose its sharpness, never would the lapse of time blunt the tooth
      of his pain. Once more, as he sat there, looking off across the ranches,
      his eyes fixed on the ancient campanile of the Mission church, the anguish
      that would not die leaped at his throat, tearing at his heart, shaking him
      and rending him with a violence as fierce and as profound as if it all had
      been but yesterday. The ache returned to his heart a physical keen pain;
      his hands gripped tight together, twisting, interlocked, his eyes filled
      with tears, his whole body shaken and riven from head to heel.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had lost her. God had not meant it, after all. The whole matter had
      been a mistake. That vast, wonderful love that had come upon them had been
      only the flimsiest mockery. Abruptly Vanamee rose. He knew the night that
      was before him. At intervals throughout the course of his prolonged
      wanderings, in the desert, on the mesa, deep in the canon, lost and
      forgotten on the flanks of unnamed mountains, alone under the stars and
      under the moon's white eye, these hours came to him, his grief recoiling
      upon him like the recoil of a vast and terrible engine. Then he must fight
      out the night, wrestling with his sorrow, praying sometimes, incoherent,
      hardly conscious, asking &ldquo;Why&rdquo; of the night and of the stars.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such another night had come to him now. Until dawn he knew he must
      struggle with his grief, torn with memories, his imagination assaulted
      with visions of a vanished happiness. If this paroxysm of sorrow was to
      assail him again that night, there was but one place for him to be. He
      would go to the Mission&mdash;he would see Father Sarria; he would pass
      the night in the deep shadow of the aged pear trees in the Mission garden.
    </p>
    <p>
      He struck out across Quien Sabe, his face, the face of an ascetic, lean,
      brown, infinitely sad, set toward the Mission church. In about an hour he
      reached and crossed the road that led northward from Guadalajara toward
      the Seed ranch, and, a little farther on, forded Broderson Creek where it
      ran through one corner of the Mission land. He climbed the hill and
      halted, out of breath from his brisk wall, at the end of the colonnade of
      the Mission itself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Until this moment Vanamee had not trusted himself to see the Mission at
      night. On the occasion of his first daytime visit with Presley, he had
      hurried away even before the twilight had set in, not daring for the
      moment to face the crowding phantoms that in his imagination filled the
      Mission garden after dark. In the daylight, the place had seemed strange
      to him. None of his associations with the old building and its
      surroundings were those of sunlight and brightness. Whenever, during his
      long sojourns in the wilderness of the Southwest, he had called up the
      picture in the eye of his mind, it had always appeared to him in the dim
      mystery of moonless nights, the venerable pear trees black with shadow,
      the fountain a thing to be heard rather than seen.
    </p>
    <p>
      But as yet he had not entered the garden. That lay on the other side of
      the Mission. Vanamee passed down the colonnade, with its uneven pavement
      of worn red bricks, to the last door by the belfry tower, and rang the
      little bell by pulling the leather thong that hung from a hole in the door
      above the knob.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the maid-servant, who, after a long interval opened the door, blinking
      and confused at being roused from her sleep, told Vanamee that Sarria was
      not in his room. Vanamee, however, was known to her as the priest's
      protege and great friend, and she allowed him to enter, telling him that,
      no doubt, he would find Sarria in the church itself. The servant led the
      way down the cool adobe passage to a larger room that occupied the entire
      width of the bottom of the belfry tower, and whence a flight of aged steps
      led upward into the dark. At the foot of the stairs was a door opening
      into the church. The servant admitted Vanamee, closing the door behind
      her.
    </p>
    <p>
      The interior of the Mission, a great oblong of white-washed adobe with a
      flat ceiling, was lighted dimly by the sanctuary lamp that hung from three
      long chains just over the chancel rail at the far end of the church, and
      by two or three cheap kerosene lamps in brackets of imitation bronze. All
      around the walls was the inevitable series of pictures representing the
      Stations of the Cross. They were of a hideous crudity of design and
      composition, yet were wrought out with an innocent, unquestioning
      sincerity that was not without its charm. Each picture framed alike in
      gilt, bore its suitable inscription in staring black letters. &ldquo;Simon, The
      Cyrenean, Helps Jesus to Carry His Cross.&rdquo; &ldquo;Saint Veronica Wipes the Face
      of Jesus.&rdquo; &ldquo;Jesus Falls for the Fourth Time,&rdquo; and so on. Half-way up the
      length of the church the pews began, coffin-like boxes of blackened oak,
      shining from years of friction, each with its door; while over them, and
      built out from the wall, was the pulpit, with its tarnished gilt
      sounding-board above it, like the raised cover of a great hat-box. Between
      the pews, in the aisle, the violent vermilion of a strip of ingrain carpet
      assaulted the eye. Farther on were the steps to the altar, the chancel
      rail of worm-riddled oak, the high altar, with its napery from the bargain
      counters of a San Francisco store, the massive silver candlesticks, each
      as much as one man could lift, the gift of a dead Spanish queen, and,
      last, the pictures of the chancel, the Virgin in a glory, a Christ in
      agony on the cross, and St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of the
      Mission, the San Juan Bautista, of the early days, a gaunt grey figure, in
      skins, two fingers upraised in the gesture of benediction.
    </p>
    <p>
      The air of the place was cool and damp, and heavy with the flat, sweet
      scent of stale incense smoke. It was of a vault-like stillness, and the
      closing of the door behind Vanamee reechoed from corner to corner with a
      prolonged reverberation of thunder.
    </p>
    <p>
      However, Father Sarria was not in the church. Vanamee took a couple of
      turns the length of the aisle, looking about into the chapels on either
      side of the chancel. But the building was deserted. The priest had been
      there recently, nevertheless, for the altar furniture was in disarray, as
      though he had been rearranging it but a moment before. On both sides of
      the church and half-way up their length, the walls were pierced by low
      archways, in which were massive wooden doors, clamped with iron bolts. One
      of these doors, on the pulpit side of the church, stood ajar, and stepping
      to it and pushing it wide open, Vanamee looked diagonally across a little
      patch of vegetables&mdash;beets, radishes, and lettuce&mdash;to the rear
      of the building that had once contained the cloisters, and through an open
      window saw Father Sarria diligently polishing the silver crucifix that
      usually stood on the high altar. Vanamee did not call to the priest.
      Putting a finger to either temple, he fixed his eyes steadily upon him for
      a moment as he moved about at his work. In a few seconds he closed his
      eyes, but only part way. The pupils contracted; his forehead lowered to an
      expression of poignant intensity. Soon afterward he saw the priest pause
      abruptly in the act of drawing the cover over the crucifix, looking about
      him from side to side. He turned again to his work, and again came to a
      stop, perplexed, curious. With uncertain steps, and evidently wondering
      why he did so, he came to the door of the room and opened it, looking out
      into the night. Vanamee, hidden in the deep shadow of the archway, did not
      move, but his eyes closed, and the intense expression deepened on his
      face. The priest hesitated, moved forward a step, turned back, paused
      again, then came straight across the garden patch, brusquely colliding
      with Vanamee, still motionless in the recess of the archway.
    </p>
    <p>
      Sarria gave a great start, catching his breath.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;oh, it's you. Was it you I heard calling? No, I could not have
      heard&mdash;I remember now. What a strange power! I am not sure that it is
      right to do this thing, Vanamee. I&mdash;I HAD to come. I do not know why.
      It is a great force&mdash;a power&mdash;I don't like it. Vanamee,
      sometimes it frightens me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee put his chin in the air.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If I had wanted to, sir, I could have made you come to me from back there
      in the Quien Sabe ranch.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The priest shook his head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It troubles me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to think that my own will can count for so
      little. Just now I could not resist. If a deep river had been between us,
      I must have crossed it. Suppose I had been asleep now?&rdquo; &ldquo;It would have
      been all the easier,&rdquo; answered Vanamee. &ldquo;I understand as little of these
      things as you. But I think if you had been asleep, your power of
      resistance would have been so much the more weakened.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps I should not have waked. Perhaps I should have come to you in my
      sleep.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sarria crossed himself. &ldquo;It is occult,&rdquo; he hazarded. &ldquo;No; I do not like
      it. Dear fellow,&rdquo; he put his hand on Vanamee's shoulder, &ldquo;don't&mdash;call
      me that way again; promise. See,&rdquo; he held out his hand, &ldquo;I am all of a
      tremble. There, we won't speak of it further. Wait for me a moment. I have
      only to put the cross in its place, and a fresh altar cloth, and then I am
      done. To-morrow is the feast of The Holy Cross, and I am preparing against
      it. The night is fine. We will smoke a cigar in the cloister garden.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A few moments later the two passed out of the door on the other side of
      the church, opposite the pulpit, Sarria adjusting a silk skull cap on his
      tonsured head. He wore his cassock now, and was far more the churchman in
      appearance than when Vanamee and Presley had seen him on a former
      occasion.
    </p>
    <p>
      They were now in the cloister garden. The place was charming. Everywhere
      grew clumps of palms and magnolia trees. A grapevine, over a century old,
      occupied a trellis in one angle of the walls which surrounded the garden
      on two sides. Along the third side was the church itself, while the fourth
      was open, the wall having crumbled away, its site marked only by a line of
      eight great pear trees, older even than the grapevine, gnarled, twisted,
      bearing no fruit. Directly opposite the pear trees, in the south wall of
      the garden, was a round, arched portal, whose gate giving upon the
      esplanade in front of the Mission was always closed. Small gravelled
      walks, well kept, bordered with mignonette, twisted about among the flower
      beds, and underneath the magnolia trees. In the centre was a little
      fountain in a stone basin green with moss, while just beyond, between the
      fountain and the pear trees, stood what was left of a sun dial, the bronze
      gnomon, green with the beatings of the weather, the figures on the
      half-circle of the dial worn away, illegible.
    </p>
    <p>
      But on the other side of the fountain, and directly opposite the door of
      the Mission, ranged against the wall, were nine graves&mdash;three with
      headstones, the rest with slabs. Two of Sarria's predecessors were buried
      here; three of the graves were those of Mission Indians. One was thought
      to contain a former alcalde of Guadalajara; two more held the bodies of De
      La Cuesta and his young wife (taking with her to the grave the illusion of
      her husband's love), and the last one, the ninth, at the end of the line,
      nearest the pear trees, was marked by a little headstone, the smallest of
      any, on which, together with the proper dates&mdash;only sixteen years
      apart&mdash;was cut the name &ldquo;Angele Varian.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But the quiet, the repose, the isolation of the little cloister garden was
      infinitely delicious. It was a tiny corner of the great valley that
      stretched in all directions around it&mdash;shut off, discreet, romantic,
      a garden of dreams, of enchantments, of illusions. Outside there, far off,
      the great grim world went clashing through its grooves, but in here never
      an echo of the grinding of its wheels entered to jar upon the subdued
      modulation of the fountain's uninterrupted murmur.
    </p>
    <p>
      Sarria and Vanamee found their way to a stone bench against the side wall
      of the Mission, near the door from which they had just issued, and sat
      down, Sarria lighting a cigar, Vanamee rolling and smoking cigarettes in
      Mexican fashion.
    </p>
    <p>
      All about them widened the vast calm night. All the stars were out. The
      moon was coming up. There was no wind, no sound. The insistent flowing of
      the fountain seemed only as the symbol of the passing of time, a thing
      that was understood rather than heard, inevitable, prolonged. At long
      intervals, a faint breeze, hardly more than a breath, found its way into
      the garden over the enclosing walls, and passed overhead, spreading
      everywhere the delicious, mingled perfume of magnolia blossoms, of
      mignonette, of moss, of grass, and all the calm green life silently
      teeming within the enclosure of the walls.
    </p>
    <p>
      From where he sat, Vanamee, turning his head, could look out underneath
      the pear trees to the north. Close at hand, a little valley lay between
      the high ground on which the Mission was built, and the line of low hills
      just beyond Broderson Creek on the Quien Sabe. In here was the Seed ranch,
      which Angele's people had cultivated, a unique and beautiful stretch of
      five hundred acres, planted thick with roses, violets, lilies, tulips,
      iris, carnations, tube-roses, poppies, heliotrope&mdash;all manner and
      description of flowers, five hundred acres of them, solid, thick,
      exuberant; blooming and fading, and leaving their seed or slips to be
      marketed broadcast all over the United States. This had been the vocation
      of Angele's parents&mdash;raising flowers for their seeds. All over the
      country the Seed ranch was known. Now it was arid, almost dry, but when in
      full flower, toward the middle of summer, the sight of these half-thousand
      acres royal with colour&mdash;vermilion, azure, flaming yellow&mdash;was a
      marvel. When an east wind blew, men on the streets of Bonneville, nearly
      twelve miles away, could catch the scent of this valley of flowers, this
      chaos of perfume.
    </p>
    <p>
      And into this life of flowers, this world of colour, this atmosphere
      oppressive and clogged and cloyed and thickened with sweet odour, Angele
      had been born. There she had lived her sixteen years. There she had died.
      It was not surprising that Vanamee, with his intense, delicate
      sensitiveness to beauty, his almost abnormal capacity for great happiness,
      had been drawn to her, had loved her so deeply.
    </p>
    <p>
      She came to him from out of the flowers, the smell of the roses in her
      hair of gold, that hung in two straight plaits on either side of her face;
      the reflection of the violets in the profound dark blue of her eyes,
      perplexing, heavy-lidded, almond-shaped, oriental; the aroma and the
      imperial red of the carnations in her lips, with their almost Egyptian
      fulness; the whiteness of the lilies, the perfume of the lilies, and the
      lilies' slender balancing grace in her neck. Her hands disengaged the
      odour of the heliotropes. The folds of her dress gave off the enervating
      scent of poppies. Her feet were redolent of hyacinths.
    </p>
    <p>
      For a long time after sitting down upon the bench, neither the priest nor
      Vanamee spoke. But after a while Sarria took his cigar from his lips,
      saying:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How still it is! This is a beautiful old garden, peaceful, very quiet.
      Some day I shall be buried here. I like to remember that; and you, too,
      Vanamee.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Quien sabe?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, you, too. Where else? No, it is better here, yonder, by the side of
      the little girl.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am not able to look forward yet, sir. The things that are to be are
      somehow nothing to me at all. For me they amount to nothing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They amount to everything, my boy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, to one part of me, but not to the part of me that belonged to Angele&mdash;the
      best part. Oh, you don't know,&rdquo; he exclaimed with a sudden movement, &ldquo;no
      one can understand. What is it to me when you tell me that sometime after
      I shall die too, somewhere, in a vague place you call Heaven, I shall see
      her again? Do you think that the idea of that ever made any one's sorrow
      easier to bear? Ever took the edge from any one's grief?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you believe that&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, believe, believe!&rdquo; echoed the other. &ldquo;What do I believe? I don't
      know. I believe, or I don't believe. I can remember what she WAS, but I
      cannot hope what she will be. Hope, after all, is only memory seen
      reversed. When I try to see her in another life&mdash;whatever you call it&mdash;in
      Heaven&mdash;beyond the grave&mdash;this vague place of yours; when I try
      to see her there, she comes to my imagination only as what she was,
      material, earthly, as I loved her. Imperfect, you say; but that is as I
      saw her, and as I saw her, I loved her; and as she WAS, material, earthly,
      imperfect, she loved me. It's that, that I want,&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;I don't
      want her changed. I don't want her spiritualised, exalted, glorified,
      celestial. I want HER. I think it is only this feeling that has kept me
      from killing myself. I would rather be unhappy in the memory of what she
      actually was, than be happy in the realisation of her transformed,
      changed, made celestial. I am only human. Her soul! That was beautiful, no
      doubt. But, again, it was something very vague, intangible, hardly more
      than a phrase. But the touch of her hand was real, the sound of her voice
      was real, the clasp of her arms about my neck was real. Oh,&rdquo; he cried,
      shaken with a sudden wrench of passion, &ldquo;give those back to me. Tell your
      God to give those back to me&mdash;the sound of her voice, the touch of
      her hand, the clasp of her dear arms, REAL, REAL, and then you may talk to
      me of Heaven.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sarria shook his head. &ldquo;But when you meet her again,&rdquo; he observed, &ldquo;in
      Heaven, you, too, will be changed. You will see her spiritualised, with
      spiritual eyes. As she is now, she does not appeal to you. I understand
      that. It is because, as you say, you are only human, while she is divine.
      But when you come to be like her, as she is now, you will know her as she
      really is, not as she seemed to be, because her voice was sweet, because
      her hair was pretty, because her hand was warm in yours. Vanamee, your
      talk is that of a foolish child. You are like one of the Corinthians to
      whom Paul wrote. Do you remember? Listen now. I can recall the words, and
      such words, beautiful and terrible at the same time, such a majesty. They
      march like soldiers with trumpets. 'But some man will say'&mdash;as you
      have said just now&mdash;'How are the dead raised up? And with what body
      do they come? Thou fool! That which thou sowest is not quickened except it
      die, and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be,
      but bare grain. It may chance of wheat, or of some other grain. But God
      giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own
      body.... It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.' It is
      because you are a natural body that you cannot understand her, nor wish
      for her as a spiritual body, but when you are both spiritual, then you
      shall know each other as you are&mdash;know as you never knew before. Your
      grain of wheat is your symbol of immortality. You bury it in the earth. It
      dies, and rises again a thousand times more beautiful. Vanamee, your dear
      girl was only a grain of humanity that we have buried here, and the end is
      not yet. But all this is so old, so old. The world learned it a thousand
      years ago, and yet each man that has ever stood by the open grave of any
      one he loved must learn it all over again from the beginning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee was silent for a moment, looking off with unseeing eyes between
      the trunks of the pear trees, over the little valley.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That may all be as you say,&rdquo; he answered after a while. &ldquo;I have not
      learned it yet, in any case. Now, I only know that I love her&mdash;oh, as
      if it all were yesterday&mdash;and that I am suffering, suffering,
      always.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He leaned forward, his head supported on his clenched fists, the infinite
      sadness of his face deepening like a shadow, the tears brimming in his
      deep-set eyes. A question that he must ask, which involved the thing that
      was scarcely to be thought of, occurred to him at this moment. After
      hesitating for a long moment, he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have been away a long time, and I have had no news of this place since
      I left. Is there anything to tell, Father? Has any discovery been made,
      any suspicion developed, as to&mdash;the Other?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The priest shook his head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not a word, not a whisper. It is a mystery. It always will be.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee clasped his head between his clenched fists, rocking himself to
      and fro.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, the terror of it,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;The horror of it. And she&mdash;think
      of it, Sarria, only sixteen, a little girl; so innocent, that she never
      knew what wrong meant, pure as a little child is pure, who believed that
      all things were good; mature only in her love. And to be struck down like
      that, while your God looked down from Heaven and would not take her part.&rdquo;
       All at once he seemed to lose control of himself. One of those furies of
      impotent grief and wrath that assailed him from time to time, blind,
      insensate, incoherent, suddenly took possession of him. A torrent of words
      issued from his lips, and he flung out an arm, the fist clenched, in a
      fierce, quick gesture, partly of despair, partly of defiance, partly of
      supplication. &ldquo;No, your God would not take her part. Where was God's mercy
      in that? Where was Heaven's protection in that? Where was the loving
      kindness you preach about? Why did God give her life if it was to be
      stamped out? Why did God give her the power of love if it was to come to
      nothing? Sarria, listen to me. Why did God make her so divinely pure if He
      permitted that abomination? Ha!&rdquo; he exclaimed bitterly, &ldquo;your God! Why, an
      Apache buck would have been more merciful. Your God! There is no God.
      There is only the Devil. The Heaven you pray to is only a joke, a wretched
      trick, a delusion. It is only Hell that is real.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sarria caught him by the arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are a fool and a child,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;and it is blasphemy that you
      are saying. I forbid it. You understand? I forbid it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee turned on him with a sudden cry. &ldquo;Then, tell your God to give her
      back to me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sarria started away from him, his eyes widening in astonishment, surprised
      out of all composure by the other's outburst. Vanamee's swarthy face was
      pale, the sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes were marked with great black
      shadows. The priest no longer recognised him. The face, that face of the
      ascetic, lean, framed in its long black hair and pointed beard, was
      quivering with the excitement of hallucination. It was the face of the
      inspired shepherds of the Hebraic legends, living close to nature, the
      younger prophets of Israel, dwellers in the wilderness, solitary,
      imaginative, believing in the Vision, having strange delusions, gifted
      with strange powers. In a brief second of thought, Sarria understood. Out
      into the wilderness, the vast arid desert of the Southwest, Vanamee had
      carried his grief. For days, for weeks, months even, he had been alone, a
      solitary speck lost in the immensity of the horizons; continually he was
      brooding, haunted with his sorrow, thinking, thinking, often hard put to
      it for food. The body was ill-nourished, and the mind, concentrated
      forever upon one subject, had recoiled upon itself, had preyed upon the
      naturally nervous temperament, till the imagination had become exalted,
      morbidly active, diseased, beset with hallucinations, forever in search of
      the manifestation, of the miracle. It was small wonder that, bringing a
      fancy so distorted back to the scene of a vanished happiness, Vanamee
      should be racked with the most violent illusions, beset in the throes of a
      veritable hysteria.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tell your God to give her back to me,&rdquo; he repeated with fierce
      insistence.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the pitch of mysticism, the imagination harassed and goaded beyond
      the normal round, suddenly flipping from the circumference, spinning off
      at a tangent, out into the void, where all things seemed possible,
      hurtling through the dark there, groping for the supernatural, clamouring
      for the miracle. And it was also the human, natural protest against the
      inevitable, the irrevocable; the spasm of revolt under the sting of death,
      the rebellion of the soul at the victory of the grave.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He can give her back to me if He only will,&rdquo; Vanamee cried. &ldquo;Sarria, you
      must help me. I tell you&mdash;I warn you, sir, I can't last much longer
      under it. My head is all wrong with it&mdash;I've no more hold on my mind.
      Something must happen or I shall lose my senses. I am breaking down under
      it all, my body and my mind alike. Bring her to me; make God show her to
      me. If all tales are true, it would not be the first time. If I cannot
      have her, at least let me see her as she was, real, earthly, not her
      spirit, her ghost. I want her real self, undefiled again. If this is
      dementia, then let me be demented. But help me, you and your God; create
      the delusion, do the miracle.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; cried the priest again, shaking him roughly by the shoulder.
      &ldquo;Stop. Be yourself. This is dementia; but I shall NOT let you be demented.
      Think of what you are saying. Bring her back to you! Is that the way of
      God? I thought you were a man; this is the talk of a weak-minded girl.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee stirred abruptly in his place, drawing a long breath and looking
      about him vaguely, as if he came to himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;I hardly know what I am saying at times.
      But there are moments when my whole mind and soul seem to rise up in
      rebellion against what has happened; when it seems to me that I am
      stronger than death, and that if I only knew how to use the strength of my
      will, concentrate my power of thought&mdash;volition&mdash;that I could&mdash;I
      don't know&mdash;not call her back&mdash;but&mdash;something&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A diseased and distorted mind is capable of hallucinations, if that is
      what you mean,&rdquo; observed Sarria.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps that is what I mean. Perhaps I want only the delusion, after
      all.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sarria did not reply, and there was a long silence. In the damp south
      corners of the walls a frog began to croak at exact intervals. The little
      fountain rippled monotonously, and a magnolia flower dropped from one of
      the trees, falling straight as a plummet through the motionless air, and
      settling upon the gravelled walk with a faint rustling sound. Otherwise
      the stillness was profound.
    </p>
    <p>
      A little later, the priest's cigar, long since out, slipped from his
      fingers to the ground. He began to nod gently. Vanamee touched his arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Asleep, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other started, rubbing his eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Upon my word, I believe I was.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Better go to bed, sir. I am not tired. I think I shall sit out here a
      little longer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, perhaps I would be better off in bed. YOUR bed is always ready for
      you here whenever you want to use it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No&mdash;I shall go back to Quien Sabe&mdash;later. Good-night, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-night, my boy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee was left alone. For a long time he sat motionless in his place,
      his elbows on his knees, his chin propped in his hands. The minutes passed&mdash;then
      the hours. The moon climbed steadily higher among the stars. Vanamee
      rolled and smoked cigarette after cigarette, the blue haze of smoke
      hanging motionless above his head, or drifting in slowly weaving filaments
      across the open spaces of the garden.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the influence of the old enclosure, this corner of romance and
      mystery, this isolated garden of dreams, savouring of the past, with its
      legends, its graves, its crumbling sun dial, its fountain with its rime of
      moss, was not to be resisted. Now that the priest had left him, the same
      exaltation of spirit that had seized upon Vanamee earlier in the evening,
      by degrees grew big again in his mind and imagination. His sorrow
      assaulted him like the flagellations of a fine whiplash, and his love for
      Angele rose again in his heart, it seemed to him never so deep, so tender,
      so infinitely strong. No doubt, it was his familiarity with the Mission
      garden, his clear-cut remembrance of it, as it was in the days when he had
      met Angele there, tallying now so exactly with the reality there under his
      eyes, that brought her to his imagination so vividly. As yet he dared not
      trust himself near her grave, but, for the moment, he rose and, his hands
      clasped behind him, walked slowly from point to point amid the tiny
      gravelled walks, recalling the incidents of eighteen years ago. On the
      bench he had quitted he and Angele had often sat. Here by the crumbling
      sun dial, he recalled the night when he had kissed her for the first time.
      Here, again, by the rim of the fountain, with its fringe of green, she
      once had paused, and, baring her arm to the shoulder, had thrust it deep
      into the water, and then withdrawing it, had given it to him to kiss, all
      wet and cool; and here, at last, under the shadow of the pear trees they
      had sat, evening after evening, looking off over the little valley below
      them, watching the night build itself, dome-like, from horizon to zenith.
    </p>
    <p>
      Brusquely Vanamee turned away from the prospect. The Seed ranch was dark
      at this time of the year, and flowerless. Far off toward its centre, he
      had caught a brief glimpse of the house where Angele had lived, and a
      faint light burning in its window. But he turned from it sharply. The
      deep-seated travail of his grief abruptly reached the paroxysm. With long
      strides he crossed the garden and reentered the Mission church itself,
      plunging into the coolness of its atmosphere as into a bath. What he
      searched for he did not know, or, rather, did not define. He knew only
      that he was suffering, that a longing for Angele, for some object around
      which his great love could enfold itself, was tearing at his heart with
      iron teeth. He was ready to be deluded; craved the hallucination; begged
      pitifully for the illusion; anything rather than the empty, tenantless
      night, the voiceless silence, the vast loneliness of the overspanning arc
      of the heavens.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before the chancel rail of the altar, under the sanctuary lamp, Vanamee
      sank upon his knees, his arms folded upon the rail, his head bowed down
      upon them. He prayed, with what words he could not say for what he did not
      understand&mdash;for help, merely, for relief, for an Answer to his cry.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was upon that, at length, that his disordered mind concentrated itself,
      an Answer&mdash;he demanded, he implored an Answer. Not a vague visitation
      of Grace, not a formless sense of Peace; but an Answer, something real,
      even if the reality were fancied, a voice out of the night, responding to
      his, a hand in the dark clasping his groping fingers, a breath, human,
      warm, fragrant, familiar, like a soft, sweet caress on his shrunken
      cheeks. Alone there in the dim half-light of the decaying Mission, with
      its crumbling plaster, its naive crudity of ornament and picture, he
      wrestled fiercely with his desires&mdash;words, fragments of sentences,
      inarticulate, incoherent, wrenched from his tight-shut teeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the Answer was not in the church. Above him, over the high altar, the
      Virgin in a glory, with downcast eyes and folded hands, grew vague and
      indistinct in the shadow, the colours fading, tarnished by centuries of
      incense smoke. The Christ in agony on the Cross was but a lamentable
      vision of tormented anatomy, grey flesh, spotted with crimson. The St.
      John, the San Juan Bautista, patron saint of the Mission, the gaunt figure
      in skins, two fingers upraised in the gesture of benediction, gazed
      stolidly out into the half-gloom under the ceiling, ignoring the human
      distress that beat itself in vain against the altar rail below, and Angele
      remained as before&mdash;only a memory, far distant, intangible, lost.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee rose, turning his back upon the altar with a vague gesture of
      despair. He crossed the church, and issuing from the low-arched door
      opposite the pulpit, once more stepped out into the garden. Here, at
      least, was reality. The warm, still air descended upon him like a cloak,
      grateful, comforting, dispelling the chill that lurked in the damp mould
      of plaster and crumbling adobe.
    </p>
    <p>
      But now he found his way across the garden on the other side of the
      fountain, where, ranged against the eastern wall, were nine graves. Here
      Angele was buried, in the smallest grave of them all, marked by the little
      headstone, with its two dates, only sixteen years apart. To this spot, at
      last, he had returned, after the years spent in the desert, the wilderness&mdash;after
      all the wanderings of the Long Trail. Here, if ever, he must have a sense
      of her nearness. Close at hand, a short four feet under that mound of
      grass, was the form he had so often held in the embrace of his arms; the
      face, the very face he had kissed, that face with the hair of gold making
      three-cornered the round white forehead, the violet-blue eyes,
      heavy-lidded, with their strange oriental slant upward toward the temples;
      the sweet full lips, almost Egyptian in their fulness&mdash;all that
      strange, perplexing, wonderful beauty, so troublous, so enchanting, so out
      of all accepted standards.
    </p>
    <p>
      He bent down, dropping upon one knee, a hand upon the headstone, and read
      again the inscription. Then instinctively his hand left the stone and
      rested upon the low mound of turf, touching it with the softness of a
      caress; and then, before he was aware of it, he was stretched at full
      length upon the earth, beside the grave, his arms about the low mound, his
      lips pressed against the grass with which it was covered. The pent-up
      grief of nearly twenty years rose again within his heart, and overflowed,
      irresistible, violent, passionate. There was no one to see, no one to
      hear. Vanamee had no thought of restraint. He no longer wrestled with his
      pain&mdash;strove against it. There was even a sense of relief in
      permitting himself to be overcome. But the reaction from this outburst was
      equally violent. His revolt against the inevitable, his protest against
      the grave, shook him from head to foot, goaded him beyond all bounds of
      reason, hounded him on and into the domain of hysteria, dementia. Vanamee
      was no longer master of himself&mdash;no longer knew what he was doing.
    </p>
    <p>
      At first, he had been content with merely a wild, unreasoned cry to Heaven
      that Angele should be restored to him, but the vast egotism that seems to
      run through all forms of disordered intelligence gave his fancy another
      turn. He forgot God. He no longer reckoned with Heaven. He arrogated their
      powers to himself&mdash;struggled to be, of his own unaided might,
      stronger than death, more powerful than the grave. He had demanded of
      Sarria that God should restore Angele to him, but now he appealed directly
      to Angele herself. As he lay there, his arms clasped about her grave, she
      seemed so near to him that he fancied she MUST hear. And suddenly, at this
      moment, his recollection of his strange compelling power&mdash;the same
      power by which he had called Presley to him half-way across the Quien Sabe
      ranch, the same power which had brought Sarria to his side that very
      evening&mdash;recurred to him. Concentrating his mind upon the one object
      with which it had so long been filled, Vanamee, his eyes closed, his face
      buried in his arms, exclaimed:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come to me&mdash;Angele&mdash;don't you hear? Come to me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But the Answer was not in the Grave. Below him the voiceless Earth lay
      silent, moveless, withholding the secret, jealous of that which it held so
      close in its grip, refusing to give up that which had been confided to its
      keeping, untouched by the human anguish that above there, on its surface,
      clutched with despairing hands at a grave long made. The Earth that only
      that morning had been so eager, so responsive to the lightest summons, so
      vibrant with Life, now at night, holding death within its embrace,
      guarding inviolate the secret of the Grave, was deaf to all entreaty,
      refused the Answer, and Angele remained as before, only a memory, far
      distant, intangible, lost.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee lifted his head, looking about him with unseeing eyes, trembling
      with the exertion of his vain effort. But he could not as yet allow
      himself to despair. Never before had that curious power of attraction
      failed him. He felt himself to be so strong in this respect that he was
      persuaded if he exerted himself to the limit of his capacity, something&mdash;he
      could not say what&mdash;must come of it. If it was only a self-delusion,
      an hallucination, he told himself that he would be content.
    </p>
    <p>
      Almost of its own accord, his distorted mind concentrated itself again,
      every thought, all the power of his will riveting themselves upon Angele.
      As if she were alive, he summoned her to him. His eyes, fixed upon the
      name cut into the headstone, contracted, the pupils growing small, his
      fists shut tight, his nerves braced rigid.
    </p>
    <p>
      For a few seconds he stood thus, breathless, expectant, awaiting the
      manifestation, the Miracle. Then, without knowing why, hardly conscious of
      what was transpiring, he found that his glance was leaving the headstone,
      was turning from the grave. Not only this, but his whole body was
      following the direction of his eyes. Before he knew it, he was standing
      with his back to Angele's grave, was facing the north, facing the line of
      pear trees and the little valley where the Seed ranch lay. At first, he
      thought this was because he had allowed his will to weaken, the
      concentrated power of his mind to grow slack. And once more turning toward
      the grave, he banded all his thoughts together in a consummate effort, his
      teeth grinding together, his hands pressed to his forehead. He forced
      himself to the notion that Angele was alive, and to this creature of his
      imagination he addressed himself:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Angele!&rdquo; he cried in a low voice; &ldquo;Angele, I am calling you&mdash;do you
      hear? Come to me&mdash;come to me now, now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Instead of the Answer he demanded, that inexplicable counter-influence cut
      across the current of his thought. Strive as he would against it, he must
      veer to the north, toward the pear trees. Obeying it, he turned, and,
      still wondering, took a step in that direction, then another and another.
      The next moment he came abruptly to himself, in the black shadow of the
      pear trees themselves, and, opening his eyes, found himself looking off
      over the Seed ranch, toward the little house in the centre where Angele
      had once lived.
    </p>
    <p>
      Perplexed, he returned to the grave, once more calling upon the resources
      of his will, and abruptly, so soon as these reached a certain point, the
      same cross-current set in. He could no longer keep his eyes upon the
      headstone, could no longer think of the grave and what it held. He must
      face the north; he must be drawn toward the pear trees, and there left
      standing in their shadow, looking out aimlessly over the Seed ranch,
      wondering, bewildered. Farther than this the influence never drew him, but
      up to this point&mdash;the line of pear trees&mdash;it was not to be
      resisted.
    </p>
    <p>
      For a time the peculiarity of the affair was of more interest to Vanamee
      than even his own distress of spirit, and once or twice he repeated the
      attempt, almost experimentally, and invariably with the same result: so
      soon as he seemed to hold Angele in the grip of his mind, he was moved to
      turn about toward the north, and hurry toward the pear trees on the crest
      of the hill that over-looked the little valley.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Vanamee's unhappiness was too keen this night for him to dwell long
      upon the vagaries of his mind. Submitting at length, and abandoning the
      grave, he flung himself down in the black shade of the pear trees, his
      chin in his hands, and resigned himself finally and definitely to the
      inrush of recollection and the exquisite grief of an infinite regret.
    </p>
    <p>
      To his fancy, she came to him again. He put himself back many years. He
      remembered the warm nights of July and August, profoundly still, the sky
      encrusted with stars, the little Mission garden exhaling the mingled
      perfumes that all through the scorching day had been distilled under the
      steady blaze of a summer's sun. He saw himself as another person, arriving
      at this, their rendezvous. All day long she had been in his mind. All day
      long he had looked forward to this quiet hour that belonged to her. It was
      dark. He could see nothing, but, by and by, he heard a step, a gentle
      rustle of the grass on the slope of the hill pressed under an advancing
      foot. Then he saw the faint gleam of pallid gold of her hair, a barely
      visible glow in the starlight, and heard the murmur of her breath in the
      lapse of the over-passing breeze. And then, in the midst of the gentle
      perfumes of the garden, the perfumes of the magnolia flowers, of the
      mignonette borders, of the crumbling walls, there expanded a new odour, or
      the faint mingling of many odours, the smell of the roses that lingered in
      her hair, of the lilies that exhaled from her neck, of the heliotrope that
      disengaged itself from her hands and arms, and of the hyacinths with which
      her little feet were redolent, And then, suddenly, it was herself&mdash;her
      eyes, heavy-lidded, violet blue, full of the love of him; her sweet full
      lips speaking his name; her hands clasping his hands, his shoulders, his
      neck&mdash;her whole dear body giving itself into his embrace; her lips
      against his; her hands holding his head, drawing his face down to hers.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee, as he remembered all this, flung out an arm with a cry of pain,
      his eyes searching the gloom, all his mind in strenuous mutiny against the
      triumph of Death. His glance shot swiftly out across the night,
      unconsciously following the direction from which Angele used to come to
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come to me now,&rdquo; he exclaimed under his breath, tense and rigid with the
      vast futile effort of his will. &ldquo;Come to me now, now. Don't you hear me,
      Angele? You must, you must come.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly Vanamee returned to himself with the abruptness of a blow. His
      eyes opened. He half raised himself from the ground. Swiftly his scattered
      wits readjusted themselves. Never more sane, never more himself, he rose
      to his feet and stood looking off into the night across the Seed ranch.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What was it?&rdquo; he murmured, bewildered.
    </p>
    <p>
      He looked around him from side to side, as if to get in touch with reality
      once more. He looked at his hands, at the rough bark of the pear tree next
      which he stood, at the streaked and rain-eroded walls of the Mission and
      garden. The exaltation of his mind calmed itself; the unnatural strain
      under which he laboured slackened. He became thoroughly master of himself
      again, matter-of-fact, practical, keen.
    </p>
    <p>
      But just so sure as his hands were his own, just so sure as the bark of
      the pear tree was rough, the mouldering adobe of the Mission walls damp&mdash;just
      so sure had Something occurred. It was vague, intangible, appealing only
      to some strange, nameless sixth sense, but none the less perceptible. His
      mind, his imagination, sent out from him across the night, across the
      little valley below him, speeding hither and thither through the dark,
      lost, confused, had suddenly paused, hovering, had found Something. It had
      not returned to him empty-handed. It had come back, but now there was a
      change&mdash;mysterious, illusive. There were no words for this that had
      transpired. But for the moment, one thing only was certain. The night was
      no longer voiceless, the dark was no longer empty. Far off there, beyond
      the reach of vision, unlocalised, strange, a ripple had formed on the
      still black pool of the night, had formed, flashed one instant to the
      stars, then swiftly faded again. The night shut down once more. There was
      no sound&mdash;nothing stirred.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the moment, Vanamee stood transfixed, struck rigid in his place,
      stupefied, his eyes staring, breathless with utter amazement. Then, step
      by step, he shrank back into the deeper shadow, treading with the infinite
      precaution of a prowling leopard. A qualm of something very much like fear
      seized upon him. But immediately on the heels of this first impression
      came the doubt of his own senses. Whatever had happened had been so
      ephemeral, so faint, so intangible, that now he wondered if he had not
      deceived himself, after all. But the reaction followed. Surely, there had
      been Something. And from that moment began for him the most poignant
      uncertainty of mind. Gradually he drew back into the garden, holding his
      breath, listening to every faintest sound, walking upon tiptoe. He reached
      the fountain, and wetting his hands, passed them across his forehead and
      eyes. Once more he stood listening. The silence was profound.
    </p>
    <p>
      Troubled, disturbed, Vanamee went away, passing out of the garden,
      descending the hill. He forded Broderson Creek where it intersected the
      road to Guadalajara, and went on across Quien Sabe, walking slowly, his
      head bent down, his hands clasped behind his back, thoughtful, perplexed.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER V
    </h2>
    <p>
      At seven o'clock, in the bedroom of his ranch house, in the white-painted
      iron bedstead with its blue-grey army blankets and red counterpane,
      Annixter was still asleep, his face red, his mouth open, his stiff yellow
      hair in wild disorder. On the wooden chair at the bed-head, stood the
      kerosene lamp, by the light of which he had been reading the previous
      evening. Beside it was a paper bag of dried prunes, and the limp volume of
      &ldquo;Copperfield,&rdquo; the place marked by a slip of paper torn from the edge of
      the bag.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter slept soundly, making great work of the business, unable to take
      even his rest gracefully. His eyes were shut so tight that the skin at
      their angles was drawn into puckers. Under his pillow, his two hands were
      doubled up into fists. At intervals, he gritted his teeth ferociously,
      while, from time to time, the abrupt sound of his snoring dominated the
      brisk ticking of the alarm clock that hung from the brass knob of the
      bed-post, within six inches of his ear.
    </p>
    <p>
      But immediately after seven, this clock sprung its alarm with the
      abruptness of an explosion, and within the second, Annixter had hurled the
      bed-clothes from him and flung himself up to a sitting posture on the edge
      of the bed, panting and gasping, blinking at the light, rubbing his head,
      dazed and bewildered, stupefied at the hideous suddenness with which he
      had been wrenched from his sleep.
    </p>
    <p>
      His first act was to take down the alarm clock and stifle its prolonged
      whirring under the pillows and blankets. But when this had been done, he
      continued to sit stupidly on the edge of the bed, curling his toes away
      from the cold of the floor; his half-shut eyes, heavy with sleep, fixed
      and vacant, closing and opening by turns. For upwards of three minutes he
      alternately dozed and woke, his head and the whole upper half of his body
      sagging abruptly sideways from moment to moment. But at length, coming
      more to himself, he straightened up, ran his fingers through his hair, and
      with a prodigious yawn, murmured vaguely:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Lord! Oh-h, LORD!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He stretched three or four times, twisting about in his place, curling and
      uncurling his toes, muttering from time to time between two yawns:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He stared about the room, collecting his thoughts, readjusting himself for
      the day's work.
    </p>
    <p>
      The room was barren, the walls of tongue-and-groove sheathing&mdash;alternate
      brown and yellow boards&mdash;like the walls of a stable, were adorned
      with two or three unframed lithographs, the Christmas &ldquo;souvenirs&rdquo; of
      weekly periodicals, fastened with great wire nails; a bunch of herbs or
      flowers, lamentably withered and grey with dust, was affixed to the mirror
      over the black walnut washstand by the window, and a yellowed photograph
      of Annixter's combined harvester&mdash;himself and his men in a group
      before it&mdash;hung close at hand. On the floor, at the bedside and
      before the bureau, were two oval rag-carpet rugs. In the corners of the
      room were muddy boots, a McClellan saddle, a surveyor's transit, an empty
      coal-hod and a box of iron bolts and nuts. On the wall over the bed, in a
      gilt frame, was Annixter's college diploma, while on the bureau, amid a
      litter of hair-brushes, dirty collars, driving gloves, cigars and the
      like, stood a broken machine for loading shells.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was essentially a man's room, rugged, uncouth, virile, full of the
      odours of tobacco, of leather, of rusty iron; the bare floor hollowed by
      the grind of hob-nailed boots, the walls marred by the friction of heavy
      things of metal. Strangely enough, Annixter's clothes were disposed of on
      the single chair with the precision of an old maid. Thus he had placed
      them the night before; the boots set carefully side by side, the trousers,
      with the overalls still upon them, neatly folded upon the seat of the
      chair, the coat hanging from its back.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Quien Sabe ranch house was a six-room affair, all on one floor. By no
      excess of charity could it have been called a home. Annixter was a wealthy
      man; he could have furnished his dwelling with quite as much elegance as
      that of Magnus Derrick. As it was, however, he considered his house merely
      as a place to eat, to sleep, to change his clothes in; as a shelter from
      the rain, an office where business was transacted&mdash;nothing more.
    </p>
    <p>
      When he was sufficiently awake, Annixter thrust his feet into a pair of
      wicker slippers, and shuffled across the office adjoining his bedroom, to
      the bathroom just beyond, and stood under the icy shower a few minutes,
      his teeth chattering, fulminating oaths at the coldness of the water.
      Still shivering, he hurried into his clothes, and, having pushed the
      button of the electric bell to announce that he was ready for breakfast,
      immediately plunged into the business of the day. While he was thus
      occupied, the butcher's cart from Bonneville drove into the yard with the
      day's supply of meat. This cart also brought the Bonneville paper and the
      mail of the previous night. In the bundle of correspondence that the
      butcher handed to Annixter that morning, was a telegram from Osterman, at
      that time on his second trip to Los Angeles. It read:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Flotation of company in this district assured. Have secured services of
      desirable party. Am now in position to sell you your share stock, as per
      original plan.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter grunted as he tore the despatch into strips. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he muttered,
      &ldquo;that part is settled, then.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He made a little pile of the torn strips on the top of the unlighted
      stove, and burned them carefully, scowling down into the flicker of fire,
      thoughtful and preoccupied.
    </p>
    <p>
      He knew very well what Osterman referred to by &ldquo;Flotation of company,&rdquo; and
      also who was the &ldquo;desirable party&rdquo; he spoke of.
    </p>
    <p>
      Under protest, as he was particular to declare, and after interminable
      argument, Annixter had allowed himself to be reconciled with Osterman, and
      to be persuaded to reenter the proposed political &ldquo;deal.&rdquo; A committee had
      been formed to finance the affair&mdash;Osterman, old Broderson, Annixter
      himself, and, with reservations, hardly more than a looker-on, Harran
      Derrick. Of this committee, Osterman was considered chairman. Magnus
      Derrick had formally and definitely refused his adherence to the scheme.
      He was trying to steer a middle course. His position was difficult,
      anomalous. If freight rates were cut through the efforts of the members of
      the committee, he could not very well avoid taking advantage of the new
      schedule. He would be the gainer, though sharing neither the risk nor the
      expense. But, meanwhile, the days were passing; the primary elections were
      drawing nearer. The committee could not afford to wait, and by way of a
      beginning, Osterman had gone to Los Angeles, fortified by a large sum of
      money&mdash;a purse to which Annixter, Broderson and himself had
      contributed. He had put himself in touch with Disbrow, the political man
      of the Denver, Pueblo and Mojave road, and had had two interviews with
      him. The telegram that Annixter received that morning was to say that
      Disbrow had been bought over, and would adopt Parrell as the D., P. and M.
      candidate for Railroad Commissioner from the third district.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of the cooks brought up Annixter's breakfast that morning, and he went
      through it hastily, reading his mail at the same time and glancing over
      the pages of the &ldquo;Mercury,&rdquo; Genslinger's paper. The &ldquo;Mercury,&rdquo; Annixter
      was persuaded, received a subsidy from the Pacific and Southwestern
      Railroad, and was hardly better than the mouthpiece by which Shelgrim and
      the General Office spoke to ranchers about Bonneville.
    </p>
    <p>
      An editorial in that morning's issue said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It would not be surprising to the well-informed, if the long-deferred
      re-grade of the value of the railroad sections included in the Los
      Muertos, Quien Sabe, Osterman and Broderson properties was made before the
      first of the year. Naturally, the tenants of these lands feel an interest
      in the price which the railroad will put upon its holdings, and it is
      rumoured they expect the land will be offered to them for two dollars and
      fifty cents per acre. It needs no seventh daughter of a seventh daughter
      to foresee that these gentlemen will be disappointed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Rot!&rdquo; vociferated Annixter to himself as he finished. He rolled the paper
      into a wad and hurled it from him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Rot! rot! What does Genslinger know about it? I stand on my agreement
      with the P. and S. W.&mdash;from two fifty to five dollars an acre&mdash;there
      it is in black and white. The road IS obligated. And my improvements! I
      made the land valuable by improving it, irrigating it, draining it, and
      cultivating it. Talk to ME. I know better.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The most abiding impression that Genslinger's editorial made upon him was,
      that possibly the &ldquo;Mercury&rdquo; was not subsidised by the corporation after
      all. If it was; Genslinger would not have been led into making his mistake
      as to the value of the land. He would have known that the railroad was
      under contract to sell at two dollars and a half an acre, and not only
      this, but that when the land was put upon the market, it was to be offered
      to the present holders first of all. Annixter called to mind the explicit
      terms of the agreement between himself and the railroad, and dismissed the
      matter from his mind. He lit a cigar, put on his hat and went out.
    </p>
    <p>
      The morning was fine, the air nimble, brisk. On the summit of the
      skeleton-like tower of the artesian well, the windmill was turning
      steadily in a breeze from the southwest. The water in the irrigating ditch
      was well up. There was no cloud in the sky. Far off to the east and west,
      the bulwarks of the valley, the Coast Range and the foothills of the
      Sierras stood out, pale amethyst against the delicate pink and white sheen
      of the horizon. The sunlight was a veritable flood, crystal, limpid,
      sparkling, setting a feeling of gayety in the air, stirring up an
      effervescence in the blood, a tumult of exuberance in the veins.
    </p>
    <p>
      But on his way to the barns, Annixter was obliged to pass by the open door
      of the dairy-house. Hilma Tree was inside, singing at her work; her voice
      of a velvety huskiness, more of the chest than of the throat, mingling
      with the liquid dashing of the milk in the vats and churns, and the clear,
      sonorous clinking of the cans and pans. Annixter turned into the
      dairy-house, pausing on the threshold, looking about him. Hilma stood
      bathed from head to foot in the torrent of sunlight that poured in upon
      her from the three wide-open windows. She was charming, delicious, radiant
      of youth, of health, of well-being. Into her eyes, wide open, brown,
      rimmed with their fine, thin line of intense black lashes, the sun set a
      diamond flash; the same golden light glowed all around her thick, moist
      hair, lambent, beautiful, a sheen of almost metallic lustre, and reflected
      itself upon her wet lips, moving with the words of her singing. The
      whiteness of her skin under the caress of this hale, vigorous morning
      light was dazzling, pure, of a fineness beyond words. Beneath the sweet
      modulation of her chin, the reflected light from the burnished copper
      vessel she was carrying set a vibration of pale gold. Overlaying the flush
      of rose in her cheeks, seen only when she stood against the sunlight, was
      a faint sheen of down, a lustrous floss, delicate as the pollen of a
      flower, or the impalpable powder of a moth's wing. She was moving to and
      fro about her work, alert, joyous, robust; and from all the fine, full
      amplitude of her figure, from her thick white neck, sloping downward to
      her shoulders, from the deep, feminine swell of her breast, the vigorous
      maturity of her hips, there was disengaged a vibrant note of gayety, of
      exuberant animal life, sane, honest, strong. She wore a skirt of plain
      blue calico and a shirtwaist of pink linen, clean, trim; while her sleeves
      turned back to her shoulders, showed her large, white arms, wet with milk,
      redolent and fragrant with milk, glowing and resplendent in the early
      morning light.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the threshold, Annixter took off his hat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good morning, Miss Hilma.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma, who had set down the copper can on top of the vat, turned about
      quickly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, GOOD morning, sir;&rdquo; and, unconsciously, she made a little gesture of
      salutation with her hand, raising it part way toward her head, as a man
      would have done.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; began Annixter vaguely, &ldquo;how are you getting along down here?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, very fine. To-day, there is not so much to do. We drew the whey hours
      ago, and now we are just done putting the curd to press. I have been
      cleaning. See my pans. Wouldn't they do for mirrors, sir? And the copper
      things. I have scrubbed and scrubbed. Oh, you can look into the tiniest
      corners, everywhere, you won't find so much as the littlest speck of dirt
      or grease. I love CLEAN things, and this room is my own particular place.
      Here I can do just as I please, and that is, to keep the cement floor, and
      the vats, and the churns and the separators, and especially the cans and
      coppers, clean; clean, and to see that the milk is pure, oh, so that a
      little baby could drink it; and to have the air always sweet, and the sun&mdash;oh,
      lots and lots of sun, morning, noon and afternoon, so that everything
      shines. You know, I never see the sun set that it don't make me a little
      sad; yes, always, just a little. Isn't it funny? I should want it to be
      day all the time. And when the day is gloomy and dark, I am just as sad as
      if a very good friend of mine had left me. Would you believe it? Just
      until within a few years, when I was a big girl, sixteen and over, mamma
      had to sit by my bed every night before I could go to sleep. I was afraid
      in the dark. Sometimes I am now. Just imagine, and now I am nineteen&mdash;a
      young lady.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You were, hey?&rdquo; observed Annixter, for the sake of saying something.
      &ldquo;Afraid in the dark? What of&mdash;ghosts?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;N-no; I don't know what. I wanted the light, I wanted&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; She
      drew a deep breath, turning towards the window and spreading her pink
      finger-tips to the light. &ldquo;Oh, the SUN. I love the sun. See, put your hand
      there&mdash;here on the top of the vat&mdash;like that. Isn't it warm?
      Isn't it fine? And don't you love to see it coming in like that through
      the windows, floods of it; and all the little dust in it shining? Where
      there is lots of sunlight, I think the people must be very good. It's only
      wicked people that love the dark. And the wicked things are always done
      and planned in the dark, I think. Perhaps, too, that's why I hate things
      that are mysterious&mdash;things that I can't see, that happen in the
      dark.&rdquo; She wrinkled her nose with a little expression of aversion. &ldquo;I hate
      a mystery. Maybe that's why I am afraid in the dark&mdash;or was. I
      shouldn't like to think that anything could happen around me that I
      couldn't see or understand or explain.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She ran on from subject to subject, positively garrulous, talking in her
      low-pitched voice of velvety huskiness for the mere enjoyment of putting
      her ideas into speech, innocently assuming that they were quite as
      interesting to others as to herself. She was yet a great child, ignoring
      the fact that she had ever grown up, taking a child's interest in her
      immediate surroundings, direct, straightforward, plain. While speaking,
      she continued about her work, rinsing out the cans with a mixture of hot
      water and soda, scouring them bright, and piling them in the sunlight on
      top of the vat.
    </p>
    <p>
      Obliquely, and from between his narrowed lids, Annixter scrutinised her
      from time to time, more and more won over by her adorable freshness, her
      clean, fine youth. The clumsiness that he usually experienced in the
      presence of women was wearing off. Hilma Tree's direct simplicity put him
      at his ease. He began to wonder if he dared to kiss Hilma, and if he did
      dare, how she would take it. A spark of suspicion flickered up in his
      mind. Did not her manner imply, vaguely, an invitation? One never could
      tell with feemales. That was why she was talking so much, no doubt,
      holding him there, affording the opportunity. Aha! She had best look out,
      or he would take her at her word.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I had forgotten,&rdquo; suddenly exclaimed Hilma, &ldquo;the very thing I wanted
      to show you&mdash;the new press. You remember I asked for one last month?
      This is it. See, this is how it works. Here is where the curds go; look.
      And this cover is screwed down like this, and then you work the lever this
      way.&rdquo; She grasped the lever in both hands, throwing her weight upon it,
      her smooth, bare arm swelling round and firm with the effort, one slim
      foot, in its low shoe set off with the bright, steel buckle, braced
      against the wall.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My, but that takes strength,&rdquo; she panted, looking up at him and smiling.
      &ldquo;But isn't it a fine press? Just what we needed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; Annixter cleared his throat, &ldquo;and where do you keep the cheeses and
      the butter?&rdquo; He thought it very likely that these were in the cellar of
      the dairy.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In the cellar,&rdquo; answered Hilma. &ldquo;Down here, see?&rdquo; She raised the flap of
      the cellar door at the end of the room. &ldquo;Would you like to see? Come down;
      I'll show you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She went before him down into the cool obscurity underneath, redolent of
      new cheese and fresh butter. Annixter followed, a certain excitement
      beginning to gain upon him. He was almost sure now that Hilma wanted him
      to kiss her. At all events, one could but try. But, as yet, he was not
      absolutely sure. Suppose he had been mistaken in her; suppose she should
      consider herself insulted and freeze him with an icy stare. Annixter
      winced at the very thought of it. Better let the whole business go, and
      get to work. He was wasting half the morning. Yet, if she DID want to give
      him the opportunity of kissing her, and he failed to take advantage of it,
      what a ninny she would think him; she would despise him for being afraid.
      He afraid! He, Annixter, afraid of a fool, feemale girl. Why, he owed it
      to himself as a man to go as far as he could. He told himself that that
      goat Osterman would have kissed Hilma Tree weeks ago. To test his state of
      mind, he imagined himself as having decided to kiss her, after all, and at
      once was surprised to experience a poignant qualm of excitement, his heart
      beating heavily, his breath coming short. At the same time, his courage
      remained with him. He was not afraid to try. He felt a greater respect for
      himself because of this. His self-assurance hardened within him, and as
      Hilma turned to him, asking him to taste a cut from one of the ripe
      cheeses, he suddenly stepped close to her, throwing an arm about her
      shoulders, advancing his head.
    </p>
    <p>
      But at the last second, he bungled, hesitated; Hilma shrank from him,
      supple as a young reed; Annixter clutched harshly at her arm, and trod his
      full weight upon one of her slender feet, his cheek and chin barely
      touching the delicate pink lobe of one of her ears, his lips brushing
      merely a fold of her shirt waist between neck and shoulder. The thing was
      a failure, and at once he realised that nothing had been further from
      Hilma's mind than the idea of his kissing her.
    </p>
    <p>
      She started back from him abruptly, her hands nervously clasped against
      her breast, drawing in her breath sharply and holding it with a little,
      tremulous catch of the throat that sent a quivering vibration the length
      of her smooth, white neck. Her eyes opened wide with a childlike look,
      more of astonishment than anger. She was surprised, out of all measure,
      discountenanced, taken all aback, and when she found her breath, gave
      voice to a great &ldquo;Oh&rdquo; of dismay and distress.
    </p>
    <p>
      For an instant, Annixter stood awkwardly in his place, ridiculous, clumsy,
      murmuring over and over again:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well&mdash;well&mdash;that's all right&mdash;who's going to hurt you? You
      needn't be afraid&mdash;who's going to hurt you&mdash;that's all right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then, suddenly, with a quick, indefinite gesture of one arm, he exclaimed:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye, I&mdash;I'm sorry.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He turned away, striding up the stairs, crossing the dairy-room, and
      regained the open air, raging and furious. He turned toward the barns,
      clapping his hat upon his head, muttering the while under his breath:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you goat! You beastly fool PIP. Good LORD, what an ass you've made of
      yourself now!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly he resolved to put Hilma Tree out of his thoughts. The matter was
      interfering with his work. This kind of thing was sure not earning any
      money. He shook himself as though freeing his shoulders of an irksome
      burden, and turned his entire attention to the work nearest at hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      The prolonged rattle of the shinglers' hammers upon the roof of the big
      barn attracted him, and, crossing over between the ranch house and the
      artesian well, he stood for some time absorbed in the contemplation of the
      vast building, amused and interested with the confusion of sounds&mdash;the
      clatter of hammers, the cadenced scrape of saws, and the rhythmic shuffle
      of planes&mdash;that issued from the gang of carpenters who were at that
      moment putting the finishing touches upon the roof and rows of stalls. A
      boy and two men were busy hanging the great sliding door at the south end,
      while the painters&mdash;come down from Bonneville early that morning&mdash;were
      engaged in adjusting the spray and force engine, by means of which
      Annixter had insisted upon painting the vast surfaces of the barn,
      condemning the use of brushes and pots for such work as old-fashioned and
      out-of-date.
    </p>
    <p>
      He called to one of the foremen, to ask when the barn would be entirely
      finished, and was told that at the end of the week the hay and stock could
      be installed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And a precious long time you've been at it, too,&rdquo; Annixter declared.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you know the rain&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, rot the rain! I work in the rain. You and your unions make me sick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, Mr. Annixter, we couldn't have begun painting in the rain. The job
      would have been spoiled.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hoh, yes, spoiled. That's all very well. Maybe it would, and then, again,
      maybe it wouldn't.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But when the foreman had left him, Annixter could not forbear a growl of
      satisfaction. It could not be denied that the barn was superb, monumental
      even. Almost any one of the other barns in the county could be swung,
      bird-cage fashion, inside of it, with room to spare. In every sense, the
      barn was precisely what Annixter had hoped of it. In his pleasure over the
      success of his idea, even Hilma for the moment was forgotten.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And, now,&rdquo; murmured Annixter, &ldquo;I'll give that dance in it. I'll make 'em
      sit up.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It occurred to him that he had better set about sending out the
      invitations for the affair. He was puzzled to decide just how the thing
      should be managed, and resolved that it might be as well to consult Magnus
      and Mrs. Derrick.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I want to talk of this telegram of the goat's with Magnus, anyhow,&rdquo; he
      said to himself reflectively, &ldquo;and there's things I got to do in
      Bonneville before the first of the month.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He turned about on his heel with a last look at the barn, and set off
      toward the stable. He had decided to have his horse saddled and ride over
      to Bonneville by way of Los Muertos. He would make a day of it, would see
      Magnus, Harran, old Broderson and some of the business men of Bonneville.
    </p>
    <p>
      A few moments later, he rode out of the barn and the stable-yard, a fresh
      cigar between his teeth, his hat slanted over his face against the rays of
      the sun, as yet low in the east. He crossed the irrigating ditch and
      gained the trail&mdash;the short cut over into Los Muertos, by way of
      Hooven's. It led south and west into the low ground overgrown by
      grey-green willows by Broderson Creek, at this time of the rainy season a
      stream of considerable volume, farther on dipping sharply to pass
      underneath the Long Trestle of the railroad. On the other side of the
      right of way, Annixter was obliged to open the gate in Derrick's line
      fence. He managed this without dismounting, swearing at the horse the
      while, and spurring him continually. But once inside the gate he cantered
      forward briskly.
    </p>
    <p>
      This part of Los Muertos was Hooven's holding, some five hundred acres
      enclosed between the irrigating ditch and Broderson Creek, and half the
      way across, Annixter came up with Hooven himself, busily at work replacing
      a broken washer in his seeder. Upon one of the horses hitched to the
      machine, her hands gripped tightly upon the harness of the collar, Hilda,
      his little daughter, with her small, hob-nailed boots and boy's canvas
      overalls, sat, exalted and petrified with ecstasy and excitement, her eyes
      wide opened, her hair in a tangle.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, Bismarck,&rdquo; said Annixter, drawing up beside him. &ldquo;What are YOU
      doing here? I thought the Governor was going to manage without his tenants
      this year.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ach, Meest'r Ennixter,&rdquo; cried the other, straightening up. &ldquo;Ach, dat's
      you, eh? Ach, you bedt he doand menege mitout me. Me, I gotta stay. I talk
      der straighd talk mit der Governor. I fix 'em. Ach, you bedt. Sieben yahr
      I hef bei der rench ge-stopped; yais, sir. Efery oder sohn-of-a-guhn bei
      der plaice ged der sach bud me. Eh? Wat you tink von dose ting?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think that's a crazy-looking monkey-wrench you've got there,&rdquo; observed
      Annixter, glancing at the instrument in Hooven's hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ach, dot wrainch,&rdquo; returned Hooven. &ldquo;Soh! Wail, I tell you dose ting now
      whair I got 'em. Say, you see dot wrainch. Dat's not Emericen wrainch at
      alle. I got 'em at Gravelotte der day we licked der stuffun oudt der
      Frainch, ach, you bedt. Me, I pelong to der Wurtemberg redgimend, dot dey
      use to suppord der batterie von der Brince von Hohenlohe. Alle der day we
      lay down bei der stomach in der feildt behindt der batterie, und der
      schells von der Frainch cennon hef eggsblode&mdash;ach, donnerwetter!&mdash;I
      tink efery schell eggsblode bei der beckside my neck. Und dat go on der
      whole day, noddun else, noddun aber der Frainch schell, b-r-r, b-r-r
      b-r-r, b-r-AM, und der smoag, und unzer batterie, dat go off slow, steady,
      yoost like der glock, eins, zwei, boom! eins, zwei, boom! yoost like der
      glock, ofer und ofer again, alle der day. Den vhen der night come dey say
      we hev der great victorie made. I doand know. Vhat do I see von der
      bettle? Noddun. Den we gedt oop und maerch und maerch alle night, und in
      der morgen we hear dose cennon egain, hell oaf der way, far-off, I doand
      know vhair. Budt, nef'r mindt. Bretty qnick, ach, Gott&mdash;&rdquo; his face
      flamed scarlet, &ldquo;Ach, du lieber Gott! Bretty zoon, dere wass der Kaiser,
      glose bei, und Fritz, Unzer Fritz. Bei Gott, den I go grazy, und yell,
      ach, you bedt, der whole redgimend: 'Hoch der Kaiser! Hoch der Vaterland!'
      Und der dears come to der eyes, I doand know because vhy, und der mens gry
      und shaike der hend, und der whole redgimend maerch off like dat, fairy
      broudt, bei Gott, der head oop high, und sing 'Die Wacht am Rhein.' Dot
      wass Gravelotte.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And the monkey-wrench?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ach, I pick 'um oop vhen der batterie go. Der cennoniers hef forgedt und
      leaf 'um. I carry 'um in der sack. I tink I use 'um vhen I gedt home in
      der business. I was maker von vagons in Carlsruhe, und I nef'r gedt home
      again. Vhen der war hef godt over, I go beck to Ulm und gedt marriet, und
      den I gedt demn sick von der armie. Vhen I gedt der release, I clair oudt,
      you bedt. I come to Emerica. First, New Yor-ruk; den Milwaukee; den
      Sbringfieldt-Illinoy; den Galifornie, und heir I stay.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And the Fatherland? Ever want to go back?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wail, I tell you dose ting, Meest'r Ennixter. Alle-ways, I tink a lot oaf
      Shairmany, und der Kaiser, und nef'r I forgedt Gravelotte. Budt, say, I
      tell you dose ting. Vhair der wife is, und der kinder&mdash;der leedle
      girl Hilda&mdash;DERE IS DER VATERLAND. Eh? Emerica, dat's my gountry now,
      und dere,&rdquo; he pointed behind him to the house under the mammoth oak tree
      on the Lower Road, &ldquo;dat's my home. Dat's goot enough Vaterland for me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter gathered up the reins, about to go on.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;So you like America, do you, Bismarck?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Who do you vote for?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Emerica? I doand know,&rdquo; returned the other, insistently. &ldquo;Dat's my home
      yonder. Dat's my Vaterland. Alle von we Shairmens yoost like dot.
      Shairmany, dot's hell oaf some fine plaice, sure. Budt der Vaterland iss
      vhair der home und der wife und kinder iss. Eh? Yes? Voad? Ach, no. Me, I
      nef'r voad. I doand bodder der haid mit dose ting. I maig der wheat grow,
      und ged der braid fur der wife und Hilda, dot's all. Dot's me; dot's
      Bismarck.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; commented Annixter, moving off.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hooven, the washer replaced, turned to his work again, starting up the
      horses. The seeder advanced, whirring.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ach, Hilda, leedle girl,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;hold tight bei der shdrap on. Hey
      MULE! Hoop! Gedt oop, you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter cantered on. In a few moments, he had crossed Broderson Creek and
      had entered upon the Home ranch of Los Muertos. Ahead of him, but so far
      off that the greater portion of its bulk was below the horizon, he could
      see the Derricks' home, a roof or two between the dull green of cypress
      and eucalyptus. Nothing else was in sight. The brown earth, smooth,
      unbroken, was as a limitless, mud-coloured ocean. The silence was
      profound.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then, at length, Annixter's searching eye made out a blur on the horizon
      to the northward; the blur concentrated itself to a speck; the speck grew
      by steady degrees to a spot, slowly moving, a note of dull colour, barely
      darker than the land, but an inky black silhouette as it topped a low rise
      of ground and stood for a moment outlined against the pale blue of the
      sky. Annixter turned his horse from the road and rode across the ranch
      land to meet this new object of interest. As the spot grew larger, it
      resolved itself into constituents, a collection of units; its shape grew
      irregular, fragmentary. A disintegrated, nebulous confusion advanced
      toward Annixter, preceded, as he discovered on nearer approach, by a
      medley of faint sounds. Now it was no longer a spot, but a column, a
      column that moved, accompanied by spots. As Annixter lessened the
      distance, these spots resolved themselves into buggies or men on horseback
      that kept pace with the advancing column. There were horses in the column
      itself. At first glance, it appeared as if there were nothing else, a
      riderless squadron tramping steadily over the upturned plough land of the
      ranch. But it drew nearer. The horses were in lines, six abreast,
      harnessed to machines. The noise increased, defined itself. There was a
      shout or two; occasionally a horse blew through his nostrils with a
      prolonged, vibrating snort. The click and clink of metal work was
      incessant, the machines throwing off a continual rattle of wheels and cogs
      and clashing springs. The column approached nearer; was close at hand. The
      noises mingled to a subdued uproar, a bewildering confusion; the impact of
      innumerable hoofs was a veritable rumble. Machine after machine appeared;
      and Annixter, drawing to one side, remained for nearly ten minutes
      watching and interested, while, like an array of chariots&mdash;clattering,
      jostling, creaking, clashing, an interminable procession, machine
      succeeding machine, six-horse team succeeding six-horse team&mdash;bustling,
      hurried&mdash;Magnus Derrick's thirty-three grain drills, each with its
      eight hoes, went clamouring past, like an advance of military, seeding the
      ten thousand acres of the great ranch; fecundating the living soil;
      implanting deep in the dark womb of the Earth the germ of life, the
      sustenance of a whole world, the food of an entire People.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the drills had passed, Annixter turned and rode back to the Lower
      Road, over the land now thick with seed. He did not wonder that the
      seeding on Los Muertos seemed to be hastily conducted. Magnus and Harran
      Derrick had not yet been able to make up the time lost at the beginning of
      the season, when they had waited so long for the ploughs to arrive. They
      had been behindhand all the time. On Annixter's ranch, the land had not
      only been harrowed, as well as seeded, but in some cases, cross-harrowed
      as well. The labour of putting in the vast crop was over. Now there was
      nothing to do but wait, while the seed silently germinated; nothing to do
      but watch for the wheat to come up.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Annixter reached the ranch house of Los Muertos, under the shade of
      the cypress and eucalyptus trees, he found Mrs. Derrick on the porch,
      seated in a long wicker chair. She had been washing her hair, and the
      light brown locks that yet retained so much of their brightness, were
      carefully spread in the sun over the back of her chair. Annixter could not
      but remark that, spite of her more than fifty years, Annie Derrick was yet
      rather pretty. Her eyes were still those of a young girl, just touched
      with an uncertain expression of innocence and inquiry, but as her glance
      fell upon him, he found that that expression changed to one of uneasiness,
      of distrust, almost of aversion.
    </p>
    <p>
      The night before this, after Magnus and his wife had gone to bed, they had
      lain awake for hours, staring up into the dark, talking, talking. Magnus
      had not long been able to keep from his wife the news of the coalition
      that was forming against the railroad, nor the fact that this coalition
      was determined to gain its ends by any means at its command. He had told
      her of Osterman's scheme of a fraudulent election to seat a Board of
      Railroad Commissioners, who should be nominees of the farming interests.
      Magnus and his wife had talked this matter over and over again; and the
      same discussion, begun immediately after supper the evening before, had
      lasted till far into the night.
    </p>
    <p>
      At once, Annie Derrick had been seized with a sudden terror lest Magnus,
      after all, should allow himself to be persuaded; should yield to the
      pressure that was every day growing stronger. None better than she knew
      the iron integrity of her husband's character. None better than she
      remembered how his dearest ambition, that of political preferment, had
      been thwarted by his refusal to truckle, to connive, to compromise with
      his ideas of right. Now, at last, there seemed to be a change. Long
      continued oppression, petty tyranny, injustice and extortion had driven
      him to exasperation. S. Behrman's insults still rankled. He seemed nearly
      ready to countenance Osterman's scheme. The very fact that he was willing
      to talk of it to her so often and at such great length, was proof positive
      that it occupied his mind. The pity of it, the tragedy of it! He, Magnus,
      the &ldquo;Governor,&rdquo; who had been so staunch, so rigidly upright, so loyal to
      his convictions, so bitter in his denunciation of the New Politics, so
      scathing in his attacks on bribery and corruption in high places; was it
      possible that now, at last, he could be brought to withhold his
      condemnation of the devious intrigues of the unscrupulous, going on there
      under his very eyes? That Magnus should not command Harran to refrain from
      all intercourse with the conspirators, had been a matter of vast surprise
      to Mrs. Derrick. Time was when Magnus would have forbidden his son to so
      much as recognise a dishonourable man.
    </p>
    <p>
      But besides all this, Derrick's wife trembled at the thought of her
      husband and son engaging in so desperate a grapple with the railroad&mdash;that
      great monster, iron-hearted, relentless, infinitely powerful. Always it
      had issued triumphant from the fight; always S. Behrman, the Corporation's
      champion, remained upon the field as victor, placid, unperturbed,
      unassailable. But now a more terrible struggle than any hitherto loomed
      menacing over the rim of the future; money was to be spent like water;
      personal reputations were to be hazarded in the issue; failure meant ruin
      in all directions, financial ruin, moral ruin, ruin of prestige, ruin of
      character. Success, to her mind, was almost impossible. Annie Derrick
      feared the railroad. At night, when everything else was still, the distant
      roar of passing trains echoed across Los Muertos, from Guadalajara, from
      Bonneville, or from the Long Trestle, straight into her heart. At such
      moments she saw very plainly the galloping terror of steam and steel, with
      its single eye, cyclopean, red, shooting from horizon to horizon, symbol
      of a vast power, huge and terrible; the leviathan with tentacles of steel,
      to oppose which meant to be ground to instant destruction beneath the
      clashing wheels. No, it was better to submit, to resign oneself to the
      inevitable. She obliterated herself, shrinking from the harshness of the
      world, striving, with vain hands, to draw her husband back with her.
    </p>
    <p>
      Just before Annixter's arrival, she had been sitting, thoughtful, in her
      long chair, an open volume of poems turned down upon her lap, her glance
      losing itself in the immensity of Los Muertos that, from the edge of the
      lawn close by, unrolled itself, gigantic, toward the far, southern
      horizon, wrinkled and serrated after the season's ploughing. The earth,
      hitherto grey with dust, was now upturned and brown. As far as the eye
      could reach, it was empty of all life, bare, mournful, absolutely still;
      and, as she looked, there seemed to her morbid imagination&mdash;diseased
      and disturbed with long brooding, sick with the monotony of repeated
      sensation&mdash;to be disengaged from all this immensity, a sense of a
      vast oppression, formless, disquieting. The terror of sheer bigness grew
      slowly in her mind; loneliness beyond words gradually enveloped her. She
      was lost in all these limitless reaches of space. Had she been abandoned
      in mid-ocean, in an open boat, her terror could hardly have been greater.
      She felt vividly that certain uncongeniality which, when all is said,
      forever remains between humanity and the earth which supports it. She
      recognised the colossal indifference of nature, not hostile, even kindly
      and friendly, so long as the human ant-swarm was submissive, working with
      it, hurrying along at its side in the mysterious march of the centuries.
      Let, however, the insect rebel, strive to make head against the power of
      this nature, and at once it became relentless, a gigantic engine, a vast
      power, huge, terrible; a leviathan with a heart of steel, knowing no
      compunction, no forgiveness, no tolerance; crushing out the human atom
      with sound less calm, the agony of destruction sending never a jar, never
      the faintest tremour through all that prodigious mechanism of wheels and
      cogs.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such thoughts as these did not take shape distinctly in her mind. She
      could not have told herself exactly what it was that disquieted her. She
      only received the vague sensation of these things, as it were a breath of
      wind upon her face, confused, troublous, an indefinite sense of hostility
      in the air.
    </p>
    <p>
      The sound of hoofs grinding upon the gravel of the driveway brought her to
      herself again, and, withdrawing her gaze from the empty plain of Los
      Muertos, she saw young Annixter stopping his horse by the carriage steps.
      But the sight of him only diverted her mind to the other trouble. She
      could not but regard him with aversion. He was one of the conspirators,
      was one of the leaders in the battle that impended; no doubt, he had come
      to make a fresh attempt to win over Magnus to the unholy alliance.
    </p>
    <p>
      However, there was little trace of enmity in her greeting. Her hair was
      still spread, like a broad patch of back, and she made that her excuse for
      not getting up. In answer to Annixter's embarrassed inquiry after Magnus,
      she sent the Chinese cook to call him from the office; and Annixter, after
      tying his horse to the ring driven into the trunk of one of the eucalyptus
      trees, came up to the porch, and, taking off his hat, sat down upon the
      steps.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is Harran anywhere about?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I'd like to see Harran, too.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Mrs. Derrick, &ldquo;Harran went to Bonneville early this morning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She glanced toward Annixter nervously, without turning her head, lest she
      should disturb her outspread hair.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is it you want to see Mr. Derrick about?&rdquo; she inquired hastily. &ldquo;Is
      it about this plan to elect a Railroad Commission? Magnus does not approve
      of it,&rdquo; she declared with energy. &ldquo;He told me so last night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter moved about awkwardly where he sat, smoothing down with his hand
      the one stiff lock of yellow hair that persistently stood up from his
      crown like an Indian's scalp-lock. At once his suspicions were all
      aroused. Ah! this feemale woman was trying to get a hold on him, trying to
      involve him in a petticoat mess, trying to cajole him. Upon the instant,
      he became very crafty; an excess of prudence promptly congealed his
      natural impulses. In an actual spasm of caution, he scarcely trusted
      himself to speak, terrified lest he should commit himself to something. He
      glanced about apprehensively, praying that Magnus might join them
      speedily, relieving the tension.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I came to see about giving a dance in my new barn,&rdquo; he answered, scowling
      into the depths of his hat, as though reading from notes he had concealed
      there. &ldquo;I wanted to ask how I should send out the invites. I thought of
      just putting an ad. in the 'Mercury.'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But as he spoke, Presley had come up behind Annixter in time to get the
      drift of the conversation, and now observed:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's nonsense, Buck. You're not giving a public ball. You MUST send out
      invitations.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, Presley, you there?&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter, turning round. The two
      shook hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Send out invitations?&rdquo; repeated Annixter uneasily. &ldquo;Why must I?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Because that's the only way to do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is, is it?&rdquo; answered Annixter, perplexed and troubled. No other man of
      his acquaintance could have so contradicted Annixter without provoking a
      quarrel upon the instant. Why the young rancher, irascible, obstinate,
      belligerent, should invariably defer to the poet, was an inconsistency
      never to be explained. It was with great surprise that Mrs. Derrick heard
      him continue:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I suppose you know what you're talking about, Pres. Must have
      written invites, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Of course.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Typewritten?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, what an ass you are, Buck,&rdquo; observed Presley calmly. &ldquo;Before you get
      through with it, you will probably insult three-fourths of the people you
      intend to invite, and have about a hundred quarrels on your hands, and a
      lawsuit or two.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      However, before Annixter could reply, Magnus came out on the porch, erect,
      grave, freshly shaven. Without realising what he was doing, Annixter
      instinctively rose to his feet. It was as though Magnus was a
      commander-in-chief of an unseen army, and he a subaltern. There was some
      little conversation as to the proposed dance, and then Annixter found an
      excuse for drawing the Governor aside. Mrs. Derrick watched the two with
      eyes full of poignant anxiety, as they slowly paced the length of the
      gravel driveway to the road gate, and stood there, leaning upon it,
      talking earnestly; Magnus tall, thin-lipped, impassive, one hand in the
      breast of his frock coat, his head bare, his keen, blue eyes fixed upon
      Annixter's face. Annixter came at once to the main point.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I got a wire from Osterman this morning, Governor, and, well&mdash;we've
      got Disbrow. That means that the Denver, Pueblo and Mojave is back of us.
      There's half the fight won, first off.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Osterman bribed him, I suppose,&rdquo; observed Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter raised a shoulder vexatiously.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You've got to pay for what you get,&rdquo; he returned. &ldquo;You don't get
      something for nothing, I guess. Governor,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;I don't see how
      you can stay out of this business much longer. You see how it will be.
      We're going to win, and I don't see how you can feel that it's right of
      you to let us do all the work and stand all the expense. There's never
      been a movement of any importance that went on around you that you weren't
      the leader in it. All Tulare County, all the San Joaquin, for that matter,
      knows you. They want a leader, and they are looking to you. I know how you
      feel about politics nowadays. But, Governor, standards have changed since
      your time; everybody plays the game now as we are playing it&mdash;the
      most honourable men. You can't play it any other way, and, pshaw! if the
      right wins out in the end, that's the main thing. We want you in this
      thing, and we want you bad. You've been chewing on this affair now a long
      time. Have you made up your mind? Do you come in? I tell you what, you've
      got to look at these things in a large way. You've got to judge by
      results. Well, now, what do you think? Do you come in?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus's glance left Annixter's face, and for an instant sought the
      ground. His frown lowered, but now it was in perplexity, rather than in
      anger. His mind was troubled, harassed with a thousand dissensions.
    </p>
    <p>
      But one of Magnus's strongest instincts, one of his keenest desires, was
      to be, if only for a short time, the master. To control men had ever been
      his ambition; submission of any kind, his greatest horror. His energy
      stirred within him, goaded by the lash of his anger, his sense of
      indignity, of insult. Oh for one moment to be able to strike back, to
      crush his enemy, to defeat the railroad, hold the Corporation in the grip
      of his fist, put down S. Behrman, rehabilitate himself, regain his
      self-respect. To be once more powerful, to command, to dominate. His thin
      lips pressed themselves together; the nostrils of his prominent hawk-like
      nose dilated, his erect, commanding figure stiffened unconsciously. For a
      moment, he saw himself controlling the situation, the foremost figure in
      his State, feared, respected, thousands of men beneath him, his ambition
      at length gratified; his career, once apparently brought to naught,
      completed; success a palpable achievement. What if this were his chance,
      after all, come at last after all these years. His chance! The instincts
      of the old-time gambler, the most redoubtable poker player of El Dorado
      County, stirred at the word. Chance! To know it when it came, to recognise
      it as it passed fleet as a wind-flurry, grip at it, catch at it, blind,
      reckless, staking all upon the hazard of the issue, that was genius. Was
      this his Chance? All of a sudden, it seemed to him that it was. But his
      honour! His cherished, lifelong integrity, the unstained purity of his
      principles? At this late date, were they to be sacrificed? Could he now go
      counter to all the firm built fabric of his character? How, afterward,
      could he bear to look Harran and Lyman in the face? And, yet&mdash;and,
      yet&mdash;back swung the pendulum&mdash;to neglect his Chance meant
      failure; a life begun in promise, and ended in obscurity, perhaps in
      financial ruin, poverty even. To seize it meant achievement, fame,
      influence, prestige, possibly great wealth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am so sorry to interrupt,&rdquo; said Mrs. Derrick, as she came up. &ldquo;I hope
      Mr. Annixter will excuse me, but I want Magnus to open the safe for me. I
      have lost the combination, and I must have some money. Phelps is going
      into town, and I want him to pay some bills for me. Can't you come right
      away, Magnus? Phelps is ready and waiting.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter struck his heel into the ground with a suppressed oath. Always
      these fool feemale women came between him and his plans, mixing themselves
      up in his affairs. Magnus had been on the very point of saying something,
      perhaps committing himself to some course of action, and, at precisely the
      wrong moment, his wife had cut in. The opportunity was lost. The three
      returned toward the ranch house; but before saying good-bye, Annixter had
      secured from Magnus a promise to the effect that, before coming to a
      definite decision in the matter under discussion, he would talk further
      with him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley met him at the porch. He was going into town with Phelps, and
      proposed to Annixter that he should accompany them.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I want to go over and see old Broderson,&rdquo; Annixter objected.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Presley informed him that Broderson had gone to Bonneville earlier in
      the morning. He had seen him go past in his buckboard. The three men set
      off, Phelps and Annixter on horseback, Presley on his bicycle.
    </p>
    <p>
      When they had gone, Mrs. Derrick sought out her husband in the office of
      the ranch house. She was at her prettiest that morning, her cheeks flushed
      with excitement, her innocent, wide-open eyes almost girlish. She had
      fastened her hair, still moist, with a black ribbon tied at the back of
      her head, and the soft mass of light brown reached to below her waist,
      making her look very young.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What was it he was saying to you just now,&rdquo; she exclaimed, as she came
      through the gate in the green-painted wire railing of the office. &ldquo;What
      was Mr. Annixter saying? I know. He was trying to get you to join him,
      trying to persuade you to be dishonest, wasn't that it? Tell me, Magnus,
      wasn't that it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus nodded.
    </p>
    <p>
      His wife drew close to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you won't, will you? You won't listen to him again; you won't so much
      as allow him&mdash;anybody&mdash;to even suppose you would lend yourself
      to bribery? Oh, Magnus, I don't know what has come over you these last few
      weeks. Why, before this, you would have been insulted if any one thought
      you would even consider anything like dishonesty. Magnus, it would break
      my heart if you joined Mr. Annixter and Mr. Osterman. Why, you couldn't be
      the same man to me afterward; you, who have kept yourself so clean till
      now. And the boys; what would Lyman say, and Harran, and every one who
      knows you and respects you, if you lowered yourself to be just a political
      adventurer!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      For a moment, Derrick leaned his head upon his hand, avoiding her gaze. At
      length, he said, drawing a deep breath: &ldquo;I am troubled, Annie. These are
      the evil days. I have much upon my mind.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Evil days or not,&rdquo; she insisted, &ldquo;promise me this one thing, that you
      will not join Mr. Annixter's scheme.&rdquo; She had taken his hand in both of
      hers and was looking into his face, her pretty eyes full of pleading.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Promise me,&rdquo; she repeated; &ldquo;give me your word. Whatever happens, let me
      always be able to be proud of you, as I always have been. Give me your
      word. I know you never seriously thought of joining Mr. Annixter, but I am
      so nervous and frightened sometimes. Just to relieve my mind, Magnus, give
      me your word.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why&mdash;you are right,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;No, I never thought seriously of
      it. Only for a moment, I was ambitious to be&mdash;I don't know what&mdash;what
      I had hoped to be once&mdash;well, that is over now. Annie, your husband
      is a disappointed man.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Give me your word,&rdquo; she insisted. &ldquo;We can talk about other things
      afterward.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Again Magnus wavered, about to yield to his better instincts and to the
      entreaties of his wife. He began to see how perilously far he had gone in
      this business. He was drifting closer to it every hour. Already he was
      entangled, already his foot was caught in the mesh that was being spun.
      Sharply he recoiled. Again all his instincts of honesty revolted. No,
      whatever happened, he would preserve his integrity. His wife was right.
      Always she had influenced his better side. At that moment, Magnus's
      repugnance of the proposed political campaign was at its pitch of
      intensity. He wondered how he had ever allowed himself to so much as
      entertain the idea of joining with the others. Now, he would wrench free,
      would, in a single instant of power, clear himself of all compromising
      relations. He turned to his wife. Upon his lips trembled the promise she
      implored. But suddenly there came to his mind the recollection of his
      new-made pledge to Annixter. He had given his word that before arriving at
      a decision he would have a last interview with him. To Magnus, his given
      word was sacred. Though now he wanted to, he could not as yet draw back,
      could not promise his wife that he would decide to do right. The matter
      must be delayed a few days longer.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lamely, he explained this to her. Annie Derrick made but little response
      when he had done. She kissed his forehead and went out of the room,
      uneasy, depressed, her mind thronging with vague fears, leaving Magnus
      before his office desk, his head in his hands, thoughtful, gloomy,
      assaulted by forebodings.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meanwhile, Annixter, Phelps, and Presley continued on their way toward
      Bonneville. In a short time they had turned into the County Road by the
      great watering-tank, and proceeded onward in the shade of the interminable
      line of poplar trees, the wind-break that stretched along the roadside
      bordering the Broderson ranch. But as they drew near to Caraher's saloon
      and grocery, about half a mile outside of Bonneville, they recognised
      Harran's horse tied to the railing in front of it. Annixter left the
      others and went in to see Harran.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Harran,&rdquo; he said, when the two had sat down on either side of one of the
      small tables, &ldquo;you've got to make up your mind one way or another pretty
      soon. What are you going to do? Are you going to stand by and see the rest
      of the Committee spending money by the bucketful in this thing and keep
      your hands in your pockets? If we win, you'll benefit just as much as the
      rest of us. I suppose you've got some money of your own&mdash;you have,
      haven't you? You are your father's manager, aren't you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Disconcerted at Annixter's directness, Harran stammered an affirmative,
      adding:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's hard to know just what to do. It's a mean position for me, Buck. I
      want to help you others, but I do want to play fair. I don't know how to
      play any other way. I should like to have a line from the Governor as to
      how to act, but there's no getting a word out of him these days. He seems
      to want to let me decide for myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, look here,&rdquo; put in Annixter. &ldquo;Suppose you keep out of the thing
      till it's all over, and then share and share alike with the Committee on
      campaign expenses.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran fell thoughtful, his hands in his pockets, frowning moodily at the
      toe of his boot. There was a silence. Then:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't like to go it blind,&rdquo; he hazarded. &ldquo;I'm sort of sharing the
      responsibility of what you do, then. I'm a silent partner. And, then&mdash;I
      don't want to have any difficulties with the Governor. We've always got
      along well together. He wouldn't like it, you know, if I did anything like
      that.&rdquo; &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter abruptly, &ldquo;if the Governor says he will
      keep his hands off, and that you can do as you please, will you come in?
      For God's sake, let us ranchers act together for once. Let's stand in with
      each other in ONE fight.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Without knowing it, Annixter had touched the right spring.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know but what you're right,&rdquo; Harran murmured vaguely. His sense
      of discouragement, that feeling of what's-the-use, was never more
      oppressive. All fair means had been tried. The wheat grower was at last
      with his back to the wall. If he chose his own means of fighting, the
      responsibility must rest upon his enemies, not on himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's the only way to accomplish anything,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;standing in
      with each other... well,... go ahead and see what you can do. If the
      Governor is willing, I'll come in for my share of the campaign fund.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's some sense,&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter, shaking him by the hand. &ldquo;Half
      the fight is over already. We've got Disbrow you know; and the next thing
      is to get hold of some of those rotten San Francisco bosses. Osterman will&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
       But Harran interrupted him, making a quick gesture with his hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't tell me about it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don't want to know what you and
      Osterman are going to do. If I did, I shouldn't come in.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Yet, for all this, before they said good-bye Annixter had obtained
      Harran's promise that he would attend the next meeting of the Committee,
      when Osterman should return from Los Angeles and make his report. Harran
      went on toward Los Muertos. Annixter mounted and rode into Bonneville.
    </p>
    <p>
      Bonneville was very lively at all times. It was a little city of some
      twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants, where, as yet, the city hall, the
      high school building, and the opera house were objects of civic pride. It
      was well governed, beautifully clean, full of the energy and strenuous
      young life of a new city. An air of the briskest activity pervaded its
      streets and sidewalks. The business portion of the town, centring about
      Main Street, was always crowded. Annixter, arriving at the Post Office,
      found himself involved in a scene of swiftly shifting sights and sounds.
      Saddle horses, farm wagons&mdash;the inevitable Studebakers&mdash;buggies
      grey with the dust of country roads, buckboards with squashes and grocery
      packages stowed under the seat, two-wheeled sulkies and training carts,
      were hitched to the gnawed railings and zinc-sheathed telegraph poles
      along the curb. Here and there, on the edge of the sidewalk, were
      bicycles, wedged into bicycle racks painted with cigar advertisements.
      Upon the asphalt sidewalk itself, soft and sticky with the morning's heat,
      was a continuous movement. Men with large stomachs, wearing linen coats
      but no vests, laboured ponderously up and down. Girls in lawn skirts,
      shirt waists, and garden hats, went to and fro, invariably in couples,
      coming in and out of the drug store, the grocery store, and haberdasher's,
      or lingering in front of the Post Office, which was on a corner under the
      I.O.O.F. hall. Young men, in shirt sleeves, with brown, wicker
      cuff-protectors over their forearms, and pencils behind their ears,
      bustled in front of the grocery store, anxious and preoccupied. A very old
      man, a Mexican, in ragged white trousers and bare feet, sat on a
      horse-block in front of the barber shop, holding a horse by a rope around
      its neck. A Chinaman went by, teetering under the weight of his market
      baskets slung on a pole across his shoulders. In the neighbourhood of the
      hotel, the Yosemite House, travelling salesmen, drummers for jewelry firms
      of San Francisco, commercial agents, insurance men, well-dressed,
      metropolitan, debonair, stood about cracking jokes, or hurried in and out
      of the flapping white doors of the Yosemite barroom. The Yosemite 'bus and
      City 'bus passed up the street, on the way from the morning train, each
      with its two or three passengers. A very narrow wagon, belonging to the
      Cole &amp; Colemore Harvester Works, went by, loaded with long strips of
      iron that made a horrible din as they jarred over the unevenness of the
      pavement. The electric car line, the city's boast, did a brisk business,
      its cars whirring from end to end of the street, with a jangling of bells
      and a moaning plaint of gearing. On the stone bulkheads of the grass plat
      around the new City Hall, the usual loafers sat, chewing tobacco, swapping
      stories. In the park were the inevitable array of nursemaids, skylarking
      couples, and ragged little boys. A single policeman, in grey coat and
      helmet, friend and acquaintance of every man and woman in the town, stood
      by the park entrance, leaning an elbow on the fence post, twirling his
      club.
    </p>
    <p>
      But in the centre of the best business block of the street was a
      three-story building of rough brown stone, set off with plate glass
      windows and gold-lettered signs. One of these latter read, &ldquo;Pacific and
      Southwestern Railroad, Freight and Passenger Office,&rdquo; while another much
      smaller, beneath the windows of the second story bore the inscription, &ldquo;P.
      and S. W. Land Office.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter hitched his horse to the iron post in front of this building, and
      tramped up to the second floor, letting himself into an office where a
      couple of clerks and bookkeepers sat at work behind a high wire screen.
      One of these latter recognised him and came forward.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; said Annixter abruptly, scowling the while. &ldquo;Is your boss in? Is
      Ruggles in?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The bookkeeper led Annixter to the private office in an adjoining room,
      ushering him through a door, on the frosted glass of which was painted the
      name, &ldquo;Cyrus Blakelee Ruggles.&rdquo; Inside, a man in a frock coat, shoestring
      necktie, and Stetson hat, sat writing at a roller-top desk. Over this desk
      was a vast map of the railroad holdings in the country about Bonneville
      and Guadalajara, the alternate sections belonging to the Corporation
      accurately plotted. Ruggles was cordial in his welcome of Annixter. He had
      a way of fiddling with his pencil continually while he talked, scribbling
      vague lines and fragments of words and names on stray bits of paper, and
      no sooner had Annixter sat down than he had begun to write, in
      full-bellied script, ANN ANN all over his blotting pad.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I want to see about those lands of mine&mdash;I mean of yours&mdash;of
      the railroad's,&rdquo; Annixter commenced at once. &ldquo;I want to know when I can
      buy. I'm sick of fooling along like this.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, Mr. Annixter,&rdquo; observed Ruggles, writing a great L before the ANN,
      and finishing it off with a flourishing D. &ldquo;The lands&rdquo;&mdash;he crossed
      out one of the N's and noted the effect with a hasty glance&mdash;&ldquo;the
      lands are practically yours. You have an option on them indefinitely, and,
      as it is, you don't have to pay the taxes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Rot your option! I want to own them,&rdquo; Annixter declared. &ldquo;What have you
      people got to gain by putting off selling them to us. Here this thing has
      dragged along for over eight years. When I came in on Quien Sabe, the
      understanding was that the lands&mdash;your alternate sections&mdash;were
      to be conveyed to me within a few months.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The land had not been patented to us then,&rdquo; answered Ruggles.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, it has been now, I guess,&rdquo; retorted Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm sure I couldn't tell you, Mr. Annixter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter crossed his legs weariedly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, what's the good of lying, Ruggles? You know better than to talk that
      way to me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ruggles's face flushed on the instant, but he checked his answer and
      laughed instead.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, if you know so much about it&mdash;&rdquo; he observed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, when are you going to sell to me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm only acting for the General Office, Mr. Annixter,&rdquo; returned Ruggles.
      &ldquo;Whenever the Directors are ready to take that matter up, I'll be only too
      glad to put it through for you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As if you didn't know. Look here, you're not talking to old Broderson.
      Wake up, Ruggles. What's all this talk in Genslinger's rag about the
      grading of the value of our lands this winter and an advance in the
      price?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ruggles spread out his hands with a deprecatory gesture.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't own the 'Mercury,'&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, your company does.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If it does, I don't know anything about it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, rot! As if you and Genslinger and S. Behrman didn't run the whole
      show down here. Come on, let's have it, Ruggles. What does S. Behrman pay
      Genslinger for inserting that three-inch ad. of the P. and S. W. in his
      paper? Ten thousand a year, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, why not a hundred thousand and be done with it?&rdquo; returned the other,
      willing to take it as a joke.
    </p>
    <p>
      Instead of replying, Annixter drew his check-book from his inside pocket.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Let me take that fountain pen of yours,&rdquo; he said. Holding the book on his
      knee he wrote out a check, tore it carefully from the stub, and laid it on
      the desk in front of Ruggles.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's this?&rdquo; asked Ruggles.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Three-fourths payment for the sections of railroad land included in my
      ranch, based on a valuation of two dollars and a half per acre. You can
      have the balance in sixty-day notes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ruggles shook his head, drawing hastily back from the check as though it
      carried contamination.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can't touch it,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I've no authority to sell to you yet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't understand you people,&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter. &ldquo;I offered to buy of
      you the same way four years ago and you sang the same song. Why, it isn't
      business. You lose the interest on your money. Seven per cent. of that
      capital for four years&mdash;you can figure it out. It's big money.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, then, I don't see why you're so keen on parting with it. You can
      get seven per cent. the same as us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I want to own my own land,&rdquo; returned Annixter. &ldquo;I want to feel that every
      lump of dirt inside my fence is my personal property. Why, the very house
      I live in now&mdash;the ranch house&mdash;stands on railroad ground.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, you've an option&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I tell you I don't want your cursed option. I want ownership; and it's
      the same with Magnus Derrick and old Broderson and Osterman and all the
      ranchers of the county. We want to own our land, want to feel we can do as
      we blame please with it. Suppose I should want to sell Quien Sabe. I can't
      sell it as a whole till I've bought of you. I can't give anybody a clear
      title. The land has doubled in value ten times over again since I came in
      on it and improved it. It's worth easily twenty an acre now. But I can't
      take advantage of that rise in value so long as you won't sell, so long as
      I don't own it. You're blocking me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, according to you, the railroad can't take advantage of the rise in
      any case. According to you, you can sell for twenty dollars, but we can
      only get two and a half.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who made it worth twenty?&rdquo; cried Annixter. &ldquo;I've improved it up to that
      figure. Genslinger seems to have that idea in his nut, too. Do you people
      think you can hold that land, untaxed, for speculative purposes until it
      goes up to thirty dollars and then sell out to some one else&mdash;sell it
      over our heads? You and Genslinger weren't in office when those contracts
      were drawn. You ask your boss, you ask S. Behrman, he knows. The General
      Office is pledged to sell to us in preference to any one else, for two and
      a half.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; observed Ruggles decidedly, tapping the end of his pencil on his
      desk and leaning forward to emphasise his words, &ldquo;we're not selling NOW.
      That's said and signed, Mr. Annixter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why not? Come, spit it out. What's the bunco game this time?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Because we're not ready. Here's your check.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You won't take it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll make it a cash payment, money down&mdash;the whole of it&mdash;payable
      to Cyrus Blakelee Ruggles, for the P. and S. W.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Third and last time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, go to the devil!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't like your tone, Mr. Annixter,&rdquo; returned Ruggles, flushing
      angrily. &ldquo;I don't give a curse whether you like it or not,&rdquo; retorted
      Annixter, rising and thrusting the check into his pocket, &ldquo;but never you
      mind, Mr. Ruggles, you and S. Behrman and Genslinger and Shelgrim and the
      whole gang of thieves of you&mdash;you'll wake this State of California up
      some of these days by going just one little bit too far, and there'll be
      an election of Railroad Commissioners of, by, and for the people, that'll
      get a twist of you, my bunco-steering friend&mdash;you and your backers
      and cappers and swindlers and thimble-riggers, and smash you, lock, stock,
      and barrel. That's my tip to you and be damned to you, Mr. Cyrus Blackleg
      Ruggles.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him, and
      Ruggles, trembling with anger, turned to his desk and to the blotting pad
      written all over with the words LANDS, TWENTY DOLLARS, TWO AND A HALF,
      OPTION, and, over and over again, with great swelling curves and
      flourishes, RAILROAD, RAILROAD, RAILROAD.
    </p>
    <p>
      But as Annixter passed into the outside office, on the other side of the
      wire partition he noted the figure of a man at the counter in conversation
      with one of the clerks. There was something familiar to Annixter's eye
      about the man's heavy built frame, his great shoulders and massive back,
      and as he spoke to the clerk in a tremendous, rumbling voice, Annixter
      promptly recognised Dyke.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a meeting. Annixter liked Dyke, as did every one else in and
      about Bonneville. He paused now to shake hands with the discharged
      engineer and to ask about his little daughter, Sidney, to whom he knew
      Dyke was devotedly attached.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Smartest little tad in Tulare County,&rdquo; asserted Dyke. &ldquo;She's getting
      prettier every day, Mr. Annixter. THERE'S a little tad that was just born
      to be a lady. Can recite the whole of 'Snow Bound' without ever stopping.
      You don't believe that, maybe, hey? Well, it's true. She'll be just old
      enough to enter the Seminary up at Marysville next winter, and if my hop
      business pays two per cent. on the investment, there's where she's going
      to go.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How's it coming on?&rdquo; inquired Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The hop ranch? Prime. I've about got the land in shape, and I've engaged
      a foreman who knows all about hops. I've been in luck. Everybody will go
      into the business next year when they see hops go to a dollar, and they'll
      overstock the market and bust the price. But I'm going to get the cream of
      it now. I say two per cent. Why, Lord love you, it will pay a good deal
      more than that. It's got to. It's cost more than I figured to start the
      thing, so, perhaps, I may have to borrow somewheres; but then on such a
      sure game as this&mdash;and I do want to make something out of that little
      tad of mine.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Through here?&rdquo; inquired Annixter, making ready to move off.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In just a minute,&rdquo; answered Dyke. &ldquo;Wait for me and I'll walk down the
      street with you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter grumbled that he was in a hurry, but waited, nevertheless, while
      Dyke again approached the clerk.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I shall want some empty cars of you people this fall,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;I'm
      a hop-raiser now, and I just want to make sure what your rates on hops
      are. I've been told, but I want to make sure. Savvy?&rdquo; There was a long
      delay while the clerk consulted the tariff schedules, and Annixter fretted
      impatiently. Dyke, growing uneasy, leaned heavily on his elbows, watching
      the clerk anxiously. If the tariff was exorbitant, he saw his plans
      brought to naught, his money jeopardised, the little tad, Sidney, deprived
      of her education. He began to blame himself that he had not long before
      determined definitely what the railroad would charge for moving his hops.
      He told himself he was not much of a business man; that he managed
      carelessly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Two cents,&rdquo; suddenly announced the clerk with a certain surly
      indifference.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Two cents a pound?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, two cents a pound&mdash;that's in car-load lots, of course. I won't
      give you that rate on smaller consignments.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, car-load lots, of course... two cents. Well, all right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He turned away with a great sigh of relief.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He sure did have me scared for a minute,&rdquo; he said to Annixter, as the two
      went down to the street, &ldquo;fiddling and fussing so long. Two cents is all
      right, though. Seems fair to me. That fiddling of his was all put on. I
      know 'em, these railroad heelers. He knew I was a discharged employee
      first off, and he played the game just to make me seem small because I had
      to ask favours of him. I don't suppose the General Office tips its slavees
      off to act like swine, but there's the feeling through the whole herd of
      them. 'Ye got to come to us. We let ye live only so long as we choose, and
      what are ye going to do about it? If ye don't like it, git out.'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter and the engineer descended to the street and had a drink at the
      Yosemite bar, and Annixter went into the General Store while Dyke bought a
      little pair of red slippers for Sidney. Before the salesman had wrapped
      them up, Dyke slipped a dime into the toe of each with a wink at Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Let the little tad find 'em there,&rdquo; he said behind his hand in a hoarse
      whisper. &ldquo;That'll be one on Sid.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where to now?&rdquo; demanded Annixter as they regained the street. &ldquo;I'm going
      down to the Post Office and then pull out for the ranch. Going my way?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke hesitated in some confusion, tugging at the ends of his fine blonde
      beard.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no. I guess I'll leave you here. I've got&mdash;got other things to
      do up the street. So long.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The two separated, and Annixter hurried through the crowd to the Post
      Office, but the mail that had come in on that morning's train was
      unusually heavy. It was nearly half an hour before it was distributed.
      Naturally enough, Annixter placed all the blame of the delay upon the
      railroad, and delivered himself of some pointed remarks in the midst of
      the waiting crowd. He was irritated to the last degree when he finally
      emerged upon the sidewalk again, cramming his mail into his pockets. One
      cause of his bad temper was the fact that in the bundle of Quien Sabe
      letters was one to Hilma Tree in a man's handwriting.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Huh!&rdquo; Annixter had growled to himself, &ldquo;that pip Delaney. Seems now that
      I'm to act as go-between for 'em. Well, maybe that feemale girl gets this
      letter, and then, again, maybe she don't.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But suddenly his attention was diverted. Directly opposite the Post
      Office, upon the corner of the street, stood quite the best business
      building of which Bonneville could boast. It was built of Colusa granite,
      very solid, ornate, imposing. Upon the heavy plate of the window of its
      main floor, in gold and red letters, one read the words: &ldquo;Loan and Savings
      Bank of Tulare County.&rdquo; It was of this bank that S. Behrman was president.
      At the street entrance of the building was a curved sign of polished
      brass, fixed upon the angle of the masonry; this sign bore the name, &ldquo;S.
      Behrman,&rdquo; and under it in smaller letters were the words, &ldquo;Real Estate,
      Mortgages.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As Annixter's glance fell upon this building, he was surprised to see Dyke
      standing upon the curb in front of it, apparently reading from a newspaper
      that he held in his hand. But Annixter promptly discovered that he was not
      reading at all. From time to time the former engineer shot a swift glance
      out of the corner of his eye up and down the street. Annixter jumped at a
      conclusion. An idea suddenly occurred to him. Dyke was watching to see if
      he was observed&mdash;was waiting an opportunity when no one who knew him
      should be in sight. Annixter stepped back a little, getting a telegraph
      pole somewhat between him and the other. Very interested, he watched what
      was going on. Pretty soon Dyke thrust the paper into his pocket and
      sauntered slowly to the windows of a stationery store, next the street
      entrance of S. Behrman's offices. For a few seconds he stood there, his
      back turned, seemingly absorbed in the display, but eyeing the street
      narrowly nevertheless; then he turned around, gave a last look about and
      stepped swiftly into the doorway by the great brass sign. He disappeared.
      Annixter came from behind the telegraph pole with a flush of actual shame
      upon his face. There had been something so slinking, so mean, in the
      movements and manner of this great, burly honest fellow of an engineer,
      that he could not help but feel ashamed for him. Circumstances were such
      that a simple business transaction was to Dyke almost culpable, a
      degradation, a thing to be concealed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Borrowing money of S. Behrman,&rdquo; commented Annixter, &ldquo;mortgaging your
      little homestead to the railroad, putting your neck in the halter. Poor
      fool! The pity of it. Good Lord, your hops must pay you big, now, old
      man.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter lunched at the Yosemite Hotel, and then later on, toward the
      middle of the afternoon, rode out of the town at a canter by the way of
      the Upper Road that paralleled the railroad tracks and that ran
      diametrically straight between Bonneville and Guadalajara. About half-way
      between the two places he overtook Father Sarria trudging back to San
      Juan, his long cassock powdered with dust. He had a wicker crate in one
      hand, and in the other, in a small square valise, the materials for the
      Holy Sacrament. Since early morning the priest had covered nearly fifteen
      miles on foot, in order to administer Extreme Unction to a moribund
      good-for-nothing, a greaser, half Indian, half Portuguese, who lived in a
      remote corner of Osterman's stock range, at the head of a canon there. But
      he had returned by way of Bonneville to get a crate that had come for him
      from San Diego. He had been notified of its arrival the day before.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter pulled up and passed the time of day with the priest.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't often get up your way,&rdquo; he said, slowing down his horse to
      accommodate Sarria's deliberate plodding. Sarria wiped the perspiration
      from his smooth, shiny face.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You? Well, with you it is different,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;But there are a great
      many Catholics in the county&mdash;some on your ranch. And so few come to
      the Mission. At High Mass on Sundays, there are a few&mdash;Mexicans and
      Spaniards from Guadalajara mostly; but weekdays, for matins, vespers, and
      the like, I often say the offices to an empty church&mdash;'the voice of
      one crying in the wilderness.' You Americans are not good churchmen.
      Sundays you sleep&mdash;you read the newspapers.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, there's Vanamee,&rdquo; observed Annixter. &ldquo;I suppose he's there early
      and late.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sarria made a sharp movement of interest.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, Vanamee&mdash;a strange lad; a wonderful character, for all that. If
      there were only more like him. I am troubled about him. You know I am a
      very owl at night. I come and go about the Mission at all hours. Within
      the week, three times I have seen Vanamee in the little garden by the
      Mission, and at the dead of night. He had come without asking for me. He
      did not see me. It was strange. Once, when I had got up at dawn to ring
      for early matins, I saw him stealing away out of the garden. He must have
      been there all the night. He is acting queerly. He is pale; his cheeks are
      more sunken than ever. There is something wrong with him. I can't make it
      out. It is a mystery. Suppose you ask him?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not I. I've enough to bother myself about. Vanamee is crazy in the head.
      Some morning he will turn up missing again, and drop out of sight for
      another three years. Best let him alone, Sarria. He's a crank. How is that
      greaser of yours up on Osterman's stock range?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, the poor fellow&mdash;the poor fellow,&rdquo; returned the other, the tears
      coming to his eyes. &ldquo;He died this morning&mdash;as you might say, in my
      arms, painfully, but in the faith, in the faith. A good fellow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A lazy, cattle-stealing, knife-in-his-boot Dago.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You misjudge him. A really good fellow on better acquaintance.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter grunted scornfully. Sarria's kindness and good-will toward the
      most outrageous reprobates of the ranches was proverbial. He practically
      supported some half-dozen families that lived in forgotten cabins, lost
      and all but inaccessible, in the far corners of stock range and canyon.
      This particular greaser was the laziest, the dirtiest, the most worthless
      of the lot. But in Sarria's mind, the lout was an object of affection,
      sincere, unquestioning. Thrice a week the priest, with a basket of
      provisions&mdash;cold ham, a bottle of wine, olives, loaves of bread, even
      a chicken or two&mdash;toiled over the interminable stretch of country
      between the Mission and his cabin. Of late, during the rascal's sickness,
      these visits had been almost daily. Hardly once did the priest leave the
      bedside that he did not slip a half-dollar into the palm of his wife or
      oldest daughter. And this was but one case out of many.
    </p>
    <p>
      His kindliness toward animals was the same. A horde of mange-corroded curs
      lived off his bounty, wolfish, ungrateful, often marking him with their
      teeth, yet never knowing the meaning of a harsh word. A burro, over-fed,
      lazy, incorrigible, browsed on the hill back of the Mission, obstinately
      refusing to be harnessed to Sarria's little cart, squealing and biting
      whenever the attempt was made; and the priest suffered him, submitting to
      his humour, inventing excuses for him, alleging that the burro was
      foundered, or was in need of shoes, or was feeble from extreme age. The
      two peacocks, magnificent, proud, cold-hearted, resenting all familiarity,
      he served with the timorous, apologetic affection of a queen's
      lady-in-waiting, resigned to their disdain, happy if only they
      condescended to enjoy the grain he spread for them.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the Long Trestle, Annixter and the priest left the road and took the
      trail that crossed Broderson Creek by the clumps of grey-green willows and
      led across Quien Sabe to the ranch house, and to the Mission farther on.
      They were obliged to proceed in single file here, and Annixter, who had
      allowed the priest to go in front, promptly took notice of the wicker
      basket he carried. Upon his inquiry, Sarria became confused. &ldquo;It was a
      basket that he had had sent down to him from the city.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I know&mdash;but what's in it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why&mdash;I'm sure&mdash;ah, poultry&mdash;a chicken or two.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fancy breed?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes, that's it, a fancy breed.&rdquo; At the ranch house, where they
      arrived toward five o'clock, Annixter insisted that the priest should stop
      long enough for a glass of sherry. Sarria left the basket and his small
      black valise at the foot of the porch steps, and sat down in a rocker on
      the porch itself, fanning himself with his broad-brimmed hat, and shaking
      the dust from his cassock. Annixter brought out the decanter of sherry and
      glasses, and the two drank to each other's health.
    </p>
    <p>
      But as the priest set down his glass, wiping his lips with a murmur of
      satisfaction, the decrepit Irish setter that had attached himself to
      Annixter's house came out from underneath the porch, and nosed vigorously
      about the wicker basket. He upset it. The little peg holding down the
      cover slipped, the basket fell sideways, opening as it fell, and a cock,
      his head enclosed in a little chamois bag such as are used for gold
      watches, struggled blindly out into the open air. A second, similarly
      hooded, followed. The pair, stupefied in their headgear, stood rigid and
      bewildered in their tracks, clucking uneasily. Their tails were closely
      sheared. Their legs, thickly muscled, and extraordinarily long, were
      furnished with enormous cruel-looking spurs. The breed was unmistakable.
      Annixter looked once at the pair, then shouted with laughter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'Poultry'&mdash;'a chicken or two'&mdash;'fancy breed'&mdash;ho! yes, I
      should think so. Game cocks! Fighting cocks! Oh, you old rat! You'll be a
      dry nurse to a burro, and keep a hospital for infirm puppies, but you will
      fight game cocks. Oh, Lord! Why, Sarria, this is as good a grind as I ever
      heard. There's the Spanish cropping out, after all.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Speechless with chagrin, the priest bundled the cocks into the basket and
      catching up the valise, took himself abruptly away, almost running till he
      had put himself out of hearing of Annixter's raillery. And even ten
      minutes later, when Annixter, still chuckling, stood upon the porch steps,
      he saw the priest, far in the distance, climbing the slope of the high
      ground, in the direction of the Mission, still hurrying on at a great
      pace, his cassock flapping behind him, his head bent; to Annixter's notion
      the very picture of discomfiture and confusion.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Annixter turned about to reenter the house, he found himself almost
      face to face with Hilma Tree. She was just going in at the doorway, and a
      great flame of the sunset, shooting in under the eaves of the porch,
      enveloped her from her head, with its thick, moist hair that hung low over
      her neck, to her slim feet, setting a golden flash in the little steel
      buckles of her low shoes. She had come to set the table for Annixter's
      supper. Taken all aback by the suddenness of the encounter, Annixter
      ejaculated an abrupt and senseless, &ldquo;Excuse me.&rdquo; But Hilma, without
      raising her eyes, passed on unmoved into the dining-room, leaving Annixter
      trying to find his breath, and fumbling with the brim of his hat, that he
      was surprised to find he had taken from his head. Resolutely, and taking a
      quick advantage of his opportunity, he followed her into the dining-room.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see that dog has turned up,&rdquo; he announced with brisk cheerfulness.
      &ldquo;That Irish setter I was asking about.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma, a swift, pink flush deepening the delicate rose of her cheeks, did
      not reply, except by nodding her head. She flung the table-cloth out from
      under her arms across the table, spreading it smooth, with quick little
      caresses of her hands. There was a moment's silence. Then Annixter said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here's a letter for you.&rdquo; He laid it down on the table near her, and
      Hilma picked it up. &ldquo;And see here, Miss Hilma,&rdquo; Annixter continued, &ldquo;about
      that&mdash;this morning&mdash;I suppose you think I am a first-class
      mucker. If it will do any good to apologise, why, I will. I want to be
      friends with you. I made a bad mistake, and started in the wrong way. I
      don't know much about women people. I want you to forget about that&mdash;this
      morning, and not think I am a galoot and a mucker. Will you do it? Will
      you be friends with me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma set the plate and coffee cup by Annixter's place before answering,
      and Annixter repeated his question. Then she drew a deep, quick breath,
      the flush in her cheeks returning.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think it was&mdash;it was so wrong of you,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;Oh! you
      don't know how it hurt me. I cried&mdash;oh, for an hour.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that's just it,&rdquo; returned Annixter vaguely, moving his head
      uneasily. &ldquo;I didn't know what kind of a girl you were&mdash;I mean, I made
      a mistake. I thought it didn't make much difference. I thought all
      feemales were about alike.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hope you know now,&rdquo; murmured Hilma ruefully. &ldquo;I've paid enough to have
      you find out. I cried&mdash;you don't know. Why, it hurt me worse than
      anything I can remember. I hope you know now.&rdquo; &ldquo;Well, I do know now,&rdquo; he
      exclaimed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It wasn't so much that you tried to do&mdash;what you did,&rdquo; answered
      Hilma, the single deep swell from her waist to her throat rising and
      falling in her emotion. &ldquo;It was that you thought that you could&mdash;that
      anybody could that wanted to&mdash;that I held myself so cheap. Oh!&rdquo; she
      cried, with a sudden sobbing catch in her throat, &ldquo;I never can forget it,
      and you don't know what it means to a girl.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that's just what I do want,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;I want you to forget it
      and have us be good friends.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In his embarrassment, Annixter could think of no other words. He kept
      reiterating again and again during the pauses of the conversation:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I want you to forget it. Will you? Will you forget it&mdash;that&mdash;this
      morning, and have us be good friends?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He could see that her trouble was keen. He was astonished that the matter
      should be so grave in her estimation. After all, what was it that a girl
      should be kissed? But he wanted to regain his lost ground.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Will you forget it, Miss Hilma? I want you to like me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She took a clean napkin from the sideboard drawer and laid it down by the
      plate.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I&mdash;I do want you to like me,&rdquo; persisted Annixter. &ldquo;I want you to
      forget all about this business and like me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma was silent. Annixter saw the tears in her eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How about that? Will you forget it? Will you&mdash;will&mdash;will you
      LIKE me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She shook her head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No what? You won't like me? Is that it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma, blinking at the napkin through her tears, nodded to say, Yes, that
      was it. Annixter hesitated a moment, frowning, harassed and perplexed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You don't like me at all, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      At length Hilma found her speech. In her low voice, lower and more velvety
      than ever, she said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No&mdash;I don't like you at all.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then, as the tears suddenly overpowered her, she dashed a hand across her
      eyes, and ran from the room and out of doors.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter stood for a moment thoughtful, his protruding lower lip thrust
      out, his hands in his pocket.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose she'll quit now,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Suppose she'll leave the ranch&mdash;if
      she hates me like that. Well, she can go&mdash;that's all&mdash;she can
      go. Fool feemale girl,&rdquo; he muttered between his teeth, &ldquo;petticoat mess.&rdquo;
       He was about to sit down to his supper when his eye fell upon the Irish
      setter, on his haunches in the doorway. There was an expectant,
      ingratiating look on the dog's face. No doubt, he suspected it was time
      for eating.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Get out&mdash;YOU!&rdquo; roared Annixter in a tempest of wrath.
    </p>
    <p>
      The dog slunk back, his tail shut down close, his ears drooping, but
      instead of running away, he lay down and rolled supinely upon his back,
      the very image of submission, tame, abject, disgusting. It was the one
      thing to drive Annixter to a fury. He kicked the dog off the porch in a
      rolling explosion of oaths, and flung himself down to his seat before the
      table, fuming and panting.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Damn the dog and the girl and the whole rotten business&mdash;and now,&rdquo;
       he exclaimed, as a sudden fancied qualm arose in his stomach, &ldquo;now, it's
      all made me sick. Might have known it. Oh, it only lacked that to wind up
      the whole day. Let her go, I don't care, and the sooner the better.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He countermanded the supper and went to bed before it was dark, lighting
      his lamp, on the chair near the head of the bed, and opening his
      &ldquo;Copperfield&rdquo; at the place marked by the strip of paper torn from the bag
      of prunes. For upward of an hour he read the novel, methodically
      swallowing one prune every time he reached the bottom of a page. About
      nine o'clock he blew out the lamp and, punching up his pillow, settled
      himself for the night.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then, as his mind relaxed in that strange, hypnotic condition that comes
      just before sleep, a series of pictures of the day's doings passed before
      his imagination like the roll of a kinetoscope.
    </p>
    <p>
      First, it was Hilma Tree, as he had seen her in the dairy-house&mdash;charming,
      delicious, radiant of youth, her thick, white neck with its pale amber
      shadows under the chin; her wide, open eyes rimmed with fine, black
      lashes; the deep swell of her breast and hips, the delicate, lustrous
      floss on her cheek, impalpable as the pollen of a flower. He saw her
      standing there in the scintillating light of the morning, her smooth arms
      wet with milk, redolent and fragrant of milk, her whole, desirable figure
      moving in the golden glory of the sun, steeped in a lambent flame,
      saturated with it, glowing with it, joyous as the dawn itself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then it was Los Muertos and Hooven, the sordid little Dutchman, grimed
      with the soil he worked in, yet vividly remembering a period of military
      glory, exciting himself with recollections of Gravelotte and the Kaiser,
      but contented now in the country of his adoption, defining the Fatherland
      as the place where wife and children lived. Then came the ranch house of
      Los Muertos, under the grove of cypress and eucalyptus, with its smooth,
      gravelled driveway and well-groomed lawns; Mrs. Derrick with her
      wide-opened eyes, that so easily took on a look of uneasiness, of
      innocence, of anxious inquiry, her face still pretty, her brown hair that
      still retained so much of its brightness spread over her chair back,
      drying in the sun; Magnus, erect as an officer of cavalry, smooth-shaven,
      grey, thin-lipped, imposing, with his hawk-like nose and forward-curling
      grey hair; Presley with his dark face, delicate mouth and sensitive, loose
      lips, in corduroys and laced boots, smoking cigarettes&mdash;an
      interesting figure, suggestive of a mixed origin, morbid, excitable,
      melancholy, brooding upon things that had no names. Then it was
      Bonneville, with the gayety and confusion of Main Street, the whirring
      electric cars, the zinc-sheathed telegraph poles, the buckboards with
      squashes stowed under the seats; Ruggles in frock coat, Stetson hat and
      shoe-string necktie, writing abstractedly upon his blotting pad; Dyke, the
      engineer, big-boned. Powerful, deep-voiced, good-natured, with his fine
      blonde beard and massive arms, rehearsing the praises of his little
      daughter Sidney, guided only by the one ambition that she should be
      educated at a seminary, slipping a dime into the toe of her diminutive
      slipper, then, later, overwhelmed with shame, slinking into S. Behrman's
      office to mortgage his homestead to the heeler of the corporation that had
      discharged him. By suggestion, Annixter saw S. Behrman, too, fat, with a
      vast stomach, the check and neck meeting to form a great, tremulous jowl,
      the roll of fat over his collar, sprinkled with sparse, stiff hairs; saw
      his brown, round-topped hat of varnished straw, the linen vest stamped
      with innumerable interlocked horseshoes, the heavy watch chain, clinking
      against the pearl vest buttons; invariably placid, unruffled, never losing
      his temper, serene, unassailable, enthroned.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then, at the end of all, it was the ranch again, seen in a last brief
      glance before he had gone to bed; the fecundated earth, calm at last,
      nursing the emplanted germ of life, ruddy with the sunset, the horizons
      purple, the small clamour of the day lapsing into quiet, the great, still
      twilight, building itself, dome-like, toward the zenith. The barn fowls
      were roosting in the trees near the stable, the horses crunching their
      fodder in the stalls, the day's work ceasing by slow degrees; and the
      priest, the Spanish churchman, Father Sarria, relic of a departed regime,
      kindly, benign, believing in all goodness, a lover of his fellows and of
      dumb animals, yet, for all that, hurrying away in confusion and
      discomfiture, carrying in one hand the vessels of the Holy Communion and
      in the other a basket of game cocks.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VI
    </h2>
    <p>
      It was high noon, and the rays of the sun, that hung poised directly
      overhead in an intolerable white glory, fell straight as plummets upon the
      roofs and streets of Guadalajara. The adobe walls and sparse brick
      sidewalks of the drowsing town radiated the heat in an oily, quivering
      shimmer. The leaves of the eucalyptus trees around the Plaza drooped
      motionless, limp and relaxed under the scorching, searching blaze. The
      shadows of these trees had shrunk to their smallest circumference,
      contracting close about the trunks. The shade had dwindled to the breadth
      of a mere line. The sun was everywhere. The heat exhaling from brick and
      plaster and metal met the heat that steadily descended blanketwise and
      smothering, from the pale, scorched sky. Only the lizards&mdash;they lived
      in chinks of the crumbling adobe and in interstices of the sidewalk&mdash;remained
      without, motionless, as if stuffed, their eyes closed to mere slits,
      basking, stupefied with heat. At long intervals the prolonged drone of an
      insect developed out of the silence, vibrated a moment in a soothing,
      somnolent, long note, then trailed slowly into the quiet again. Somewhere
      in the interior of one of the 'dobe houses a guitar snored and hummed
      sleepily. On the roof of the hotel a group of pigeons cooed incessantly
      with subdued, liquid murmurs, very plaintive; a cat, perfectly white, with
      a pink nose and thin, pink lips, dozed complacently on a fence rail, full
      in the sun. In a corner of the Plaza three hens wallowed in the baking hot
      dust their wings fluttering, clucking comfortably.
    </p>
    <p>
      And this was all. A Sunday repose prevailed the whole moribund town,
      peaceful, profound. A certain pleasing numbness, a sense of grateful
      enervation exhaled from the scorching plaster. There was no movement, no
      sound of human business. The faint hum of the insect, the intermittent
      murmur of the guitar, the mellow complainings of the pigeons, the
      prolonged purr of the white cat, the contented clucking of the hens&mdash;all
      these noises mingled together to form a faint, drowsy bourdon, prolonged,
      stupefying, suggestive of an infinite quiet, of a calm, complacent life,
      centuries old, lapsing gradually to its end under the gorgeous loneliness
      of a cloudless, pale blue sky and the steady fire of an interminable sun.
    </p>
    <p>
      In Solotari's Spanish-Mexican restaurant, Vanamee and Presley sat opposite
      each other at one of the tables near the door, a bottle of white wine,
      tortillas, and an earthen pot of frijoles between them. They were the sole
      occupants of the place. It was the day that Annixter had chosen for his
      barn-dance and, in consequence, Quien Sabe was in fete and work suspended.
      Presley and Vanamee had arranged to spend the day in each other's company,
      lunching at Solotari's and taking a long tramp in the afternoon. For the
      moment they sat back in their chairs, their meal all but finished.
      Solotari brought black coffee and a small carafe of mescal, and retiring
      to a corner of the room, went to sleep.
    </p>
    <p>
      All through the meal Presley had been wondering over a certain change he
      observed in his friend. He looked at him again.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee's lean, spare face was of an olive pallor. His long, black hair,
      such as one sees in the saints and evangelists of the pre-Raphaelite
      artists, hung over his ears. Presley again remarked his pointed beard,
      black and fine, growing from the hollow cheeks. He looked at his face, a
      face like that of a young seer, like a half-inspired shepherd of the
      Hebraic legends, a dweller in the wilderness, gifted with strange powers.
      He was dressed as when Presley had first met him, herding his sheep, in
      brown canvas overalls, thrust into top boots; grey flannel shirt, open at
      the throat, showing the breast ruddy with tan; the waist encircled with a
      cartridge belt, empty of cartridges.
    </p>
    <p>
      But now, as Presley took more careful note of him, he was surprised to
      observe a certain new look in Vanamee's deep-set eyes. He remembered now
      that all through the morning Vanamee had been singularly reserved. He was
      continually drifting into reveries, abstracted, distrait. Indubitably,
      something of moment had happened.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length Vanamee spoke. Leaning back in his chair, his thumbs in his
      belt, his bearded chin upon his breast, his voice was the even monotone of
      one speaking in his sleep.
    </p>
    <p>
      He told Presley in a few words what had happened during the first night he
      had spent in the garden of the old Mission, of the Answer, half-fancied,
      half-real, that had come to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To no other person but you would I speak of this,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but you, I
      think, will understand&mdash;will be sympathetic, at least, and I feel the
      need of unburdening myself of it to some one. At first I would not trust
      my own senses. I was sure I had deceived myself, but on a second night it
      happened again. Then I was afraid&mdash;or no, not afraid, but disturbed&mdash;oh,
      shaken to my very heart's core. I resolved to go no further in the matter,
      never again to put it to test. For a long time I stayed away from the
      Mission, occupying myself with my work, keeping it out of my mind. But the
      temptation was too strong. One night I found myself there again, under the
      black shadow of the pear trees calling for Angele, summoning her from out
      the dark, from out the night. This time the Answer was prompt,
      unmistakable. I cannot explain to you what it was, nor how it came to me,
      for there was no sound. I saw absolutely nothing but the empty night.
      There was no moon. But somewhere off there over the little valley, far
      off, the darkness was troubled; that ME that went out upon my thought&mdash;out
      from the Mission garden, out over the valley, calling for her, searching
      for her, found, I don't know what, but found a resting place&mdash;a
      companion. Three times since then I have gone to the Mission garden at
      night. Last night was the third time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He paused, his eyes shining with excitement. Presley leaned forward toward
      him, motionless with intense absorption.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well&mdash;and last night,&rdquo; he prompted.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee stirred in his seat, his glance fell, he drummed an instant upon
      the table.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Last night,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;there was&mdash;there was a change. The Answer
      was&mdash;&rdquo; he drew a deep breath&mdash;&ldquo;nearer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are sure?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other smiled with absolute certainty.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It was not that I found the Answer sooner, easier. I could not be
      mistaken. No, that which has troubled the darkness, that which has entered
      into the empty night&mdash;is coming nearer to me&mdash;physically nearer,
      actually nearer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His voice sank again. His face like the face of younger prophets, the
      seers, took on a half-inspired expression. He looked vaguely before him
      with unseeing eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Suppose,&rdquo; he murmured, &ldquo;suppose I stand there under the pear trees at
      night and call her again and again, and each time the Answer comes nearer
      and nearer and I wait until at last one night, the supreme night of all,
      she&mdash;she&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly the tension broke. With a sharp cry and a violent uncertain
      gesture of the hand Vanamee came to himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;what is it? Do I dare? What does it mean? There are
      times when it appals me and there are times when it thrills me with a
      sweetness and a happiness that I have not known since she died. The
      vagueness of it! How can I explain it to you, this that happens when I
      call to her across the night&mdash;that faint, far-off, unseen tremble in
      the darkness, that intangible, scarcely perceptible stir. Something
      neither heard nor seen, appealing to a sixth sense only. Listen, it is
      something like this: On Quien Sabe, all last week, we have been seeding
      the earth. The grain is there now under the earth buried in the dark, in
      the black stillness, under the clods. Can you imagine the first&mdash;the
      very first little quiver of life that the grain of wheat must feel after
      it is sown, when it answers to the call of the sun, down there in the dark
      of the earth, blind, deaf; the very first stir from the inert, long, long
      before any physical change has occurred,&mdash;long before the microscope
      could discover the slightest change,&mdash;when the shell first tightens
      with the first faint premonition of life? Well, it is something as
      illusive as that.&rdquo; He paused again, dreaming, lost in a reverie, then,
      just above a whisper, murmured:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;'That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die,'... and she,
      Angele... died.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You could not have been mistaken?&rdquo; said Presley. &ldquo;You were sure that
      there was something? Imagination can do so much and the influence of the
      surroundings was strong. How impossible it would be that anything SHOULD
      happen. And you say you heard nothing, saw nothing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; answered Vanamee, &ldquo;in a sixth sense, or, rather, a whole
      system of other unnamed senses beyond the reach of our understanding.
      People who live much alone and close to nature experience the sensation of
      it. Perhaps it is something fundamental that we share with plants and
      animals. The same thing that sends the birds south long before the first
      colds, the same thing that makes the grain of wheat struggle up to meet
      the sun. And this sense never deceives. You may see wrong, hear wrong, but
      once touch this sixth sense and it acts with absolute fidelity, you are
      certain. No, I hear nothing in the Mission garden. I see nothing, nothing
      touches me, but I am CERTAIN for all that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley hesitated for a moment, then he asked:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shall you go back to the garden again? Make the test again?&rdquo; &ldquo;I don't
      know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Strange enough,&rdquo; commented Presley, wondering.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee sank back in his chair, his eyes growing vacant again:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Strange enough,&rdquo; he murmured.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a long silence. Neither spoke nor moved. There, in that
      moribund, ancient town, wrapped in its siesta, flagellated with heat,
      deserted, ignored, baking in a noon-day silence, these two strange men,
      the one a poet by nature, the other by training, both out of tune with
      their world, dreamers, introspective, morbid, lost and unfamiliar at that
      end-of-the-century time, searching for a sign, groping and baffled amidst
      the perplexing obscurity of the Delusion, sat over empty wine glasses,
      silent with the pervading silence that surrounded them, hearing only the
      cooing of doves and the drone of bees, the quiet so profound, that at
      length they could plainly distinguish at intervals the puffing and
      coughing of a locomotive switching cars in the station yard of Bonneville.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was, no doubt, this jarring sound that at length roused Presley from
      his lethargy. The two friends rose; Solotari very sleepily came forward;
      they paid for the luncheon, and stepping out into the heat and glare of
      the streets of the town, passed on through it and took the road that led
      northward across a corner of Dyke's hop fields. They were bound for the
      hills in the northeastern corner of Quien Sabe. It was the same walk which
      Presley had taken on the previous occasion when he had first met Vanamee
      herding the sheep. This encompassing detour around the whole country-side
      was a favorite pastime of his and he was anxious that Vanamee should share
      his pleasure in it.
    </p>
    <p>
      But soon after leaving Guadalajara, they found themselves upon the land
      that Dyke had bought and upon which he was to raise his famous crop of
      hops. Dyke's house was close at hand, a very pleasant little cottage,
      painted white, with green blinds and deep porches, while near it and yet
      in process of construction, were two great storehouses and a drying and
      curing house, where the hops were to be stored and treated. All about were
      evidences that the former engineer had already been hard at work. The
      ground had been put in readiness to receive the crop and a bewildering,
      innumerable multitude of poles, connected with a maze of wire and twine,
      had been set out. Farther on at a turn of the road, they came upon Dyke
      himself, driving a farm wagon loaded with more poles. He was in his shirt
      sleeves, his massive, hairy arms bare to the elbow, glistening with sweat,
      red with heat. In his bell-like, rumbling voice, he was calling to his
      foreman and a boy at work in stringing the poles together. At sight of
      Presley and Vanamee he hailed them jovially, addressing them as &ldquo;boys,&rdquo;
       and insisting that they should get into the wagon with him and drive to
      the house for a glass of beer. His mother had only the day before returned
      from Marysville, where she had been looking up a seminary for the little
      tad. She would be delighted to see the two boys; besides, Vanamee must see
      how the little tad had grown since he last set eyes on her; wouldn't know
      her for the same little girl; and the beer had been on ice since morning.
      Presley and Vanamee could not well refuse.
    </p>
    <p>
      They climbed into the wagon and jolted over the uneven ground through the
      bare forest of hop-poles to the house. Inside they found Mrs. Dyke, an old
      lady with a very gentle face, who wore a cap and a very old-fashioned gown
      with hoop skirts, dusting the what-not in a corner of the parlor. The two
      men were presented and the beer was had from off the ice.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; said Dyke, as he wiped the froth from his great blond beard,
      &ldquo;ain't Sid anywheres about? I want Mr. Vanamee to see how she has grown.
      Smartest little tad in Tulare County, boys. Can recite the whole of 'Snow
      Bound,' end to end, without skipping or looking at the book. Maybe you
      don't believe that. Mother, ain't I right&mdash;without skipping a line,
      hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Dyke nodded to say that it was so, but explained that Sidney was in
      Guadalajara. In putting on her new slippers for the first time the morning
      before, she had found a dime in the toe of one of them and had had the
      whole house by the ears ever since till she could spend it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Was it for licorice to make her licorice water?&rdquo; inquired Dyke gravely.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Mrs. Dyke. &ldquo;I made her tell me what she was going to get
      before she went, and it was licorice.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke, though his mother protested that he was foolish and that Presley and
      Vanamee had no great interest in &ldquo;young ones,&rdquo; insisted upon showing the
      visitors Sidney's copy-books. They were monuments of laborious, elaborate
      neatness, the trite moralities and ready-made aphorisms of the
      philanthropists and publicists, repeated from page to page with wearying
      insistence. &ldquo;I, too, am an American Citizen. S. D.,&rdquo; &ldquo;As the Twig is Bent
      the Tree is Inclined,&rdquo; &ldquo;Truth Crushed to Earth Will Rise Again,&rdquo; &ldquo;As for
      Me, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death,&rdquo; and last of all, a strange
      intrusion amongst the mild, well-worn phrases, two legends. &ldquo;My motto&mdash;Public
      Control of Public Franchises,&rdquo; and &ldquo;The P. and S. W. is an Enemy of the
      State.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; commented Presley, &ldquo;you mean the little tad to understand 'the
      situation' early.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I told him he was foolish to give that to Sid to copy,&rdquo; said Mrs. Dyke,
      with indulgent remonstrance. &ldquo;What can she understand of public
      franchises?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; observed Dyke, &ldquo;she'll remember it when she grows up and
      when the seminary people have rubbed her up a bit, and then she'll begin
      to ask questions and understand. And don't you make any mistake, mother,&rdquo;
       he went on, &ldquo;about the little tad not knowing who her dad's enemies are.
      What do you think, boys? Listen, here. Precious little I've ever told her
      of the railroad or how I was turned off, but the other day I was working
      down by the fence next the railroad tracks and Sid was there. She'd
      brought her doll rags down and she was playing house behind a pile of hop
      poles. Well, along comes a through freight&mdash;mixed train from Missouri
      points and a string of empties from New Orleans,&mdash;and when it had
      passed, what do you suppose the tad did? SHE didn't know I was watching
      her. She goes to the fence and spits a little spit after the caboose and
      puts out her little head and, if you'll believe me, HISSES at the train;
      and mother says she does that same every time she sees a train go by, and
      never crosses the tracks that she don't spit her little spit on 'em. What
      do you THINK of THAT?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I correct her every time,&rdquo; protested Mrs. Dyke seriously. &ldquo;Where she
      picked up the trick of hissing I don't know. No, it's not funny. It seems
      dreadful to see a little girl who's as sweet and gentle as can be in every
      other way, so venomous. She says the other little girls at school and the
      boys, too, are all the same way. Oh, dear,&rdquo; she sighed, &ldquo;why will the
      General Office be so unkind and unjust? Why, I couldn't be happy, with all
      the money in the world, if I thought that even one little child hated me&mdash;hated
      me so that it would spit and hiss at me. And it's not one child, it's all
      of them, so Sidney says; and think of all the grown people who hate the
      road, women and men, the whole county, the whole State, thousands and
      thousands of people. Don't the managers and the directors of the road ever
      think of that? Don't they ever think of all the hate that surrounds them,
      everywhere, everywhere, and the good people that just grit their teeth
      when the name of the road is mentioned? Why do they want to make the
      people hate them? No,&rdquo; she murmured, the tears starting to her eyes, &ldquo;No,
      I tell you, Mr. Presley, the men who own the railroad are wicked,
      bad-hearted men who don't care how much the poor people suffer, so long as
      the road makes its eighteen million a year. They don't care whether the
      people hate them or love them, just so long as they are afraid of them.
      It's not right and God will punish them sooner or later.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A little after this the two young men took themselves away, Dyke
      obligingly carrying them in the wagon as far as the gate that opened into
      the Quien Sabe ranch. On the way, Presley referred to what Mrs. Dyke had
      said and led Dyke, himself, to speak of the P. and S. W.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; Dyke said, &ldquo;it's like this, Mr. Presley. I, personally, haven't
      got the right to kick. With you wheat-growing people I guess it's
      different, but hops, you see, don't count for much in the State. It's such
      a little business that the road don't want to bother themselves to tax it.
      It's the wheat growers that the road cinches. The rates on hops ARE FAIR.
      I've got to admit that; I was in to Bonneville a while ago to find out.
      It's two cents a pound, and Lord love you, that's reasonable enough to
      suit any man. No,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;I'm on the way to make money now. The
      road sacking me as they did was, maybe, a good thing for me, after all. It
      came just at the right time. I had a bit of money put by and here was the
      chance to go into hops with the certainty that hops would quadruple and
      quintuple in price inside the year. No, it was my chance, and though they
      didn't mean it by a long chalk, the railroad people did me a good turn
      when they gave me my time&mdash;and the tad'll enter the seminary next
      fall.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      About a quarter of an hour after they had said goodbye to the one-time
      engineer, Presley and Vanamee, tramping briskly along the road that led
      northward through Quien Sabe, arrived at Annixter's ranch house. At once
      they were aware of a vast and unwonted bustle that revolved about the
      place. They stopped a few moments looking on, amused and interested in
      what was going forward.
    </p>
    <p>
      The colossal barn was finished. Its freshly white-washed sides glared
      intolerably in the sun, but its interior was as yet innocent of paint and
      through the yawning vent of the sliding doors came a delicious odour of
      new, fresh wood and shavings. A crowd of men&mdash;Annixter's farm hands&mdash;were
      swarming all about it. Some were balanced on the topmost rounds of
      ladders, hanging festoons of Japanese lanterns from tree to tree, and all
      across the front of the barn itself. Mrs. Tree, her daughter Hilma and
      another woman were inside the barn cutting into long strips bolt after
      bolt of red, white and blue cambric and directing how these strips should
      be draped from the ceiling and on the walls; everywhere resounded the
      tapping of tack hammers. A farm wagon drove up loaded to overflowing with
      evergreens and with great bundles of palm leaves, and these were
      immediately seized upon and affixed as supplementary decorations to the
      tri-coloured cambric upon the inside walls of the barn. Two of the larger
      evergreen trees were placed on either side the barn door and their tops
      bent over to form an arch. In the middle of this arch it was proposed to
      hang a mammoth pasteboard escutcheon with gold letters, spelling the word
      WELCOME. Piles of chairs, rented from I.O.O.F. hall in Bonneville, heaped
      themselves in an apparently hopeless entanglement on the ground; while at
      the far extremity of the barn a couple of carpenters clattered about the
      impromptu staging which was to accommodate the band.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a strenuous gayety in the air; everybody was in the best of
      spirits. Notes of laughter continually interrupted the conversation on
      every hand. At every moment a group of men involved themselves in
      uproarious horse-play. They passed oblique jokes behind their hands to
      each other&mdash;grossly veiled double-meanings meant for the women&mdash;and
      bellowed with laughter thereat, stamping on the ground. The relations
      between the sexes grew more intimate, the women and girls pushing the
      young fellows away from their sides with vigorous thrusts of their elbows.
      It was passed from group to group that Adela Vacca, a division
      superintendent's wife, had lost her garter; the daughter of the foreman of
      the Home ranch was kissed behind the door of the dairy-house.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, in execrable temper, appeared from time to time, hatless, his
      stiff yellow hair in wild disorder. He hurried between the barn and the
      ranch house, carrying now a wickered demijohn, now a case of wine, now a
      basket of lemons and pineapples. Besides general supervision, he had
      elected to assume the responsibility of composing the punch&mdash;something
      stiff, by jingo, a punch that would raise you right out of your boots; a
      regular hairlifter.
    </p>
    <p>
      The harness room of the barn he had set apart for: himself and intimates.
      He had brought a long table down from the house and upon it had set out
      boxes of cigars, bottles of whiskey and of beer and the great china bowls
      for the punch. It would be no fault of his, he declared, if half the
      number of his men friends were not uproarious before they left. His barn
      dance would be the talk of all Tulare County for years to come. For this
      one day he had resolved to put all thoughts of business out of his head.
      For the matter of that, things were going well enough. Osterman was back
      from Los Angeles with a favourable report as to his affair with Disbrow
      and Darrell. There had been another meeting of the committee. Harran
      Derrick had attended. Though he had taken no part in the discussion,
      Annixter was satisfied. The Governor had consented to allow Harran to
      &ldquo;come in,&rdquo; if he so desired, and Harran had pledged himself to share
      one-sixth of the campaign expenses, providing these did not exceed a
      certain figure.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Annixter came to the door of the barn to shout abuse at the distraught
      Chinese cook who was cutting up lemons in the kitchen, he caught sight of
      Presley and Vanamee and hailed them.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, Pres,&rdquo; he called. &ldquo;Come over here and see how she looks;&rdquo; he
      indicated the barn with a movement of his head. &ldquo;Well, we're getting ready
      for you tonight,&rdquo; he went on as the two friends came up. &ldquo;But how we are
      going to get straightened out by eight o'clock I don't know. Would you
      believe that pip Caraher is short of lemons&mdash;at this last minute and
      I told him I'd want three cases of 'em as much as a month ago, and here,
      just when I want a good lively saddle horse to get around on, somebody
      hikes the buckskin out the corral. STOLE her, by jingo. I'll have the law
      on that thief if it breaks me&mdash;and a sixty-dollar saddle 'n'
      head-stall gone with her; and only about half the number of Jap lanterns
      that I ordered have shown up and not candles enough for those. It's enough
      to make a dog sick. There's nothing done that you don't do yourself,
      unless you stand over these loafers with a club. I'm sick of the whole
      business&mdash;and I've lost my hat; wish to God I'd never dreamed of
      givin' this rotten fool dance. Clutter the whole place up with a lot of
      feemales. I sure did lose my presence of mind when I got THAT idea.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then, ignoring the fact that it was he, himself, who had called the young
      men to him, he added:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, this is my busy day. Sorry I can't stop and talk to you longer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He shouted a last imprecation at the Chinaman and turned back into the
      barn. Presley and Vanamee went on, but Annixter, as he crossed the floor
      of the barn, all but collided with Hilma Tree, who came out from one of
      the stalls, a box of candles in her arms.
    </p>
    <p>
      Gasping out an apology, Annixter reentered the harness room, closing the
      door behind him, and forgetting all the responsibility of the moment, lit
      a cigar and sat down in one of the hired chairs, his hands in his pockets,
      his feet on the table, frowning thoughtfully through the blue smoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter was at last driven to confess to himself that he could not get
      the thought of Hilma Tree out of his mind. Finally she had &ldquo;got a hold on
      him.&rdquo; The thing that of all others he most dreaded had happened. A feemale
      girl had got a hold on him, and now there was no longer for him any such
      thing as peace of mind. The idea of the young woman was with him
      continually. He went to bed with it; he got up with it. At every moment of
      the day he was pestered with it. It interfered with his work, got mixed up
      in his business. What a miserable confession for a man to make; a fine way
      to waste his time. Was it possible that only the other day he had stood in
      front of the music store in Bonneville and seriously considered making
      Hilma a present of a music-box? Even now, the very thought of it made him
      flush with shame, and this after she had told him plainly that she did not
      like him. He was running after her&mdash;he, Annixter! He ripped out a
      furious oath, striking the table with his boot heel. Again and again he
      had resolved to put the whole affair from out his mind. Once he had been
      able to do so, but of late it was becoming harder and harder with every
      successive day. He had only to close his eyes to see her as plain as if
      she stood before him; he saw her in a glory of sunlight that set a fine
      tinted lustre of pale carnation and gold on the silken sheen of her white
      skin, her hair sparkled with it, her thick, strong neck, sloping to her
      shoulders with beautiful, full curves, seemed to radiate the light; her
      eyes, brown, wide, innocent in expression, disclosing the full disc of the
      pupil upon the slightest provocation, flashed in this sunlight like
      diamonds.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter was all bewildered. With the exception of the timid little
      creature in the glove-cleaning establishment in Sacramento, he had had no
      acquaintance with any woman. His world was harsh, crude, a world of men
      only&mdash;men who were to be combatted, opposed&mdash;his hand was
      against nearly every one of them. Women he distrusted with the instinctive
      distrust of the overgrown schoolboy. Now, at length, a young woman had
      come into his life. Promptly he was struck with discomfiture, annoyed
      almost beyond endurance, harassed, bedevilled, excited, made angry and
      exasperated. He was suspicious of the woman, yet desired her, totally
      ignorant of how to approach her, hating the sex, yet drawn to the
      individual, confusing the two emotions, sometimes even hating Hilma as a
      result of this confusion, but at all times disturbed, vexed, irritated
      beyond power of expression.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length, Annixter cast his cigar from him and plunged again into the
      work of the day. The afternoon wore to evening, to the accompaniment of
      wearying and clamorous endeavour. In some unexplained fashion, the labour
      of putting the great barn in readiness for the dance was accomplished; the
      last bolt of cambric was hung in place from the rafters. The last
      evergreen tree was nailed to the joists of the walls; the last lantern
      hung, the last nail driven into the musicians' platform. The sun set.
      There was a great scurry to have supper and dress. Annixter, last of all
      the other workers, left the barn in the dusk of twilight. He was alone; he
      had a saw under one arm, a bag of tools was in his hand. He was in his
      shirt sleeves and carried his coat over his shoulder; a hammer was thrust
      into one of his hip pockets. He was in execrable temper. The day's work
      had fagged him out. He had not been able to find his hat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And the buckskin with sixty dollars' worth of saddle gone, too,&rdquo; he
      groaned. &ldquo;Oh, ain't it sweet?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      At his house, Mrs. Tree had set out a cold supper for him, the inevitable
      dish of prunes serving as dessert. After supper Annixter bathed and
      dressed. He decided at the last moment to wear his usual town-going suit,
      a sack suit of black, made by a Bonneville tailor. But his hat was gone.
      There were other hats he might have worn, but because this particular one
      was lost he fretted about it all through his dressing and then decided to
      have one more look around the barn for it.
    </p>
    <p>
      For over a quarter of an hour he pottered about the barn, going from stall
      to stall, rummaging the harness room and feed room, all to no purpose. At
      last he came out again upon the main floor, definitely giving up the
      search, looking about him to see if everything was in order.
    </p>
    <p>
      The festoons of Japanese lanterns in and around the barn were not yet
      lighted, but some half-dozen lamps, with great, tin reflectors, that hung
      against the walls, were burning low. A dull half light pervaded the vast
      interior, hollow, echoing, leaving the corners and roof thick with
      impenetrable black shadows. The barn faced the west and through the open
      sliding doors was streaming a single bright bar from the after-glow,
      incongruous and out of all harmony with the dull flare of the kerosene
      lamps.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Annixter glanced about him, he saw a figure step briskly out of the
      shadows of one corner of the building, pause for the fraction of one
      instant in the bar of light, then, at sight of him, dart back again. There
      was a sound of hurried footsteps.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, with recollections of the stolen buckskin in his mind, cried out
      sharply:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who's there?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was no answer. In a second his pistol was in his hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who's there? Quick, speak up or I'll shoot.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no, no, don't shoot,&rdquo; cried an answering voice. &ldquo;Oh, be careful. It's
      I&mdash;Hilma Tree.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter slid the pistol into his pocket with a great qualm of
      apprehension. He came forward and met Hilma in the doorway.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good Lord,&rdquo; he murmured, &ldquo;that sure did give me a start. If I HAD shot&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma stood abashed and confused before him. She was dressed in a white
      organdie frock of the most rigorous simplicity and wore neither flower nor
      ornament. The severity of her dress made her look even larger than usual,
      and even as it was her eyes were on a level with Annixter's. There was a
      certain fascination in the contradiction of stature and character of Hilma&mdash;a
      great girl, half-child as yet, but tall as a man for all that.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a moment's awkward silence, then Hilma explained:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I&mdash;I came back to look for my hat. I thought I left it here this
      afternoon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And I was looking for my hat,&rdquo; cried Annixter. &ldquo;Funny enough, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They laughed at this as heartily as children might have done. The
      constraint of the situation was a little relaxed and Annixter, with sudden
      directness, glanced sharply at the young woman and demanded:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, Miss Hilma, hate me as much as ever?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, no, sir,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;I never said I hated you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&mdash;dislike me, then; I know you said that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I&mdash;I disliked what you did&mdash;TRIED to do. It made me angry and
      it hurt me. I shouldn't have said what I did that time, but it was your
      fault.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You mean you shouldn't have said you didn't like me?&rdquo; asked Annixter.
      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, well,&mdash;I don't&mdash;I don't DISlike anybody,&rdquo; admitted Hilma.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Then I can take it that you don't dislike ME? Is that it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't dislike anybody,&rdquo; persisted Hilma.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I asked you more than that, didn't I?&rdquo; queried Annixter uneasily.
      &ldquo;I asked you to like me, remember, the other day. I'm asking you that
      again, now. I want you to like me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma lifted her eyes inquiringly to his. In her words was an unmistakable
      ring of absolute sincerity. Innocently she inquired:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter was struck speechless. In the face of such candour, such perfect
      ingenuousness, he was at a loss for any words.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well&mdash;well,&rdquo; he stammered, &ldquo;well&mdash;I don't know,&rdquo; he suddenly
      burst out. &ldquo;That is,&rdquo; he went on, groping for his wits, &ldquo;I can't quite say
      why.&rdquo; The idea of a colossal lie occurred to him, a thing actually royal.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I like to have the people who are around me like me,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I&mdash;I
      like to be popular, understand? Yes, that's it,&rdquo; he continued, more
      reassured. &ldquo;I don't like the idea of any one disliking me. That's the way
      I am. It's my nature.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, then,&rdquo; returned Hilma, &ldquo;you needn't bother. No, I don't dislike you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that's good,&rdquo; declared Annixter judicially. &ldquo;That's good. But hold
      on,&rdquo; he interrupted, &ldquo;I'm forgetting. It's not enough to not dislike me. I
      want you to like me. How about THAT?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma paused for a moment, glancing vaguely out of the doorway toward the
      lighted window of the dairy-house, her head tilted.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know that I ever thought about that,&rdquo; she said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, think about it now,&rdquo; insisted Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I never thought about liking anybody particularly,&rdquo; she observed.
      &ldquo;It's because I like everybody, don't you see?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you've got to like some people more than other people,&rdquo; hazarded
      Annixter, &ldquo;and I want to be one of those 'some people,' savvy? Good Lord,
      I don't know how to say these fool things. I talk like a galoot when I get
      talking to feemale girls and I can't lay my tongue to anything that sounds
      right. It isn't my nature. And look here, I lied when I said I liked to
      have people like me&mdash;to be popular. Rot! I don't care a curse about
      people's opinions of me. But there's a few people that are more to me than
      most others&mdash;that chap Presley, for instance&mdash;and those people I
      DO want to have like me. What they think counts. Pshaw! I know I've got
      enemies; piles of them. I could name you half a dozen men right now that
      are naturally itching to take a shot at me. How about this ranch? Don't I
      know, can't I hear the men growling oaths under their breath after I've
      gone by? And in business ways, too,&rdquo; he went on, speaking half to himself,
      &ldquo;in Bonneville and all over the county there's not a man of them wouldn't
      howl for joy if they got a chance to down Buck Annixter. Think I care?
      Why, I LIKE it. I run my ranch to suit myself and I play my game my own
      way. I'm a 'driver,' I know it, and a 'bully,' too. Oh, I know what they
      call me&mdash;'a brute beast, with a twist in my temper that would rile up
      a new-born lamb,' and I'm 'crusty' and 'pig-headed' and 'obstinate.' They
      say all that, but they've got to say, too, that I'm cleverer than any
      man-jack in the running. There's nobody can get ahead of me.&rdquo; His eyes
      snapped. &ldquo;Let 'em grind their teeth. They can't 'down' me. When I shut my
      fist there's not one of them can open it. No, not with a CHISEL.&rdquo; He
      turned to Hilma again. &ldquo;Well, when a man's hated as much as that, it
      stands to reason, don't it, Miss Hilma, that the few friends he has got he
      wants to keep? I'm not such an entire swine to the people that know me
      best&mdash;that jackass, Presley, for instance. I'd put my hand in the
      fire to do him a real service. Sometimes I get kind of lonesome; wonder if
      you would understand? It's my fault, but there's not a horse about the
      place that don't lay his ears back when I get on him; there's not a dog
      don't put his tail between his legs as soon as I come near him. The cayuse
      isn't foaled yet here on Quien Sabe that can throw me, nor the dog whelped
      that would dare show his teeth at me. I kick that Irish setter every time
      I see him&mdash;but wonder what I'd do, though, if he didn't slink so
      much, if he wagged his tail and was glad to see me? So it all comes to
      this: I'd like to have you&mdash;well, sort of feel that I was a good
      friend of yours and like me because of it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The flame in the lamp on the wall in front of Hilma stretched upward tall
      and thin and began to smoke. She went over to where the lamp hung and,
      standing on tip-toe, lowered the wick. As she reached her hand up,
      Annixter noted how the sombre, lurid red of the lamp made a warm
      reflection on her smooth, round arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you understand?&rdquo; he queried.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, why, yes,&rdquo; she answered, turning around. &ldquo;It's very good of you to
      want to be a friend of mine. I didn't think so, though, when you tried to
      kiss me. But maybe it's all right since you've explained things. You see
      I'm different from you. I like everybody to like me and I like to like
      everybody. It makes one so much happier. You wouldn't believe it, but you
      ought to try it, sir, just to see. It's so good to be good to people and
      to have people good to you. And everybody has always been so good to me.
      Mamma and papa, of course, and Billy, the stableman, and Montalegre, the
      Portugee foreman, and the Chinese cook, even, and Mr. Delaney&mdash;only
      he went away&mdash;and Mrs. Vacca and her little&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Delaney, hey?&rdquo; demanded Annixter abruptly. &ldquo;You and he were pretty good
      friends, were you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;He was just as GOOD to me. Every day in the
      summer time he used to ride over to the Seed ranch back of the Mission and
      bring me a great armful of flowers, the prettiest things, and I used to
      pretend to pay him for them with dollars made of cheese that I cut out of
      the cheese with a biscuit cutter. It was such fun. We were the best of
      friends.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's another lamp smoking,&rdquo; growled Annixter. &ldquo;Turn it down, will you?&mdash;and
      see that somebody sweeps this floor here. It's all littered up with pine
      needles. I've got a lot to do. Good-bye.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter returned to the ranch house, his teeth clenched, enraged, his
      face flushed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; he muttered, &ldquo;Delaney, hey? Throwing it up to me that I fired him.&rdquo;
       His teeth gripped together more fiercely than ever. &ldquo;The best of friends,
      hey? By God, I'll have that girl yet. I'll show that cow-puncher. Ain't I
      her employer, her boss? I'll show her&mdash;and Delaney, too. It would be
      easy enough&mdash;and then Delaney can have her&mdash;if he wants her&mdash;after
      me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      An evil light flashing from under his scowl, spread over his face. The
      male instincts of possession, unreasoned, treacherous, oblique, came
      twisting to the surface. All the lower nature of the man, ignorant of
      women, racked at one and the same time with enmity and desire, roused
      itself like a hideous and abominable beast. And at the same moment, Hilma
      returned to her house, humming to herself as she walked, her white dress
      glowing with a shimmer of faint saffron light in the last ray of the
      after-glow.
    </p>
    <p>
      A little after half-past seven, the first carry-all, bearing the druggist
      of Bonneville and his women-folk, arrived in front of the new barn.
      Immediately afterward an express wagon loaded down with a swarming family
      of Spanish-Mexicans, gorgeous in red and yellow colours, followed. Billy,
      the stableman, and his assistant took charge of the teams, unchecking the
      horses and hitching them to a fence back of the barn. Then Caraher, the
      saloon-keeper, in &ldquo;derby&rdquo; hat, &ldquo;Prince Albert&rdquo; coat, pointed yellow shoes
      and inevitable red necktie, drove into the yard on his buckboard, the
      delayed box of lemons under the seat. It looked as if the whole array of
      invited guests was to arrive in one unbroken procession, but for a long
      half-hour nobody else appeared. Annixter and Caraher withdrew to the
      harness room and promptly involved themselves in a wrangle as to the
      make-up of the famous punch. From time to time their voices could be heard
      uplifted in clamorous argument.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Two quarts and a half and a cupful of chartreuse.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Rot, rot, I know better. Champagne straight and a dash of brandy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The druggist's wife and sister retired to the feed room, where a bureau
      with a swinging mirror had been placed for the convenience of the women.
      The druggist stood awkwardly outside the door of the feed room, his coat
      collar turned up against the draughts that drifted through the barn, his
      face troubled, debating anxiously as to the propriety of putting on his
      gloves. The Spanish-Mexican family, a father, mother and five children and
      sister-in-law, sat rigid on the edges of the hired chairs, silent,
      constrained, their eyes lowered, their elbows in at their sides, glancing
      furtively from under their eyebrows at the decorations or watching with
      intense absorption young Vacca, son of one of the division
      superintendents, who wore a checked coat and white thread gloves and who
      paced up and down the length of the barn, frowning, very important,
      whittling a wax candle over the floor to make it slippery for dancing.
    </p>
    <p>
      The musicians arrived, the City Band of Bonneville&mdash;Annixter having
      managed to offend the leader of the &ldquo;Dirigo&rdquo; Club orchestra, at the very
      last moment, to such a point that he had refused his services. These
      members of the City Band repaired at once to their platform in the corner.
      At every instant they laughed uproariously among themselves, joshing one
      of their number, a Frenchman, whom they called &ldquo;Skeezicks.&rdquo; Their hilarity
      reverberated in a hollow, metallic roll among the rafters overhead. The
      druggist observed to young Vacca as he passed by that he thought them
      pretty fresh, just the same.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm busy, I'm very busy,&rdquo; returned the young man, continuing on his way,
      still frowning and paring the stump of candle.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Two quarts 'n' a half. Two quarts 'n' a half.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, yes, in a way, that's so; and then, again, in a way, it ISN'T. I know
      better.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      All along one side of the barn were a row of stalls, fourteen of them,
      clean as yet, redolent of new cut wood, the sawdust still in the cracks of
      the flooring. Deliberately the druggist went from one to the other,
      pausing contemplatively before each. He returned down the line and again
      took up his position by the door of the feed room, nodding his head
      judicially, as if satisfied. He decided to put on his gloves.
    </p>
    <p>
      By now it was quite dark. Outside, between the barn and the ranch houses
      one could see a group of men on step-ladders lighting the festoons of
      Japanese lanterns. In the darkness, only their faces appeared here and
      there, high above the ground, seen in a haze of red, strange, grotesque.
      Gradually as the multitude of lanterns were lit, the light spread. The
      grass underfoot looked like green excelsior. Another group of men invaded
      the barn itself, lighting the lamps and lanterns there. Soon the whole
      place was gleaming with points of light. Young Vacca, who had disappeared,
      returned with his pockets full of wax candles. He resumed his whittling,
      refusing to answer any questions, vociferating that he was busy.
    </p>
    <p>
      Outside there was a sound of hoofs and voices. More guests had arrived.
      The druggist, seized with confusion, terrified lest he had put on his
      gloves too soon, thrust his hands into his pockets. It was Cutter, Magnus
      Derrick's division superintendent, who came, bringing his wife and her two
      girl cousins. They had come fifteen miles by the trail from the far
      distant division house on &ldquo;Four&rdquo; of Los Muertos and had ridden on
      horseback instead of driving. Mrs. Cutter could be heard declaring that
      she was nearly dead and felt more like going to bed than dancing. The two
      girl cousins, in dresses of dotted Swiss over blue sateen, were doing
      their utmost to pacify her. She could be heard protesting from moment to
      moment. One distinguished the phrases &ldquo;straight to my bed,&rdquo; &ldquo;back nearly
      broken in two,&rdquo; &ldquo;never wanted to come in the first place.&rdquo; The druggist,
      observing Cutter take a pair of gloves from Mrs. Cutter's reticule, drew
      his hands from his pockets.
    </p>
    <p>
      But abruptly there was an interruption. In the musicians' corner a scuffle
      broke out. A chair was overturned. There was a noise of imprecations
      mingled with shouts of derision. Skeezicks, the Frenchman, had turned upon
      the joshers.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, no,&rdquo; he was heard to exclaim, &ldquo;at the end of the end it is too much.
      Kind of a bad canary&mdash;we will go to see about that. Aha, let him
      close up his face before I demolish it with a good stroke of the fist.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The men who were lighting the lanterns were obliged to intervene before he
      could be placated.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hooven and his wife and daughters arrived. Minna was carrying little
      Hilda, already asleep, in her arms. Minna looked very pretty, striking
      even, with her black hair, pale face, very red lips and greenish-blue
      eyes. She was dressed in what had been Mrs. Hooven's wedding gown, a cheap
      affair of &ldquo;farmer's satin.&rdquo; Mrs. Hooven had pendent earrings of imitation
      jet in her ears. Hooven was wearing an old frock coat of Magnus Derrick's,
      the sleeves too long, the shoulders absurdly too wide. He and Cutter at
      once entered into an excited conversation as to the ownership of a certain
      steer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, the brand&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ach, Gott, der brendt,&rdquo; Hooven clasped his head, &ldquo;ach, der brendt, dot
      maks me laugh some laughs. Dot's goot&mdash;der brendt&mdash;doand I see
      um&mdash;shoor der boole mit der bleck star bei der vore-head in der
      middle oaf. Any someones you esk tell you dot is mein boole. You esk any
      someones. Der brendt? To hell mit der brendt. You aindt got some memorie
      aboudt does ting I guess nodt.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Please step aside, gentlemen,&rdquo; said young Vacca, who was still making the
      rounds of the floor.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hooven whirled about. &ldquo;Eh? What den,&rdquo; he exclaimed, still excited, willing
      to be angry at any one for the moment. &ldquo;Doand you push soh, you. I tink
      berhapz you doand OWN dose barn, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm busy, I'm very busy.&rdquo; The young man pushed by with grave
      preoccupation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Two quarts 'n' a half. Two quarts 'n' a half.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know better. That's all rot.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But the barn was filling up rapidly. At every moment there was a rattle of
      a newly arrived vehicle from outside. Guest after guest appeared in the
      doorway, singly or in couples, or in families, or in garrulous parties of
      five and six. Now it was Phelps and his mother from Los Muertos, now a
      foreman from Broderson's with his family, now a gayly apparelled clerk
      from a Bonneville store, solitary and bewildered, looking for a place to
      put his hat, now a couple of Spanish-Mexican girls from Guadalajara with
      coquettish effects of black and yellow about their dress, now a group of
      Osterman's tenants, Portuguese, swarthy, with plastered hair and curled
      mustaches, redolent of cheap perfumes. Sarria arrived, his smooth, shiny
      face glistening with perspiration. He wore a new cassock and carried his
      broad-brimmed hat under his arm. His appearance made quite a stir. He
      passed from group to group, urbane, affable, shaking hands right and left;
      he assumed a set smile of amiability which never left his face the whole
      evening.
    </p>
    <p>
      But abruptly there was a veritable sensation. From out the little crowd
      that persistently huddled about the doorway came Osterman. He wore a
      dress-suit with a white waistcoat and patent leather pumps&mdash;what a
      wonder! A little qualm of excitement spread around the barn. One exchanged
      nudges of the elbow with one's neighbour, whispering earnestly behind the
      hand. What astonishing clothes! Catch on to the coat-tails! It was a
      masquerade costume, maybe; that goat Osterman was such a josher, one never
      could tell what he would do next.
    </p>
    <p>
      The musicians began to tune up. From their corner came a medley of mellow
      sounds, the subdued chirps of the violins, the dull bourdon of the bass
      viol, the liquid gurgling of the flageolet and the deep-toned snarl of the
      big horn, with now and then a rasping stridulating of the snare drum. A
      sense of gayety began to spread throughout the assembly. At every moment
      the crowd increased. The aroma of new-sawn timber and sawdust began to be
      mingled with the feminine odour of sachet and flowers. There was a babel
      of talk in the air&mdash;male baritone and soprano chatter&mdash;varied by
      an occasional note of laughter and the swish of stiffly starched
      petticoats. On the row of chairs that went around three sides of the wall
      groups began to settle themselves. For a long time the guests huddled
      close to the doorway; the lower end of the floor was crowded! the upper
      end deserted; but by degrees the lines of white muslin and pink and blue
      sateen extended, dotted with the darker figures of men in black suits. The
      conversation grew louder as the timidity of the early moments wore off.
      Groups at a distance called back and forth; conversations were carried on
      at top voice. Once, even a whole party hurried across the floor from one
      side of the barn to the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter emerged from the harness room, his face red with wrangling. He
      took a position to the right of the door, shaking hands with newcomers,
      inviting them over and over again to cut loose and whoop it along. Into
      the ears of his more intimate male acquaintances he dropped a word as to
      punch and cigars in the harness room later on, winking with vast
      intelligence. Ranchers from remoter parts of the country appeared:
      Garnett, from the Ruby rancho, Keast, from the ranch of the same name,
      Gethings, of the San Pablo, Chattern, of the Bonanza, and others and still
      others, a score of them&mdash;elderly men, for the most part, bearded,
      slow of speech, deliberate, dressed in broadcloth. Old Broderson, who
      entered with his wife on his arm, fell in with this type, and with them
      came a certain Dabney, of whom nothing but his name was known, a silent
      old man, who made no friends, whom nobody knew or spoke to, who was seen
      only upon such occasions as this, coming from no one knew where, going, no
      one cared to inquire whither.
    </p>
    <p>
      Between eight and half-past, Magnus Derrick and his family were seen.
      Magnus's entry caused no little impression. Some said: &ldquo;There's the
      Governor,&rdquo; and called their companions' attention to the thin, erect
      figure, commanding, imposing, dominating all in his immediate
      neighbourhood. Harran came with him, wearing a cut-away suit of black. He
      was undeniably handsome, young and fresh looking, his cheeks highly
      coloured, quite the finest looking of all the younger men; blond, strong,
      with that certain courtliness of manner that had always made him liked. He
      took his mother upon his arm and conducted her to a seat by the side of
      Mrs. Broderson.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annie Derrick was very pretty that evening. She was dressed in a grey silk
      gown with a collar of pink velvet. Her light brown hair that yet retained
      so much of its brightness was transfixed by a high, shell comb, very
      Spanish. But the look of uneasiness in her large eyes&mdash;the eyes of a
      young girl&mdash;was deepening every day. The expression of innocence and
      inquiry which they so easily assumed, was disturbed by a faint suggestion
      of aversion, almost of terror. She settled herself in her place, in the
      corner of the hall, in the rear rank of chairs, a little frightened by the
      glare of lights, the hum of talk and the shifting crowd, glad to be out of
      the way, to attract no attention, willing to obliterate herself.
    </p>
    <p>
      All at once Annixter, who had just shaken hands with Dyke, his mother and
      the little tad, moved abruptly in his place, drawing in his breath
      sharply. The crowd around the great, wide-open main door of the barn had
      somewhat thinned out and in the few groups that still remained there he
      had suddenly recognised Mr. and Mrs. Tree and Hilma, making their way
      towards some empty seats near the entrance of the feed room.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the dusky light of the barn earlier in the evening, Annixter had not
      been able to see Hilma plainly. Now, however, as she passed before his
      eyes in the glittering radiance of the lamps and lanterns, he caught his
      breath in astonishment. Never had she appeared more beautiful in his eyes.
      It did not seem possible that this was the same girl whom he saw every day
      in and around the ranch house and dairy, the girl of simple calico frocks
      and plain shirt waists, who brought him his dinner, who made up his bed.
      Now he could not take his eyes from her. Hilma, for the first time, was
      wearing her hair done high upon her head. The thick, sweet-smelling
      masses, bitumen brown in the shadows, corruscated like golden filaments in
      the light. Her organdie frock was long, longer than any she had yet worn.
      It left a little of her neck and breast bare and all of her arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter muttered an exclamation. Such arms! How did she manage to keep
      them hid on ordinary occasions. Big at the shoulder, tapering with
      delicious modulations to the elbow and wrist, overlaid with a delicate,
      gleaming lustre. As often as she turned her head the movement sent a slow
      undulation over her neck and shoulders, the pale amber-tinted shadows
      under her chin, coming and going over the creamy whiteness of the skin
      like the changing moire of silk. The pretty rose colour of her cheek had
      deepened to a pale carnation. Annixter, his hands clasped behind him,
      stood watching.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a few moments Hilma was surrounded by a group of young men, clamouring
      for dances. They came from all corners of the barn, leaving the other
      girls precipitately, almost rudely. There could be little doubt as to who
      was to be the belle of the occasion. Hilma's little triumph was immediate,
      complete. Annixter could hear her voice from time to time, its usual
      velvety huskiness vibrating to a note of exuberant gayety.
    </p>
    <p>
      All at once the orchestra swung off into a march&mdash;the Grand March.
      There was a great rush to secure &ldquo;partners.&rdquo; Young Vacca, still going the
      rounds, was pushed to one side. The gayly apparelled clerk from the
      Bonneville store lost his head in the confusion. He could not find his
      &ldquo;partner.&rdquo; He roamed wildly about the barn, bewildered, his eyes rolling.
      He resolved to prepare an elaborate programme card on the back of an old
      envelope. Rapidly the line was formed, Hilma and Harran Derrick in the
      lead, Annixter having obstinately refused to engage in either march, set
      or dance the whole evening. Soon the confused shuffling of feet settled to
      a measured cadence; the orchestra blared and wailed, the snare drum,
      rolling at exact intervals, the cornet marking the time. It was half-past
      eight o'clock.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter drew a long breath:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good,&rdquo; he muttered, &ldquo;the thing is under way at last.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Singularly enough, Osterman also refused to dance. The week before he had
      returned from Los Angeles, bursting with the importance of his mission. He
      had been successful. He had Disbrow &ldquo;in his pocket.&rdquo; He was impatient to
      pose before the others of the committee as a skilful political agent, a
      manipulator. He forgot his attitude of the early part of the evening when
      he had drawn attention to himself with his wonderful clothes. Now his
      comic actor's face, with its brownish-red cheeks, protuberant ears and
      horizontal slit of a mouth, was overcast with gravity. His bald forehead
      was seamed with the wrinkles of responsibility. He drew Annixter into one
      of the empty stalls and began an elaborate explanation, glib, voluble,
      interminable, going over again in detail what he had reported to the
      committee in outline.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I managed&mdash;I schemed&mdash;I kept dark&mdash;I lay low&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Annixter refused to listen.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, rot your schemes. There's a punch in the harness room that will make
      the hair grow on the top of your head in the place where the hair ought to
      grow. Come on, we'll round up some of the boys and walk into it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They edged their way around the hall outside &ldquo;The Grand March,&rdquo; toward the
      harness room, picking up on their way Caraher, Dyke, Hooven and old
      Broderson. Once in the harness room, Annixter shot the bolt.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That affair outside,&rdquo; he observed, &ldquo;will take care of itself, but here's
      a little orphan child that gets lonesome without company.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter began ladling the punch, filling the glasses.
    </p>
    <p>
      Osterman proposed a toast to Quien Sabe and the Biggest Barn. Their elbows
      crooked in silence. Old Broderson set down his glass, wiping his long
      beard and remarking:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That&mdash;that certainly is very&mdash;very agreeable. I remember a
      punch I drank on Christmas day in '83, or no, it was '84&mdash;anyhow,
      that punch&mdash;it was in Ukiah&mdash;'TWAS '83&mdash;&rdquo; He wandered on
      aimlessly, unable to stop his flow of speech, losing himself in details,
      involving his talk in a hopeless maze of trivialities to which nobody paid
      any attention.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't drink myself,&rdquo; observed Dyke, &ldquo;but just a taste of that with a
      lot of water wouldn't be bad for the little tad. She'd think it was
      lemonade.&rdquo; He was about to mix a glass for Sidney, but thought better of
      it at the last moment.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's the chartreuse that's lacking,&rdquo; commented Caraher, lowering at
      Annixter. The other flared up on the instant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Rot, rot. I know better. In some punches it goes; and then, again, in
      others it don't.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But it was left to Hooven to launch the successful phrase:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gesundheit,&rdquo; he exclaimed, holding out his second glass. After drinking,
      he replaced it on the table with a long breath. &ldquo;Ach Gott!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;dat
      poonsch, say I tink dot poonsch mek some demn goot vertilizer, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Fertiliser! The others roared with laughter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good eye, Bismarck,&rdquo; commented Annixter. The name had a great success.
      Thereafter throughout the evening the punch was invariably spoken of as
      the &ldquo;Fertiliser.&rdquo; Osterman, having spilt the bottom of a glassful on the
      floor, pretended that he saw shoots of grain coming up on the spot.
      Suddenly he turned upon old Broderson. &ldquo;I'm bald, ain't I? Want to know
      how I lost my hair? Promise you won't ask a single other question and I'll
      tell you. Promise your word of honour.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Eh? What&mdash;wh&mdash;I&mdash;I don't understand. Your hair? Yes, I'll
      promise. How did you lose it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It was bit off.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other gazed at him stupefied; his jaw dropped. The company shouted,
      and old Broderson, believing he had somehow accomplished a witticism,
      chuckled in his beard, wagging his head. But suddenly he fell grave,
      struck with an idea. He demanded:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;I know&mdash;but&mdash;but what bit it off?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; vociferated Osterman, &ldquo;that's JUST what you promised not to ask.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The company doubled up with hilarity. Caraher leaned against the door,
      holding his sides, but Hooven, all abroad, unable to follow, gazed from
      face to face with a vacant grin, thinking it was still a question of his
      famous phrase.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Vertilizer, hey? Dots some fine joke, hey? You bedt.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      What with the noise of their talk and laughter, it was some time before
      Dyke, first of all, heard a persistent knocking on the bolted door. He
      called Annixter's attention to the sound. Cursing the intruder, Annixter
      unbolted and opened the door. But at once his manner changed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello. It's Presley. Come in, come in, Pres.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a shout of welcome from the others. A spirit of effusive
      cordiality had begun to dominate the gathering. Annixter caught sight of
      Vanamee back of Presley, and waiving for the moment the distinction of
      employer and employee, insisted that both the friends should come in.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Any friend of Pres is my friend,&rdquo; he declared.
    </p>
    <p>
      But when the two had entered and had exchanged greetings, Presley drew
      Annixter aside.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Vanamee and I have just come from Bonneville,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;We saw
      Delaney there. He's got the buckskin, and he's full of bad whiskey and
      dago-red. You should see him; he's wearing all his cow-punching outfit,
      hair trousers, sombrero, spurs and all the rest of it, and he has strapped
      himself to a big revolver. He says he wasn't invited to your barn dance
      but that he's coming over to shoot up the place. He says you promised to
      show him off Quien Sabe at the toe of your boot and that he's going to
      give you the chance to-night!&rdquo; &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; commented Annixter, nodding his head,
      &ldquo;he is, is he?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley was disappointed. Knowing Annixter's irascibility, he had expected
      to produce a more dramatic effect. He began to explain the danger of the
      business. Delaney had once knifed a greaser in the Panamint country. He
      was known as a &ldquo;bad&rdquo; man. But Annixter refused to be drawn.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that's all right. Don't tell anybody else. You
      might scare the girls off. Get in and drink.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Outside the dancing was by this time in full swing. The orchestra was
      playing a polka. Young Vacca, now at his fiftieth wax candle, had brought
      the floor to the slippery surface of glass. The druggist was dancing with
      one of the Spanish-Mexican girls with the solemnity of an automaton,
      turning about and about, always in the same direction, his eyes glassy,
      his teeth set. Hilma Tree was dancing for the second time with Harran
      Derrick. She danced with infinite grace. Her cheeks were bright red, her
      eyes half-closed, and through her parted lips she drew from time to time a
      long, tremulous breath of pure delight. The music, the weaving colours,
      the heat of the air, by now a little oppressive, the monotony of repeated
      sensation, even the pain of physical fatigue had exalted all her senses.
      She was in a dreamy lethargy of happiness. It was her &ldquo;first ball.&rdquo; She
      could have danced without stopping until morning. Minna Hooven and Cutter
      were &ldquo;promenading.&rdquo; Mrs. Hooven, with little Hilda already asleep on her
      knees, never took her eyes from her daughter's gown. As often as Minna
      passed near her she vented an energetic &ldquo;pst! pst!&rdquo; The metal tip of a
      white draw string was showing from underneath the waist of Minna's dress.
      Mrs. Hooven was on the point of tears.
    </p>
    <p>
      The solitary gayly apparelled clerk from Bonneville was in a fever of
      agitation. He had lost his elaborate programme card. Bewildered, beside
      himself with trepidation, he hurried about the room, jostled by the
      dancing couples, tripping over the feet of those who were seated; he
      peered distressfully under the chairs and about the floor, asking anxious
      questions.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus Derrick, the centre of a listening circle of ranchers&mdash;Garnett
      from the Ruby rancho, Keast from the ranch of the same name, Gethings and
      Chattern of the San Pablo and Bonanza&mdash;stood near the great open
      doorway of the barn, discussing the possibility of a shortage in the
      world's wheat crop for the next year.
    </p>
    <p>
      Abruptly the orchestra ceased playing with a roll of the snare drum, a
      flourish of the cornet and a prolonged growl of the bass viol. The dance
      broke up, the couples hurrying to their seats, leaving the gayly
      apparelled clerk suddenly isolated in the middle of the floor, rolling his
      eyes. The druggist released the Spanish-Mexican girl with mechanical
      precision out amidst the crowd of dancers. He bowed, dropping his chin
      upon his cravat; throughout the dance neither had hazarded a word. The
      girl found her way alone to a chair, but the druggist, sick from
      continually revolving in the same direction, walked unsteadily toward the
      wall. All at once the barn reeled around him; he fell down. There was a
      great laugh, but he scrambled to his feet and disappeared abruptly out
      into the night through the doorway of the barn, deathly pale, his hand
      upon his stomach.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dabney, the old man whom nobody knew, approached the group of ranchers
      around Magnus Derrick and stood, a little removed, listening gravely to
      what the governor was saying, his chin sunk in his collar, silent,
      offering no opinions.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the leader of the orchestra, with a great gesture of his violin bow,
      cried out:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All take partners for the lancers and promenade around the hall!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      However, there was a delay. A little crowd formed around the musicians'
      platform; voices were raised; there was a commotion. Skeezicks, who played
      the big horn, accused the cornet and the snare-drum of stealing his cold
      lunch. At intervals he could be heard expostulating:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, no! at the end of the end! Render me the sausages, you, or less I
      break your throat! Aha! I know you. You are going to play me there a bad
      farce. My sausages and the pork sandwich, else I go away from this place!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He made an exaggerated show of replacing his big horn in its case, but the
      by-standers raised a great protest. The sandwiches and one sausage were
      produced; the other had disappeared. In the end Skeezichs allowed himself
      to be appeased. The dance was resumed.
    </p>
    <p>
      Half an hour later the gathering in the harness room was considerably
      reinforced. It was the corner of the barn toward which the male guests
      naturally gravitated. Harran Derrick, who only cared to dance with Hilma
      Tree, was admitted. Garnett from the Ruby rancho and Gethings from the San
      Pablo, came in a little afterwards. A fourth bowl of punch was mixed,
      Annixter and Caraher clamouring into each other's face as to its
      ingredients. Cigars were lighted. Soon the air of the room became blue
      with an acrid haze of smoke. It was very warm. Ranged in their chairs
      around the side of the room, the guests emptied glass after glass.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee alone refused to drink. He sat a little to one side,
      disassociating himself from what was going forward, watching the others
      calmly, a little contemptuously, a cigarette in his fingers.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hooven, after drinking his third glass, however, was afflicted with a
      great sadness; his breast heaved with immense sighs. He asserted that he
      was &ldquo;obbressed;&rdquo; Cutter had taken his steer. He retired to a corner and
      seated himself in a heap on his chair, his heels on the rungs, wiping the
      tears from his eyes, refusing to be comforted. Old Broderson startled
      Annixter, who sat next to him, out of all measure by suddenly winking at
      him with infinite craftiness.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;When I was a lad in Ukiah,&rdquo; he whispered hoarsely, &ldquo;I was a devil of a
      fellow with the girls; but Lordy!&rdquo; he nudged him slyly, &ldquo;I wouldn't have
      it known!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Of those who were drinking, Annixter alone retained all his wits. Though
      keeping pace with the others, glass for glass, the punch left him solid
      upon his feet, clear-headed. The tough, cross-grained fibre of him seemed
      proof against alcohol. Never in his life had he been drunk. He prided
      himself upon his power of resistance. It was his nature.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say!&rdquo; exclaimed old Broderson, gravely addressing the company, pulling at
      his beard uneasily&mdash;&ldquo;say! I&mdash;I&mdash;listen! I'm a devil of a
      fellow with the girls.&rdquo; He wagged his head doggedly, shutting his eyes in
      a knowing fashion. &ldquo;Yes, sir, I am. There was a young lady in Ukiah&mdash;that
      was when I was a lad of seventeen. We used to meet in the cemetery in the
      afternoons. I was to go away to school at Sacramento, and the afternoon I
      left we met in the cemetery and we stayed so long I almost missed the
      train. Her name was Celestine.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a pause. The others waited for the rest of the story.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And afterwards?&rdquo; prompted Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Afterwards? Nothing afterwards. I never saw her again. Her name was
      Celestine.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The company raised a chorus of derision, and Osterman cried ironically:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say! THAT'S a pretty good one! Tell us another.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The old man laughed with the rest, believing he had made another hit. He
      called Osterman to him, whispering in his ear:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sh! Look here! Some night you and I will go up to San Francisco&mdash;hey?
      We'll go skylarking. We'll be gay. Oh, I'm a&mdash;a&mdash;a rare old
      BUCK, I am! I ain't too old. You'll see.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter gave over the making of the fifth bowl of punch to Osterman, who
      affirmed that he had a recipe for a &ldquo;fertiliser&rdquo; from Solotari that would
      take the plating off the ladle. He left him wrangling with Caraher, who
      still persisted in adding chartreuse, and stepped out into the dance to
      see how things were getting on.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the interval between two dances. In and around a stall at the
      farther end of the floor, where lemonade was being served, was a great
      throng of young men. Others hurried across the floor singly or by twos and
      threes, gingerly carrying overflowing glasses to their &ldquo;partners,&rdquo; sitting
      in long rows of white and blue and pink against the opposite wall, their
      mothers and older sisters in a second dark-clothed rank behind them. A
      babel of talk was in the air, mingled with gusts of laughter. Everybody
      seemed having a good time. In the increasing heat the decorations of
      evergreen trees and festoons threw off a pungent aroma that suggested a
      Sunday-school Christmas festival. In the other stalls, lower down the
      barn, the young men had brought chairs, and in these deep recesses the
      most desperate love-making was in progress, the young man, his hair neatly
      parted, leaning with great solicitation over the girl, his &ldquo;partner&rdquo; for
      the moment, fanning her conscientiously, his arm carefully laid along the
      back of her chair.
    </p>
    <p>
      By the doorway, Annixter met Sarria, who had stepped out to smoke a fat,
      black cigar. The set smile of amiability was still fixed on the priest's
      smooth, shiny face; the cigar ashes had left grey streaks on the front of
      his cassock. He avoided Annixter, fearing, no doubt, an allusion to his
      game cocks, and took up his position back of the second rank of chairs by
      the musicians' stand, beaming encouragingly upon every one who caught his
      eye.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter was saluted right and left as he slowly went the round of the
      floor. At every moment he had to pause to shake hands and to listen to
      congratulations upon the size of his barn and the success of his dance.
      But he was distrait, his thoughts elsewhere; he did not attempt to hide
      his impatience when some of the young men tried to engage him in
      conversation, asking him to be introduced to their sisters, or their
      friends' sisters. He sent them about their business harshly, abominably
      rude, leaving a wake of angry disturbance behind him, sowing the seeds of
      future quarrels and renewed unpopularity. He was looking for Hilma Tree.
    </p>
    <p>
      When at last he came unexpectedly upon her, standing near where Mrs. Tree
      was seated, some half-dozen young men hovering uneasily in her
      neighbourhood, all his audacity was suddenly stricken from him; his
      gruffness, his overbearing insolence vanished with an abruptness that left
      him cold. His old-time confusion and embarrassment returned to him.
      Instead of speaking to her as he intended, he affected not to see her, but
      passed by, his head in the air, pretending a sudden interest in a Japanese
      lantern that was about to catch fire.
    </p>
    <p>
      But he had had a single distinct glimpse of her, definite, precise, and
      this glimpse was enough. Hilma had changed. The change was subtle,
      evanescent, hard to define, but not the less unmistakable. The excitement,
      the enchanting delight, the delicious disturbance of &ldquo;the first ball,&rdquo; had
      produced its result. Perhaps there had only been this lacking. It was hard
      to say, but for that brief instant of time Annixter was looking at Hilma,
      the woman. She was no longer the young girl upon whom he might look down,
      to whom he might condescend, whose little, infantile graces were to be
      considered with amused toleration.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Annixter returned to the harness room, he let himself into a clamour
      of masculine hilarity. Osterman had, indeed, made a marvellous
      &ldquo;fertiliser,&rdquo; whiskey for the most part, diluted with champagne and lemon
      juice. The first round of this drink had been welcomed with a salvo of
      cheers. Hooven, recovering his spirits under its violent stimulation,
      spoke of &ldquo;heving ut oudt mit Cudder, bei Gott,&rdquo; while Osterman, standing
      on a chair at the end of the room, shouted for a &ldquo;few moments quiet,
      gentlemen,&rdquo; so that he might tell a certain story he knew. But, abruptly,
      Annixter discovered that the liquors&mdash;the champagne, whiskey, brandy,
      and the like&mdash;were running low. This would never do. He felt that he
      would stand disgraced if it could be said afterward that he had not
      provided sufficient drink at his entertainment. He slipped out,
      unobserved, and, finding two of his ranch hands near the doorway, sent
      them down to the ranch house to bring up all the cases of &ldquo;stuff&rdquo; they
      found there.
    </p>
    <p>
      However, when this matter had been attended to, Annixter did not
      immediately return to the harness room. On the floor of the barn a square
      dance was under way, the leader of the City Band calling the figures.
      Young Vacca indefatigably continued the rounds of the barn, paring candle
      after candle, possessed with this single idea of duty, pushing the dancers
      out of his way, refusing to admit that the floor was yet sufficiently
      slippery. The druggist had returned indoors, and leaned dejected and
      melancholy against the wall near the doorway, unable to dance, his
      evening's enjoyment spoiled. The gayly apparelled clerk from Bonneville
      had just involved himself in a deplorable incident. In a search for his
      handkerchief, which he had lost while trying to find his programme card,
      he had inadvertently wandered into the feed room, set apart as the ladies'
      dressing room, at the moment when Mrs. Hooven, having removed the waist of
      Minna's dress, was relacing her corsets. There was a tremendous scene. The
      clerk was ejected forcibly, Mrs. Hooven filling all the neighbourhood with
      shrill expostulation. A young man, Minna's &ldquo;partner,&rdquo; who stood near the
      feed room door, waiting for her to come out, had invited the clerk, with
      elaborate sarcasm, to step outside for a moment; and the clerk,
      breathless, stupefied, hustled from hand to hand, remained petrified, with
      staring eyes, turning about and about, looking wildly from face to face,
      speechless, witless, wondering what had happened.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the square dance was over. The City Band was just beginning to play a
      waltz. Annixter assuring himself that everything was going all right, was
      picking his way across the floor, when he came upon Hilma Tree quite
      alone, and looking anxiously among the crowd of dancers.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Having a good time, Miss Hilma?&rdquo; he demanded, pausing for a moment.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, am I, JUST!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;The best time&mdash;but I don't know
      what has become of my partner. See! I'm left all alone&mdash;the only time
      this whole evening,&rdquo; she added proudly. &ldquo;Have you seen him&mdash;my
      partner, sir? I forget his name. I only met him this evening, and I've met
      SO many I can't begin to remember half of them. He was a young man from
      Bonneville&mdash;a clerk, I think, because I remember seeing him in a
      store there, and he wore the prettiest clothes!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I guess he got lost in the shuffle,&rdquo; observed Annixter. Suddenly an idea
      occurred to him. He took his resolution in both hands. He clenched his
      teeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say! look here, Miss Hilma. What's the matter with you and I stealing
      this one for ourselves? I don't mean to dance. I don't propose to make a
      jumping-jack of myself for some galoot to give me the laugh, but we'll
      walk around. Will you? What do you say?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma consented.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm not so VERY sorry I missed my dance with that&mdash;that&mdash;little
      clerk,&rdquo; she said guiltily. &ldquo;I suppose that's very bad of me, isn't it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter fulminated a vigorous protest.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I AM so warm!&rdquo; murmured Hilma, fanning herself with her handkerchief;
      &ldquo;and, oh! SUCH a good time as I have had! I was so afraid that I would be
      a wall-flower and sit up by mamma and papa the whole evening; and as it
      is, I have had every single dance, and even some dances I had to split.
      Oh-h!&rdquo; she breathed, glancing lovingly around the barn, noting again the
      festoons of tri-coloured cambric, the Japanese lanterns, flaring lamps,
      and &ldquo;decorations&rdquo; of evergreen; &ldquo;oh-h! it's all so lovely, just like a
      fairy story; and to think that it can't last but for one little evening,
      and that to-morrow morning one must wake up to the every-day things
      again!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; observed Annixter doggedly, unwilling that she should forget whom
      she ought to thank, &ldquo;I did my best, and my best is as good as another
      man's, I guess.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma overwhelmed him with a burst of gratitude which he gruffly pretended
      to deprecate. Oh, that was all right. It hadn't cost him much. He liked to
      see people having a good time himself, and the crowd did seem to be
      enjoying themselves. What did SHE think? Did things look lively enough?
      And how about herself&mdash;was she enjoying it?
    </p>
    <p>
      Stupidly Annixter drove the question home again, at his wits' end as to
      how to make conversation. Hilma protested volubly she would never forget
      this night, adding:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dance! Oh, you don't know how I love it! I didn't know myself. I could
      dance all night and never stop once!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter was smitten with uneasiness. No doubt this &ldquo;promenading&rdquo; was not
      at all to her taste. Wondering what kind of a spectacle he was about to
      make of himself, he exclaimed:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Want to dance now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes!&rdquo; she returned.
    </p>
    <p>
      They paused in their walk, and Hilma, facing him, gave herself into his
      arms. Annixter shut his teeth, the perspiration starting from his
      forehead. For five years he had abandoned dancing. Never in his best days
      had it been one of his accomplishments.
    </p>
    <p>
      They hesitated a moment, waiting to catch the time from the musicians.
      Another couple bore down upon them at precisely the wrong moment, jostling
      them out of step. Annixter swore under his breath. His arm still about the
      young woman, he pulled her over to one corner.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he muttered, &ldquo;we'll try again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A second time, listening to the one-two-three, one-two-three cadence of
      the musicians, they endeavoured to get under way. Annixter waited the
      fraction of a second too long and stepped on Hilma's foot. On the third
      attempt, having worked out of the corner, a pair of dancers bumped into
      them once more, and as they were recovering themselves another couple
      caromed violently against Annixter so that he all but lost his footing. He
      was in a rage. Hilma, very embarrassed, was trying not to laugh, and thus
      they found themselves, out in the middle of the floor, continually jostled
      from their position, holding clumsily to each other, stammering excuses
      into one another's faces, when Delaney arrived.
    </p>
    <p>
      He came with the suddenness of an explosion. There was a commotion by the
      doorway, a rolling burst of oaths, a furious stamping of hoofs, a wild
      scramble of the dancers to either side of the room, and there he was. He
      had ridden the buckskin at a gallop straight through the doorway and out
      into the middle of the floor of the barn.
    </p>
    <p>
      Once well inside, Delaney hauled up on the cruel spade-bit, at the same
      time driving home the spurs, and the buckskin, without halting in her
      gait, rose into the air upon her hind feet, and coming down again with a
      thunder of iron hoofs upon the hollow floor, lashed out with both heels
      simultaneously, her back arched, her head between her knees. It was the
      running buck, and had not Delaney been the hardest buster in the county,
      would have flung him headlong like a sack of sand. But he eased off the
      bit, gripping the mare's flanks with his knees, and the buckskin, having
      long since known her master, came to hand quivering, the bloody spume
      dripping from the bit upon the slippery floor.
    </p>
    <p>
      Delaney had arrayed himself with painful elaboration, determined to look
      the part, bent upon creating the impression, resolved that his appearance
      at least should justify his reputation of being &ldquo;bad.&rdquo; Nothing was lacking&mdash;neither
      the campaign hat with upturned brim, nor the dotted blue handkerchief
      knotted behind the neck, nor the heavy gauntlets stitched with red, nor&mdash;this
      above all&mdash;the bear-skin &ldquo;chaparejos,&rdquo; the hair trousers of the
      mountain cowboy, the pistol holster low on the thigh. But for the moment
      this holster was empty, and in his right hand, the hammer at full cock,
      the chamber loaded, the puncher flourished his teaser, an army Colt's, the
      lamplight dully reflected in the dark blue steel.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a second of time the dance was a bedlam. The musicians stopped with a
      discord, and the middle of the crowded floor bared itself instantly. It
      was like sand blown from off a rock; the throng of guests, carried by an
      impulse that was not to be resisted, bore back against the sides of the
      barn, overturning chairs, tripping upon each other, falling down,
      scrambling to their feet again, stepping over one another, getting behind
      each other, diving under chairs, flattening themselves against the wall&mdash;a
      wild, clamouring pell-mell, blind, deaf, panic-stricken; a confused tangle
      of waving arms, torn muslin, crushed flowers, pale faces, tangled legs,
      that swept in all directions back from the centre of the floor, leaving
      Annixter and Hilma, alone, deserted, their arms about each other, face to
      face with Delaney, mad with alcohol, bursting with remembered insult, bent
      on evil, reckless of results.
    </p>
    <p>
      After the first scramble for safety, the crowd fell quiet for the fraction
      of an instant, glued to the walls, afraid to stir, struck dumb and
      motionless with surprise and terror, and in the instant's silence that
      followed Annixter, his eyes on Delaney, muttered rapidly to Hilma:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Get back, get away to one side. The fool MIGHT shoot.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a second's respite afforded while Delaney occupied himself in
      quieting the buckskin, and in that second of time, at this moment of
      crisis, the wonderful thing occurred. Hilma, turning from Delaney, her
      hands clasped on Annixter's arm, her eyes meeting his, exclaimed:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You, too!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And that was all; but to Annixter it was a revelation. Never more alive to
      his surroundings, never more observant, he suddenly understood. For the
      briefest lapse of time he and Hilma looked deep into each other's eyes,
      and from that moment on, Annixter knew that Hilma cared.
    </p>
    <p>
      The whole matter was brief as the snapping of a finger. Two words and a
      glance and all was done. But as though nothing had occurred, Annixter
      pushed Hilma from him, repeating harshly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Get back, I tell you. Don't you see he's got a gun? Haven't I enough on
      my hands without you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He loosed her clasp and his eyes once more on Delaney, moved diagonally
      backwards toward the side of the barn, pushing Hilma from him. In the end
      he thrust her away so sharply that she gave back with a long stagger;
      somebody caught her arm and drew her in, leaving Annixter alone once more
      in the middle of the floor, his hands in his coat pockets, watchful,
      alert, facing his enemy.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the cow-puncher was not ready to come to grapples yet. Fearless, his
      wits gambolling under the lash of the alcohol, he wished to make the most
      of the occasion, maintaining the suspense, playing for the gallery. By
      touches of the hand and knee he kept the buckskin in continual, nervous
      movement, her hoofs clattering, snorting, tossing her head, while he,
      himself, addressing himself to Annixter, poured out a torrent of
      invective.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, strike me blind if it ain't old Buck Annixter! He was going to show
      me off Quien Sabe at the toe of his boot, was he? Well, here's your
      chance,&mdash;with the ladies to see you do it. Gives a dance, does he,
      high-falutin' hoe-down in his barn and forgets to invite his old
      broncho-bustin' friend. But his friend don't forget him; no, he don't. He
      remembers little things, does his broncho-bustin' friend. Likes to see a
      dance hisself on occasion, his friend does. Comes anyhow, trustin' his
      welcome will be hearty; just to see old Buck Annixter dance, just to show
      Buck Annixter's friends how Buck can dance&mdash;dance all by hisself, a
      little hen-on-a-hot-plate dance when his broncho-bustin' friend asks him
      so polite. A little dance for the ladies, Buck. This feature of the
      entertainment is alone worth the price of admission. Tune up, Buck.
      Attention now! I'll give you the key.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He &ldquo;fanned&rdquo; his revolver, spinning it about his index finger by the
      trigger-guard with incredible swiftness, the twirling weapon a mere blur
      of blue steel in his hand. Suddenly and without any apparent cessation of
      the movement, he fired, and a little splinter of wood flipped into the air
      at Annixter's feet.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Time!&rdquo; he shouted, while the buckskin reared to the report. &ldquo;Hold on&mdash;wait
      a minute. This place is too light to suit. That big light yonder is in my
      eyes. Look out, I'm going to throw lead.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A second shot put out the lamp over the musicians' stand. The assembled
      guests shrieked, a frantic, shrinking quiver ran through the crowd like
      the huddling of frightened rabbits in their pen.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter hardly moved. He stood some thirty paces from the buster, his
      hands still in his coat pockets, his eyes glistening, watchful. Excitable
      and turbulent in trifling matters, when actual bodily danger threatened he
      was of an abnormal quiet.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm watching you,&rdquo; cried the other. &ldquo;Don't make any mistake about that.
      Keep your hands in your COAT pockets, if you'd like to live a little
      longer, understand? And don't let me see you make a move toward your hip
      or your friends will be asked to identify you at the morgue to-morrow
      morning. When I'm bad, I'm called the Undertaker's Friend, so I am, and
      I'm that bad to-night that I'm scared of myself. They'll have to revise
      the census returns before I'm done with this place. Come on, now, I'm
      getting tired waiting. I come to see a dance.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hand over that horse, Delaney,&rdquo; said Annixter, without raising his voice,
      &ldquo;and clear out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other affected to be overwhelmed with infinite astonishment, his eyes
      staring. He peered down from the saddle.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wh-a-a-t!&rdquo; he exclaimed; &ldquo;wh-a-a-t did you say? Why, I guess you must be
      looking for trouble; that's what I guess.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's where you're wrong, m'son,&rdquo; muttered Annixter, partly to Delaney,
      partly to himself. &ldquo;If I was looking for trouble there wouldn't be any
      guess-work about it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      With the words he began firing. Delaney had hardly entered the barn before
      Annixter's plan had been formed. Long since his revolver was in the pocket
      of his coat, and he fired now through the coat itself, without withdrawing
      his hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      Until that moment Annixter had not been sure of himself. There was no
      doubt that for the first few moments of the affair he would have welcomed
      with joy any reasonable excuse for getting out of the situation. But the
      sound of his own revolver gave him confidence. He whipped it from his
      pocket and fired again.
    </p>
    <p>
      Abruptly the duel began, report following report, spurts of pale blue
      smoke jetting like the darts of short spears between the two men,
      expanding to a haze and drifting overhead in wavering strata. It was quite
      probable that no thought of killing each other suggested itself to either
      Annixter or Delaney. Both fired without aiming very deliberately. To empty
      their revolvers and avoid being hit was the desire common to both. They no
      longer vituperated each other. The revolvers spoke for them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Long after, Annixter could recall this moment. For years he could with but
      little effort reconstruct the scene&mdash;the densely packed crowd
      flattened against the sides of the barn, the festoons of lanterns, the
      mingled smell of evergreens, new wood, sachets, and powder smoke; the
      vague clamour of distress and terror that rose from the throng of guests,
      the squealing of the buckskin, the uneven explosions of the revolvers, the
      reverberation of trampling hoofs, a brief glimpse of Harran Derrick's
      excited face at the door of the harness room, and in the open space in the
      centre of the floor, himself and Delaney, manoeuvring swiftly in a cloud
      of smoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter's revolver contained but six cartridges. Already it seemed to him
      as if he had fired twenty times. Without doubt the next shot was his last.
      Then what? He peered through the blue haze that with every discharge
      thickened between him and the buster. For his own safety he must &ldquo;place&rdquo;
       at least one shot. Delaney's chest and shoulders rose suddenly above the
      smoke close upon him as the distraught buckskin reared again. Annixter,
      for the first time during the fight, took definite aim, but before he
      could draw the trigger there was a great shout and he was aware of the
      buckskin, the bridle trailing, the saddle empty, plunging headlong across
      the floor, crashing into the line of chairs. Delaney was scrambling off
      the floor. There was blood on the buster's wrist and he no longer carried
      his revolver. Suddenly he turned and ran. The crowd parted right and left
      before him as he made toward the doorway. He disappeared.
    </p>
    <p>
      Twenty men promptly sprang to the buckskin's head, but she broke away, and
      wild with terror, bewildered, blind, insensate, charged into the corner of
      the barn by the musicians' stand. She brought up against the wall with
      cruel force and with impact of a sack of stones; her head was cut. She
      turned and charged again, bull-like, the blood streaming from her
      forehead. The crowd, shrieking, melted before her rush. An old man was
      thrown down and trampled. The buckskin trod upon the dragging bridle,
      somersaulted into a confusion of chairs in one corner, and came down with
      a terrific clatter in a wild disorder of kicking hoofs and splintered
      wood. But a crowd of men fell upon her, tugging at the bit, sitting on her
      head, shouting, gesticulating. For five minutes she struggled and fought;
      then, by degrees, she recovered herself, drawing great sobbing breaths at
      long intervals that all but burst the girths, rolling her eyes in
      bewildered, supplicating fashion, trembling in every muscle, and starting
      and shrinking now and then like a young girl in hysterics. At last she lay
      quiet. The men allowed her to struggle to her feet. The saddle was removed
      and she was led to one of the empty stalls, where she remained the rest of
      the evening, her head low, her pasterns quivering, turning her head
      apprehensively from time to time, showing the white of one eye and at long
      intervals heaving a single prolonged sigh.
    </p>
    <p>
      And an hour later the dance was progressing as evenly as though nothing in
      the least extraordinary had occurred. The incident was closed&mdash;that
      abrupt swoop of terror and impending death dropping down there from out
      the darkness, cutting abruptly athwart the gayety of the moment, come and
      gone with the swiftness of a thunderclap. Many of the women had gone home,
      taking their men with them; but the great bulk of the crowd still
      remained, seeing no reason why the episode should interfere with the
      evening's enjoyment, resolved to hold the ground for mere bravado, if for
      nothing else. Delaney would not come back, of that everybody was
      persuaded, and in case he should, there was not found wanting fully half a
      hundred young men who would give him a dressing down, by jingo! They had
      been too surprised to act when Delaney had first appeared, and before they
      knew where they were at, the buster had cleared out. In another minute,
      just another second, they would have shown him&mdash;yes, sir, by jingo!&mdash;ah,
      you bet!
    </p>
    <p>
      On all sides the reminiscences began to circulate. At least one man in
      every three had been involved in a gun fight at some time of his life.
      &ldquo;Ah, you ought to have seen in Yuba County one time&mdash;&rdquo; &ldquo;Why, in Butte
      County in the early days&mdash;&rdquo; &ldquo;Pshaw! this to-night wasn't anything!
      Why, once in a saloon in Arizona when I was there&mdash;&rdquo; and so on, over
      and over again. Osterman solemnly asserted that he had seen a greaser sawn
      in two in a Nevada sawmill. Old Broderson had witnessed a Vigilante
      lynching in '55 on California Street in San Francisco. Dyke recalled how
      once in his engineering days he had run over a drunk at a street crossing.
      Gethings of the San Pablo had taken a shot at a highwayman. Hooven had
      bayonetted a French Chasseur at Sedan. An old Spanish-Mexican, a
      centenarian from Guadalajara, remembered Fremont's stand on a mountain top
      in San Benito County. The druggist had fired at a burglar trying to break
      into his store one New Year's eve. Young Vacca had seen a dog shot in
      Guadalajara. Father Sarria had more than once administered the sacraments
      to Portuguese desperadoes dying of gunshot wounds. Even the women recalled
      terrible scenes. Mrs. Cutter recounted to an interested group how she had
      seen a claim jumped in Placer County in 1851, when three men were shot,
      falling in a fusillade of rifle shots, and expiring later upon the floor
      of her kitchen while she looked on. Mrs. Dyke had been in a stage hold-up,
      when the shotgun messenger was murdered. Stories by the hundreds went the
      round of the company. The air was surcharged with blood, dying groans, the
      reek of powder smoke, the crack of rifles. All the legends of '49, the
      violent, wild life of the early days, were recalled to view, defiling
      before them there in an endless procession under the glare of paper
      lanterns and kerosene lamps.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the affair had aroused a combative spirit amongst the men of the
      assembly. Instantly a spirit of aggression, of truculence, swelled up
      underneath waistcoats and starched shirt bosoms. More than one offender
      was promptly asked to &ldquo;step outside.&rdquo; It was like young bucks excited by
      an encounter of stags, lowering their horns upon the slightest
      provocation, showing off before the does and fawns. Old quarrels were
      remembered. One sought laboriously for slights and insults, veiled in
      ordinary conversation. The sense of personal honour became refined to a
      delicate, fine point. Upon the slightest pretext there was a haughty
      drawing up of the figure, a twisting of the lips into a smile of scorn.
      Caraher spoke of shooting S. Behrman on sight before the end of the week.
      Twice it became necessary to separate Hooven and Cutter, renewing their
      quarrel as to the ownership of the steer. All at once Minna Hooven's
      &ldquo;partner&rdquo; fell upon the gayly apparelled clerk from Bonneville, pummelling
      him with his fists, hustling him out of the hall, vociferating that Miss
      Hooven had been grossly insulted. It took three men to extricate the clerk
      from his clutches, dazed, gasping, his collar unfastened and sticking up
      into his face, his eyes staring wildly into the faces of the crowd.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Annixter, bursting with pride, his chest thrown out, his chin in the
      air, reigned enthroned in a circle of adulation. He was the Hero. To shake
      him by the hand was an honour to be struggled for. One clapped him on the
      back with solemn nods of approval. &ldquo;There's the BOY for you;&rdquo; &ldquo;There was
      nerve for you;&rdquo; &ldquo;What's the matter with Annixter?&rdquo; &ldquo;How about THAT for
      sand, and how was THAT for a SHOT?&rdquo; &ldquo;Why, Apache Kid couldn't have
      bettered that.&rdquo; &ldquo;Cool enough.&rdquo; &ldquo;Took a steady eye and a sure hand to make
      a shot like that.&rdquo; &ldquo;There was a shot that would be told about in Tulare
      County fifty years to come.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter had refrained from replying, all ears to this conversation,
      wondering just what had happened. He knew only that Delaney had run,
      leaving his revolver and a spatter of blood behind him. By degrees,
      however, he ascertained that his last shot but one had struck Delaney's
      pistol hand, shattering it and knocking the revolver from his grip. He was
      overwhelmed with astonishment. Why, after the shooting began he had not so
      much as seen Delaney with any degree of plainness. The whole affair was a
      whirl.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, where did YOU learn to shoot THAT way?&rdquo; some one in the crowd
      demanded. Annixter moved his shoulders with a gesture of vast unconcern.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he observed carelessly, &ldquo;it's not my SHOOTING that ever worried ME,
      m'son.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The crowd gaped with delight. There was a great wagging of heads.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I guess not.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, sir, not much.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, no, you bet not.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When the women pressed around him, shaking his hands, declaring that he
      had saved their daughters' lives, Annixter assumed a pose of superb
      deprecation, the modest self-obliteration of the chevalier. He delivered
      himself of a remembered phrase, very elegant, refined. It was Lancelot
      after the tournament, Bayard receiving felicitations after the battle.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, don't say anything about it,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;I only did what any man
      would have done in my place.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      To restore completely the equanimity of the company, he announced supper.
      This he had calculated as a tremendous surprise. It was to have been
      served at mid-night, but the irruption of Delaney had dislocated the order
      of events, and the tables were brought in an hour ahead of time. They were
      arranged around three sides of the barn and were loaded down with cold
      roasts of beef, cold chickens and cold ducks, mountains of sandwiches,
      pitchers of milk and lemonade, entire cheeses, bowls of olives, plates of
      oranges and nuts. The advent of this supper was received with a volley of
      applause. The musicians played a quick step. The company threw themselves
      upon the food with a great scraping of chairs and a vast rustle of
      muslins, tarletans, and organdies; soon the clatter of dishes was a
      veritable uproar. The tables were taken by assault. One ate whatever was
      nearest at hand, some even beginning with oranges and nuts and ending with
      beef and chicken. At the end the paper caps were brought on, together with
      the ice cream. All up and down the tables the pulled &ldquo;crackers&rdquo; snapped
      continually like the discharge of innumerable tiny rifles.
    </p>
    <p>
      The caps of tissue paper were put on&mdash;&ldquo;Phrygian Bonnets,&rdquo; &ldquo;Magicians'
      Caps,&rdquo; &ldquo;Liberty Caps;&rdquo; the young girls looked across the table at their
      vis-a-vis with bursts of laughter and vigorous clapping of the hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      The harness room crowd had a table to themselves, at the head of which sat
      Annixter and at the foot Harran. The gun fight had sobered Presley
      thoroughly. He sat by the side of Vanamee, who ate but little, preferring
      rather to watch the scene with calm observation, a little contemptuous
      when the uproar around the table was too boisterous, savouring of
      intoxication. Osterman rolled bullets of bread and shot them with
      astonishing force up and down the table, but the others&mdash;Dyke, old
      Broderson, Caraher, Harran Derrick, Hooven, Cutter, Garnett of the Ruby
      rancho, Keast from the ranch of the same name, Gethings of the San Pablo,
      and Chattern of the Bonanza&mdash;occupied themselves with eating as much
      as they could before the supper gave out. At a corner of the table,
      speechless, unobserved, ignored, sat Dabney, of whom nothing was known but
      his name, the silent old man who made no friends. He ate and drank
      quietly, dipping his sandwich in his lemonade.
    </p>
    <p>
      Osterman ate all the olives he could lay his hands on, a score of them,
      fifty of them, a hundred of them. He touched no crumb of anything else.
      Old Broderson stared at him, his jaw fallen. Osterman declared he had once
      eaten a thousand on a bet. The men called each others' attention to him.
      Delighted to create a sensation, Osterman persevered. The contents of an
      entire bowl disappeared in his huge, reptilian slit of a mouth. His cheeks
      of brownish red were extended, his bald forehead glistened. Colics seized
      upon him. His stomach revolted. It was all one with him. He was satisfied,
      contented. He was astonishing the people.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Once I swallowed a tree toad.&rdquo; he told old Broderson, &ldquo;by mistake. I was
      eating grapes, and the beggar lived in me three weeks. In rainy weather he
      would sing. You don't believe that,&rdquo; he vociferated. &ldquo;Haven't I got the
      toad at home now in a bottle of alcohol.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And the old man, never doubting, his eyes starting, wagged his head in
      amazement.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; cried Caraher, the length of the table, &ldquo;that's a pretty good
      one. Tell us another.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That reminds me of a story,&rdquo; hazarded old Broderson uncertainly; &ldquo;once
      when I was a lad in Ukiah, fifty years.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; cried half a dozen voices, &ldquo;THAT'S a pretty good one. Tell us
      another.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Eh&mdash;wh&mdash;what?&rdquo; murmured Broderson, looking about him. &ldquo;I&mdash;I
      don't know. It was Ukiah. You&mdash;you&mdash;you mix me all up.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As soon as supper was over, the floor was cleared again. The guests
      clamoured for a Virginia reel. The last quarter of the evening, the time
      of the most riotous fun, was beginning. The young men caught the girls who
      sat next to them. The orchestra dashed off into a rollicking movement. The
      two lines were formed. In a second of time the dance was under way again;
      the guests still wearing the Phrygian bonnets and liberty caps of pink and
      blue tissue paper.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the group of men once more adjourned to the harness room. Fresh boxes
      of cigars were opened; the seventh bowl of fertiliser was mixed. Osterman
      poured the dregs of a glass of it upon his bald head, declaring that he
      could feel the hair beginning to grow.
    </p>
    <p>
      But suddenly old Broderson rose to his feet.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aha,&rdquo; he cackled, &ldquo;I'M going to have a dance, I am. Think I'm too old?
      I'll show you young fellows. I'm a regular old ROOSTER when I get
      started.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He marched out into the barn, the others following, holding their sides.
      He found an aged Mexican woman by the door and hustled her, all confused
      and giggling, into the Virginia reel, then at its height. Every one
      crowded around to see. Old Broderson stepped off with the alacrity of a
      colt, snapping his fingers, slapping his thigh, his mouth widening in an
      excited grin. The entire company of the guests shouted. The City Band
      redoubled their efforts; and the old man, losing his head, breathless,
      gasping, dislocated his stiff joints in his efforts. He became possessed,
      bowing, scraping, advancing, retreating, wagging his beard, cutting
      pigeons' wings, distraught with the music, the clamour, the applause, the
      effects of the fertiliser.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter shouted:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nice eye, Santa Claus.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Annixter's attention wandered. He searched for Hilma Tree, having
      still in mind the look in her eyes at that swift moment of danger. He had
      not seen her since then. At last he caught sight of her. She was not
      dancing, but, instead, was sitting with her &ldquo;partner&rdquo; at the end of the
      barn near her father and mother, her eyes wide, a serious expression on
      her face, her thoughts, no doubt, elsewhere. Annixter was about to go to
      her when he was interrupted by a cry.
    </p>
    <p>
      Old Broderson, in the midst of a double shuffle, had clapped his hand to
      his side with a gasp, which he followed by a whoop of anguish. He had got
      a stitch or had started a twinge somewhere. With a gesture of resignation,
      he drew himself laboriously out of the dance, limping abominably, one leg
      dragging. He was heard asking for his wife. Old Mrs. Broderson took him in
      charge. She jawed him for making an exhibition of himself, scolding as
      though he were a ten-year-old.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I want to know!&rdquo; she exclaimed, as he hobbled off, dejected and
      melancholy, leaning upon her arm, &ldquo;thought he had to dance, indeed! What
      next? A gay old grandpa, this. He'd better be thinking of his coffin.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was almost midnight. The dance drew towards its close in a storm of
      jubilation. The perspiring musicians toiled like galley slaves; the guests
      singing as they danced.
    </p>
    <p>
      The group of men reassembled in the harness room. Even Magnus Derrick
      condescended to enter and drink a toast. Presley and Vanamee, still
      holding themselves aloof, looked on, Vanamee more and more disgusted.
      Dabney, standing to one side, overlooked and forgotten, continued to sip
      steadily at his glass, solemn, reserved. Garnett of the Ruby rancho, Keast
      from the ranch of the same name, Gethings of the San Pablo, and Chattern
      of the Bonanza, leaned back in their chairs, their waist-coats unbuttoned,
      their legs spread wide, laughing&mdash;they could not tell why. Other
      ranchers, men whom Annixter had never seen, appeared in the room, wheat
      growers from places as far distant as Goshen and Pixley; young men and
      old, proprietors of veritable principalities, hundreds of thousands of
      acres of wheat lands, a dozen of them, a score of them; men who were
      strangers to each other, but who made it a point to shake hands with
      Magnus Derrick, the &ldquo;prominent man&rdquo; of the valley. Old Broderson, whom
      every one had believed had gone home, returned, though much sobered, and
      took his place, refusing, however, to drink another spoonful.
    </p>
    <p>
      Soon the entire number of Annixter's guests found themselves in two
      companies, the dancers on the floor of the barn, frolicking through the
      last figures of the Virginia reel and the boisterous gathering of men in
      the harness room, downing the last quarts of fertiliser. Both assemblies
      had been increased. Even the older people had joined in the dance, while
      nearly every one of the men who did not dance had found their way into the
      harness room. The two groups rivalled each other in their noise. Out on
      the floor of the barn was a very whirlwind of gayety, a tempest of
      laughter, hand-clapping and cries of amusement. In the harness room the
      confused shouting and singing, the stamping of heavy feet, set a quivering
      reverberation in the oil of the kerosene lamps, the flame of the candles
      in the Japanese lanterns flaring and swaying in the gusts of hilarity. At
      intervals, between the two, one heard the music, the wailing of the
      violins, the vigorous snarling of the cornet, and the harsh, incessant
      rasping of the snare drum.
    </p>
    <p>
      And at times all these various sounds mingled in a single vague note,
      huge, clamorous, that rose up into the night from the colossal,
      reverberating compass of the barn and sent its echoes far off across the
      unbroken levels of the surrounding ranches, stretching out to infinity
      under the clouded sky, calm, mysterious, still.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, the punch bowl clasped in his arms, was pouring out the last
      spoonful of liquor into Caraher's glass when he was aware that some one
      was pulling at the sleeve of his coat. He set down the punch bowl.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, where did YOU come from?&rdquo; he demanded.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a messenger from Bonneville, the uniformed boy that the telephone
      company employed to carry messages. He had just arrived from town on his
      bicycle, out of breath and panting.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Message for you, sir. Will you sign?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He held the book to Annixter, who signed the receipt, wondering.
    </p>
    <p>
      The boy departed, leaving a thick envelope of yellow paper in Annixter's
      hands, the address typewritten, the word &ldquo;Urgent&rdquo; written in blue pencil
      in one corner.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter tore it open. The envelope contained other sealed envelopes, some
      eight or ten of them, addressed to Magnus Derrick, Osterman, Broderson,
      Garnett, Keast, Gethings, Chattern, Dabney, and to Annixter himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Still puzzled, Annixter distributed the envelopes, muttering to himself:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's up now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The incident had attracted attention. A comparative quiet followed, the
      guests following the letters with their eyes as they were passed around
      the table. They fancied that Annixter had arranged a surprise.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus Derrick, who sat next to Annixter, was the first to receive his
      letter. With a word of excuse he opened it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Read it, read it, Governor,&rdquo; shouted a half-dozen voices. &ldquo;No secrets,
      you know. Everything above board here to-night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus cast a glance at the contents of the letter, then rose to his feet
      and read:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Magnus Derrick,
         Bonneville, Tulare Co., Cal.
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Dear Sir:

     By regrade of October 1st, the value of the railroad land you
     occupy, included in your ranch of Los Muertos, has been fixed at
     $27.00 per acre.  The land is now for sale at that price to any
     one.

                           Yours, etc.,
                   CYRUS BLAKELEE RUGGLES,
                           Land Agent, P. and S. W. R. R.

                   S. BEHRMAN,
                           Local Agent, P. and S. W. R. R.
</pre>
    <p>
      In the midst of the profound silence that followed, Osterman was heard to
      exclaim grimly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;THAT'S a pretty good one. Tell us another.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But for a long moment this was the only remark.
    </p>
    <p>
      The silence widened, broken only by the sound of torn paper as Annixter,
      Osterman, old Broderson, Garnett, Keast, Gethings, Chattern, and Dabney
      opened and read their letters. They were all to the same effect, almost
      word for word like the Governor's. Only the figures and the proper names
      varied. In some cases the price per acre was twenty-two dollars. In
      Annixter's case it was thirty.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And&mdash;and the company promised to sell to me, to&mdash;to all of us,&rdquo;
       gasped old Broderson, &ldquo;at TWO DOLLARS AND A HALF an acre.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was not alone the ranchers immediately around Bonneville who would be
      plundered by this move on the part of the Railroad. The &ldquo;alternate
      section&rdquo; system applied throughout all the San Joaquin. By striking at the
      Bonneville ranchers a terrible precedent was established. Of the crowd of
      guests in the harness room alone, nearly every man was affected, every man
      menaced with ruin. All of a million acres was suddenly involved.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then suddenly the tempest burst. A dozen men were on their feet in an
      instant, their teeth set, their fists clenched, their faces purple with
      rage. Oaths, curses, maledictions exploded like the firing of successive
      mines. Voices quivered with wrath, hands flung upward, the fingers hooked,
      prehensile, trembled with anger. The sense of wrongs, the injustices, the
      oppression, extortion, and pillage of twenty years suddenly culminated and
      found voice in a raucous howl of execration. For a second there was
      nothing articulate in that cry of savage exasperation, nothing even
      intelligent. It was the human animal hounded to its corner, exploited,
      harried to its last stand, at bay, ferocious, terrible, turning at last
      with bared teeth and upraised claws to meet the death grapple. It was the
      hideous squealing of the tormented brute, its back to the wall, defending
      its lair, its mate and its whelps, ready to bite, to rend, to trample, to
      batter out the life of The Enemy in a primeval, bestial welter of blood
      and fury.
    </p>
    <p>
      The roar subsided to intermittent clamour, in the pauses of which the
      sounds of music and dancing made themselves audible once more.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;S. Behrman again,&rdquo; vociferated Harran Derrick.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Chose his moment well,&rdquo; muttered Annixter. &ldquo;Hits his hardest when we're
      all rounded up having a good time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gentlemen, this is ruin.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's to be done now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;FIGHT! My God! do you think we are going to stand this? Do you think we
      CAN?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The uproar swelled again. The clearer the assembly of ranchers understood
      the significance of this move on the part of the Railroad, the more
      terrible it appeared, the more flagrant, the more intolerable. Was it
      possible, was it within the bounds of imagination that this tyranny should
      be contemplated? But they knew&mdash;past years had driven home the lesson&mdash;the
      implacable, iron monster with whom they had to deal, and again and again
      the sense of outrage and oppression lashed them to their feet, their
      mouths wide with curses, their fists clenched tight, their throats hoarse
      with shouting.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fight! How fight? What ARE you going to do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If there's a law in this land&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If there is, it is in Shelgrim's pocket. Who owns the courts in
      California? Ain't it Shelgrim?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;God damn him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, how long are you going to stand it? How long before you'll settle
      up accounts with six inches of plugged gas-pipe?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And our contracts, the solemn pledges of the corporation to sell to us
      first of all&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And now the land is for sale to anybody.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, it is a question of my home. Am I to be turned out? Why, I have put
      eight thousand dollars into improving this land.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And I six thousand, and now that I have, the Railroad grabs it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And the system of irrigating ditches that Derrick and I have been laying
      out. There's thousands of dollars in that!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll fight this out till I've spent every cent of my money.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where? In the courts that the company owns?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Think I am going to give in to this? Think I am to get off my land? By
      God, gentlemen, law or no law, railroad or no railroad, I&mdash;WILL&mdash;NOT.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nor I.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nor I.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nor I.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is the last. Legal means first; if those fail&mdash;the shotgun.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They can kill me. They can shoot me down, but I'll die&mdash;die fighting
      for my home&mdash;before I'll give in to this.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      At length Annixter made himself heard:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All out of the room but the ranch owners,&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Hooven, Caraher,
      Dyke, you'll have to clear out. This is a family affair. Presley, you and
      your friend can remain.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Reluctantly the others filed through the door. There remained in the
      harness room&mdash;besides Vanamee and Presley&mdash;Magnus Derrick,
      Annixter, old Broderson Harran, Garnett from the Ruby rancho, Keast from
      the ranch of the same name, Gethings of the San Pablo, Chattern of the
      Bonanza, about a score of others, ranchers from various parts of the
      county, and, last of all, Dabney, ignored, silent, to whom nobody spoke
      and who, as yet, had not uttered a word. But the men who had been asked to
      leave the harness room spread the news throughout the barn. It was
      repeated from lip to lip. One by one the guests dropped out of the dance.
      Groups were formed. By swift degrees the gayety lapsed away. The Virginia
      reel broke up. The musicians ceased playing, and in the place of the
      noisy, effervescent revelry of the previous half hour, a subdued murmur
      filled all the barn, a mingling of whispers, lowered voices, the coming
      and going of light footsteps, the uneasy shifting of positions, while from
      behind the closed doors of the harness room came a prolonged, sullen hum
      of anger and strenuous debate. The dance came to an abrupt end. The
      guests, unwilling to go as yet, stunned, distressed, stood clumsily about,
      their eyes vague, their hands swinging at their sides, looking stupidly
      into each others' faces. A sense of impending calamity, oppressive,
      foreboding, gloomy, passed through the air overhead in the night, a long
      shiver of anguish and of terror, mysterious, despairing.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the harness room, however, the excitement continued unchecked. One
      rancher after another delivered himself of a torrent of furious words.
      There was no order, merely the frenzied outcry of blind fury. One spirit
      alone was common to all&mdash;resistance at whatever cost and to whatever
      lengths.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly Osterman leaped to his feet, his bald head gleaming in the
      lamp-light, his red ears distended, a flood of words filling his great,
      horizontal slit of a mouth, his comic actor's face flaming. Like the hero
      of a melodrama, he took stage with a great sweeping gesture.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;ORGANISATION,&rdquo; he shouted, &ldquo;that must be our watch-word. The curse of the
      ranchers is that they fritter away their strength. Now, we must stand
      together, now, NOW. Here's the crisis, here's the moment. Shall we meet
      it? I CALL FOR THE LEAGUE. Not next week, not to-morrow, not in the
      morning, but now, now, now, this very moment, before we go out of that
      door. Every one of us here to join it, to form the beginnings of a vast
      organisation, banded together to death, if needs be, for the protection of
      our rights and homes. Are you ready? Is it now or never? I call for the
      League.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Instantly there was a shout. With an actor's instinct, Osterman had spoken
      at the precise psychological moment. He carried the others off their feet,
      glib, dexterous, voluble. Just what was meant by the League the others did
      not know, but it was something, a vague engine, a machine with which to
      fight. Osterman had not done speaking before the room rang with outcries,
      the crowd of men shouting, for what they did not know.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The League! The League!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, to-night, this moment; sign our names before we leave.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He's right. Organisation! The League!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We have a committee at work already,&rdquo; Osterman vociferated. &ldquo;I am a
      member, and also Mr. Broderson, Mr. Annixter, and Mr. Harran Derrick. What
      our aims are we will explain to you later. Let this committee be the
      nucleus of the League&mdash;temporarily, at least. Trust us. We are
      working for you and with you. Let this committee be merged into the larger
      committee of the League, and for President of the League&rdquo;&mdash;he paused
      the fraction of a second&mdash;&ldquo;for President there can be but one name
      mentioned, one man to whom we all must look as leader&mdash;Magnus
      Derrick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Governor's name was received with a storm of cheers. The harness room
      reechoed with shouts of:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Derrick! Derrick!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Magnus for President!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Derrick, our natural leader.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Derrick, Derrick, Derrick for President.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus rose to his feet. He made no gesture. Erect as a cavalry officer,
      tall, thin, commanding, he dominated the crowd in an instant. There was a
      moment's hush. &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if organisation is a good word,
      moderation is a better one. The matter is too grave for haste. I would
      suggest that we each and severally return to our respective homes for the
      night, sleep over what has happened, and convene again to-morrow, when we
      are calmer and can approach this affair in a more judicious mood. As for
      the honour with which you would inform me, I must affirm that that, too,
      is a matter for grave deliberation. This League is but a name as yet. To
      accept control of an organisation whose principles are not yet fixed is a
      heavy responsibility. I shrink from it&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But he was allowed to proceed no farther. A storm of protest developed.
      There were shouts of:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no. The League to-night and Derrick for President.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We have been moderate too long.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The League first, principles afterward.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We can't wait,&rdquo; declared Osterman. &ldquo;Many of us cannot attend a meeting
      to-morrow. Our business affairs would prevent it. Now we are all together.
      I propose a temporary chairman and secretary be named and a ballot be
      taken. But first the League. Let us draw up a set of resolutions to stand
      together, for the defence of our homes, to death, if needs be, and each
      man present affix his signature thereto.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He subsided amidst vigorous applause. The next quarter of an hour was a
      vague confusion, every one talking at once, conversations going on in low
      tones in various corners of the room. Ink, pens, and a sheaf of foolscap
      were brought from the ranch house. A set of resolutions was draughted,
      having the force of a pledge, organising the League of Defence. Annixter
      was the first to sign. Others followed, only a few holding back, refusing
      to join till they had thought the matter over. The roll grew; the paper
      circulated about the table; each signature was welcomed by a salvo of
      cheers. At length, it reached Harran Derrick, who signed amid tremendous
      uproar. He released the pen only to shake a score of hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, Magnus Derrick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; began the Governor, once more rising, &ldquo;I beg of you to allow
      me further consideration. Gentlemen&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was interrupted by renewed shouting.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no, now or never. Sign, join the League.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't leave us. We look to you to help.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But presently the excited throng that turned their faces towards the
      Governor were aware of a new face at his elbow. The door of the harness
      room had been left unbolted and Mrs. Derrick, unable to endure the
      heart-breaking suspense of waiting outside, had gathered up all her
      courage and had come into the room. Trembling, she clung to Magnus's arm,
      her pretty light-brown hair in disarray, her large young girl's eyes wide
      with terror and distrust. What was about to happen she did not understand,
      but these men were clamouring for Magnus to pledge himself to something,
      to some terrible course of action, some ruthless, unscrupulous battle to
      the death with the iron-hearted monster of steel and steam. Nerved with a
      coward's intrepidity, she, who so easily obliterated herself, had found
      her way into the midst of this frantic crowd, into this hot, close room,
      reeking of alcohol and tobacco smoke, into this atmosphere surcharged with
      hatred and curses. She seized her husband's arm imploring, distraught with
      terror.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; she murmured; &ldquo;no, don't sign.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She was the feather caught in the whirlwind. En masse, the crowd surged
      toward the erect figure of the Governor, the pen in one hand, his wife's
      fingers in the other, the roll of signatures before him. The clamour was
      deafening; the excitement culminated brusquely. Half a hundred hands
      stretched toward him; thirty voices, at top pitch, implored, expostulated,
      urged, almost commanded. The reverberation of the shouting was as the
      plunge of a cataract.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the uprising of The People; the thunder of the outbreak of revolt;
      the mob demanding to be led, aroused at last, imperious, resistless,
      overwhelming. It was the blind fury of insurrection, the brute,
      many-tongued, red-eyed, bellowing for guidance, baring its teeth,
      unsheathing its claws, imposing its will with the abrupt, resistless
      pressure of the relaxed piston, inexorable, knowing no pity.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; implored Annie Derrick. &ldquo;No, Magnus, don't sign.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He must,&rdquo; declared Harran, shouting in her ear to make himself heard, &ldquo;he
      must. Don't you understand?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Again the crowd surged forward, roaring. Mrs. Derrick was swept back,
      pushed to one side. Her husband no longer belonged to her. She paid the
      penalty for being the wife of a great man. The world, like a colossal iron
      wedge, crushed itself between. She was thrust to the wall. The throng of
      men, stamping, surrounded Magnus; she could no longer see him, but,
      terror-struck, she listened. There was a moment's lull, then a vast
      thunder of savage jubilation. Magnus had signed.
    </p>
    <p>
      Harran found his mother leaning against the wall, her hands shut over her
      ears; her eyes, dilated with fear, brimming with tears. He led her from
      the harness room to the outer room, where Mrs. Tree and Hilma took charge
      of her, and then, impatient, refusing to answer the hundreds of anxious
      questions that assailed him, hurried back to the harness room. Already the
      balloting was in progress, Osterman acting as temporary chairman on the
      very first ballot he was made secretary of the League pro tem., and Magnus
      unanimously chosen for its President. An executive committee was formed,
      which was to meet the next day at the Los Muertos ranch house.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was half-past one o'clock. In the barn outside the greater number of
      the guests had departed. Long since the musicians had disappeared. There
      only remained the families of the ranch owners involved in the meeting in
      the harness room. These huddled in isolated groups in corners of the
      garish, echoing barn, the women in their wraps, the young men with their
      coat collars turned up against the draughts that once more made themselves
      felt.
    </p>
    <p>
      For a long half hour the loud hum of eager conversation continued to issue
      from behind the door of the harness room. Then, at length, there was a
      prolonged scraping of chairs. The session was over. The men came out in
      groups, searching for their families.
    </p>
    <p>
      At once the homeward movement began. Every one was worn out. Some of the
      ranchers' daughters had gone to sleep against their mothers' shoulders.
    </p>
    <p>
      Billy, the stableman, and his assistant were awakened, and the teams were
      hitched up. The stable yard was full of a maze of swinging lanterns and
      buggy lamps. The horses fretted, champing the bits; the carry-alls creaked
      with the straining of leather and springs as they received their loads. At
      every instant one heard the rattle of wheels as vehicle after vehicle
      disappeared in the night.
    </p>
    <p>
      A fine, drizzling rain was falling, and the lamps began to show dim in a
      vague haze of orange light.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus Derrick was the last to go. At the doorway of the barn he found
      Annixter, the roll of names&mdash;which it had been decided he was to keep
      in his safe for the moment&mdash;under his arm. Silently the two shook
      hands. Magnus departed. The grind of the wheels of his carry-all grated
      sharply on the gravel of the driveway in front of the ranch house, then,
      with a hollow roll across a little plank bridge, gained the roadway. For a
      moment the beat of the horses' hoofs made itself heard on the roadway. It
      ceased. Suddenly there was a great silence.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, in the doorway of the great barn, stood looking about him for a
      moment, alone, thoughtful. The barn was empty. That astonishing evening
      had come to an end. The whirl of things and people, the crowd of dancers,
      Delaney, the gun fight, Hilma Tree, her eyes fixed on him in mute
      confession, the rabble in the harness room, the news of the regrade, the
      fierce outburst of wrath, the hasty organising of the League, all went
      spinning confusedly through his recollection. But he was exhausted. Time
      enough in the morning to think it all over. By now it was raining sharply.
      He put the roll of names into his inside pocket, threw a sack over his
      head and shoulders, and went down to the ranch house.
    </p>
    <p>
      But in the harness room, lighted by the glittering lanterns and flaring
      lamps, in the midst of overturned chairs, spilled liquor, cigar stumps,
      and broken glasses, Vanamee and Presley still remained talking, talking.
      At length, they rose, and came out upon the floor of the barn and stood
      for a moment looking about them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Billy, the stableman, was going the rounds of the walls, putting out light
      after light. By degrees, the vast interior was growing dim. Upon the roof
      overhead the rain drummed incessantly, the eaves dripping. The floor was
      littered with pine needles, bits of orange peel, ends and fragments of
      torn organdies and muslins and bits of tissue paper from the &ldquo;Phrygian
      Bonnets&rdquo; and &ldquo;Liberty Caps.&rdquo; The buckskin mare in the stall, dozing on
      three legs, changed position with a long sigh. The sweat stiffening the
      hair upon her back and loins, as it dried, gave off a penetrating,
      ammoniacal odour that mingled with the stale perfume of sachet and wilted
      flowers.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley and Vanamee stood looking at the deserted barn. There was a long
      silence. Then Presley said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well... what do you think of it all?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; answered Vanamee slowly, &ldquo;I think that there was a dance in
      Brussels the night before Waterloo.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h1>
      BOOK II
    </h1>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER I
    </h2>
    <p>
      In his office at San Francisco, seated before a massive desk of polished
      redwood, very ornate, Lyman Derrick sat dictating letters to his
      typewriter, on a certain morning early in the spring of the year. The
      subdued monotone of his voice proceeded evenly from sentence to sentence,
      regular, precise, businesslike.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have the honour to acknowledge herewith your favour of the 14th
      instant, and in reply would state&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Please find enclosed draft upon New Orleans to be applied as per our
      understanding&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In answer to your favour No. 1107, referring to the case of the City and
      County of San Francisco against Excelsior Warehouse &amp; Storage Co., I
      would say&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His voice continued, expressionless, measured, distinct. While he spoke,
      he swung slowly back and forth in his leather swivel chair, his elbows
      resting on the arms, his pop eyes fixed vaguely upon the calendar on the
      opposite wall, winking at intervals when he paused, searching for a word.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's all for the present,&rdquo; he said at length.
    </p>
    <p>
      Without reply, the typewriter rose and withdrew, thrusting her pencil into
      the coil of her hair, closing the door behind her, softly, discreetly.
    </p>
    <p>
      When she had gone, Lyman rose, stretching himself putting up three fingers
      to hide his yawn. To further loosen his muscles, he took a couple of turns
      the length of he room, noting with satisfaction its fine appointments, the
      padded red carpet, the dull olive green tint of the walls, the few choice
      engravings&mdash;portraits of Marshall, Taney, Field, and a coloured
      lithograph&mdash;excellently done&mdash;of the Grand Canyon of the
      Colorado&mdash;the deep-seated leather chairs, the large and crowded
      bookcase (topped with a bust of James Lick, and a huge greenish globe),
      the waste basket of woven coloured grass, made by Navajo Indians, the
      massive silver inkstand on the desk, the elaborate filing cabinet,
      complete in every particular, and the shelves of tin boxes, padlocked,
      impressive, grave, bearing the names of clients, cases and estates.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was between thirty-one and thirty-five years of age. Unlike Harran, he
      resembled his mother, but he was much darker than Annie Derrick and his
      eyes were much fuller, the eyeball protruding, giving him a pop-eyed,
      foreign expression, quite unusual and unexpected. His hair was black, and
      he wore a small, tight, pointed mustache, which he was in the habit of
      pushing delicately upward from the corners of his lips with the ball of
      his thumb, the little finger extended. As often as he made this gesture,
      he prefaced it with a little twisting gesture of the forearm in order to
      bring his cuff into view, and, in fact, this movement by itself was
      habitual.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was dressed carefully, his trousers creased, a pink rose in his lapel.
      His shoes were of patent leather, his cutaway coat was of very rough black
      cheviot, his double-breasted waistcoat of tan covered cloth with buttons
      of smoked pearl. An Ascot scarf&mdash;a great puff of heavy black silk&mdash;was
      at his neck, the knot transfixed by a tiny golden pin set off with an opal
      and four small diamonds.
    </p>
    <p>
      At one end of the room were two great windows of plate glass, and pausing
      at length before one of these, Lyman selected a cigarette from his curved
      box of oxydized silver, lit it and stood looking down and out, willing to
      be idle for a moment, amused and interested in the view.
    </p>
    <p>
      His office was on the tenth floor of the EXCHANGE BUILDING, a beautiful,
      tower-like affair of white stone, that stood on the corner of Market
      Street near its intersection with Kearney, the most imposing office
      building of the city.
    </p>
    <p>
      Below him the city swarmed tumultuous through its grooves, the cable-cars
      starting and stopping with a gay jangling of bells and a strident whirring
      of jostled glass windows. Drays and carts clattered over the cobbles, and
      an incessant shuffling of thousands of feet rose from the pavement. Around
      Lotta's fountain the baskets of the flower sellers, crammed with
      chrysanthemums, violets, pinks, roses, lilies, hyacinths, set a brisk note
      of colour in the grey of the street.
    </p>
    <p>
      But to Lyman's notion the general impression of this centre of the city's
      life was not one of strenuous business activity. It was a continuous
      interest in small things, a people ever willing to be amused at trifles,
      refusing to consider serious matters&mdash;good-natured, allowing
      themselves to be imposed upon, taking life easily&mdash;generous,
      companionable, enthusiastic; living, as it were, from day to day, in a
      place where the luxuries of life were had without effort; in a city that
      offered to consideration the restlessness of a New York, without its
      earnestness; the serenity of a Naples, without its languor; the romance of
      a Seville, without its picturesqueness.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Lyman turned from the window, about to resume his work, the office boy
      appeared at the door.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The man from the lithograph company, sir,&rdquo; announced the boy.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, what does he want?&rdquo; demanded Lyman, adding, however, upon the
      instant: &ldquo;Show him in.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A young man entered, carrying a great bundle, which he deposited on a
      chair, with a gasp of relief, exclaiming, all out of breath:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;From the Standard Lithograph Company.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't know,&rdquo; replied the other. &ldquo;Maps, I guess.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't want any maps. Who sent them? I guess you're mistaken.&rdquo; Lyman
      tore the cover from the top of the package, drawing out one of a great
      many huge sheets of white paper, folded eight times. Suddenly, he uttered
      an exclamation:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, I see. They ARE maps. But these should not have come here. They are
      to go to the regular office for distribution.&rdquo; He wrote a new direction on
      the label of the package: &ldquo;Take them to that address,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;I'll
      keep this one here. The others go to that address. If you see Mr. Darrell,
      tell him that Mr. Derrick&mdash;you get the name&mdash;Mr. Derrick may not
      be able to get around this afternoon, but to go ahead with any business
      just the same.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The young man departed with the package and Lyman, spreading out the map
      upon the table, remained for some time studying it thoughtfully.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a commissioner's official railway map of the State of California,
      completed to March 30th of that year. Upon it the different railways of
      the State were accurately plotted in various colours, blue, green, yellow.
      However, the blue, the yellow, and the green were but brief traceries,
      very short, isolated, unimportant. At a little distance these could hardly
      be seen. The whole map was gridironed by a vast, complicated network of
      red lines marked P. and S. W. R. R. These centralised at San Francisco and
      thence ramified and spread north, east, and south, to every quarter of the
      State. From Coles, in the topmost corner of the map, to Yuma in the
      lowest, from Reno on one side to San Francisco on the other, ran the
      plexus of red, a veritable system of blood circulation, complicated,
      dividing, and reuniting, branching, splitting, extending, throwing out
      feelers, off-shoots, tap roots, feeders&mdash;diminutive little blood
      suckers that shot out from the main jugular and went twisting up into some
      remote county, laying hold upon some forgotten village or town, involving
      it in one of a myriad branching coils, one of a hundred tentacles, drawing
      it, as it were, toward that centre from which all this system sprang.
    </p>
    <p>
      The map was white, and it seemed as if all the colour which should have
      gone to vivify the various counties, towns, and cities marked upon it had
      been absorbed by that huge, sprawling organism, with its ruddy arteries
      converging to a central point. It was as though the State had been sucked
      white and colourless, and against this pallid background the red arteries
      of the monster stood out, swollen with life-blood, reaching out to
      infinity, gorged to bursting; an excrescence, a gigantic parasite
      fattening upon the life-blood of an entire commonwealth.
    </p>
    <p>
      However, in an upper corner of the map appeared the names of the three new
      commissioners: Jones McNish for the first district, Lyman Derrick for the
      second, and James Darrell for the third.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nominated in the Democratic State convention in the fall of the preceding
      year, Lyman, backed by the coteries of San Francisco bosses in the pay of
      his father's political committee of ranchers, had been elected together
      with Darrell, the candidate of the Pueblo and Mojave road, and McNish, the
      avowed candidate of the Pacific and Southwestern. Darrell was rabidly
      against the P. and S. W., McNish rabidly for it. Lyman was supposed to be
      the conservative member of the board, the ranchers' candidate, it was
      true, and faithful to their interests, but a calm man, deliberative,
      swayed by no such violent emotions as his colleagues.
    </p>
    <p>
      Osterman's dexterity had at last succeeded in entangling Magnus
      inextricably in the new politics. The famous League, organised in the heat
      of passion the night of Annixter's barn dance, had been consolidated all
      through the winter months. Its executive committee, of which Magnus was
      chairman, had been, through Osterman's manipulation, merged into the old
      committee composed of Broderson, Annixter, and himself. Promptly thereat
      he had resigned the chairmanship of this committee, thus leaving Magnus at
      its head. Precisely as Osterman had planned, Magnus was now one of them.
      The new committee accordingly had two objects in view: to resist the
      attempted grabbing of their lands by the Railroad, and to push forward
      their own secret scheme of electing a board of railroad commissioners who
      should regulate wheat rates so as to favour the ranchers of the San
      Joaquin. The land cases were promptly taken to the courts and the new
      grading&mdash;fixing the price of the lands at twenty and thirty dollars
      an acre instead of two&mdash;bitterly and stubbornly fought. But delays
      occurred, the process of the law was interminable, and in the intervals
      the committee addressed itself to the work of seating the &ldquo;Ranchers'
      Commission,&rdquo; as the projected Board of Commissioners came to be called.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was Harran who first suggested that his brother, Lyman, be put forward
      as the candidate for this district. At once the proposition had a great
      success. Lyman seemed made for the place. While allied by every tie of
      blood to the ranching interests, he had never been identified with them.
      He was city-bred. The Railroad would not be over-suspicious of him. He was
      a good lawyer, a good business man, keen, clear-headed, far-sighted, had
      already some practical knowledge of politics, having served a term as
      assistant district attorney, and even at the present moment occupying the
      position of sheriff's attorney. More than all, he was the son of Magnus
      Derrick; he could be relied upon, could be trusted implicitly to remain
      loyal to the ranchers' cause.
    </p>
    <p>
      The campaign for Railroad Commissioner had been very interesting. At the
      very outset Magnus's committee found itself involved in corrupt politics.
      The primaries had to be captured at all costs and by any means, and when
      the convention assembled it was found necessary to buy outright the votes
      of certain delegates. The campaign fund raised by contributions from
      Magnus, Annixter, Broderson, and Osterman was drawn upon to the extent of
      five thousand dollars.
    </p>
    <p>
      Only the committee knew of this corruption. The League, ignoring ways and
      means, supposed as a matter of course that the campaign was honorably
      conducted.
    </p>
    <p>
      For a whole week after the consummation of this part of the deal, Magnus
      had kept to his house, refusing to be seen, alleging that he was ill,
      which was not far from the truth. The shame of the business, the loathing
      of what he had done, were to him things unspeakable. He could no longer
      look Harran in the face. He began a course of deception with his wife.
      More than once, he had resolved to break with the whole affair, resigning
      his position, allowing the others to proceed without him. But now it was
      too late. He was pledged. He had joined the League. He was its chief, and
      his defection might mean its disintegration at the very time when it
      needed all its strength to fight the land cases. More than a mere deal in
      bad politics was involved. There was the land grab. His withdrawal from an
      unholy cause would mean the weakening, perhaps the collapse, of another
      cause that he believed to be righteous as truth itself. He was hopelessly
      caught in the mesh. Wrong seemed indissolubly knitted into the texture of
      Right. He was blinded, dizzied, overwhelmed, caught in the current of
      events, and hurried along he knew not where. He resigned himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the end, and after much ostentatious opposition on the part of the
      railroad heelers, Lyman was nominated and subsequently elected.
    </p>
    <p>
      When this consummation was reached Magnus, Osterman, Broderson, and
      Annixter stared at each other. Their wildest hopes had not dared to fix
      themselves upon so easy a victory as this. It was not believable that the
      corporation would allow itself to be fooled so easily, would rush
      open-eyed into the trap. How had it happened?
    </p>
    <p>
      Osterman, however, threw his hat into the air with wild whoops of delight.
      Old Broderson permitted himself a feeble cheer. Even Magnus beamed
      satisfaction. The other members of the League, present at the time, shook
      hands all around and spoke of opening a few bottles on the strength of the
      occasion. Annixter alone was recalcitrant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's too easy,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;No, I'm not satisfied. Where's Shelgrim in
      all this? Why don't he show his hand, damn his soul? The thing is yellow,
      I tell you. There's a big fish in these waters somewheres. I don't know
      his name, and I don't know his game, but he's moving round off and on,
      just out of sight. If you think you've netted him, I DON'T, that's all
      I've got to say.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But he was jeered down as a croaker. There was the Commission. He couldn't
      get around that, could he? There was Darrell and Lyman Derrick, both
      pledged to the ranches. Good Lord, he was never satisfied. He'd be
      obstinate till the very last gun was fired. Why, if he got drowned in a
      river he'd float upstream just to be contrary.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the course of time, the new board was seated. For the first few months
      of its term, it was occupied in clearing up the business left over by the
      old board and in the completion of the railway map. But now, the decks
      were cleared. It was about to address itself to the consideration of a
      revision of the tariff for the carriage of grain between the San Joaquin
      Valley and tide-water.
    </p>
    <p>
      Both Lyman and Darrell were pledged to an average ten per cent. cut of the
      grain rates throughout the entire State.
    </p>
    <p>
      The typewriter returned with the letters for Lyman to sign, and he put
      away the map and took up his morning's routine of business, wondering, the
      while, what would become of his practice during the time he was involved
      in the business of the Ranchers' Railroad Commission.
    </p>
    <p>
      But towards noon, at the moment when Lyman was drawing off a glass of
      mineral water from the siphon that stood at his elbow, there was an
      interruption. Some one rapped vigorously upon the door, which was
      immediately after opened, and Magnus and Harran came in, followed by
      Presley.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, hello!&rdquo; cried Lyman, jumping up, extending his hands, &ldquo;why, here's
      a surprise. I didn't expect you all till to-night. Come in, come in and
      sit down. Have a glass of sizz-water, Governor.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The others explained that they had come up from Bonneville the night
      before, as the Executive Committee of the League had received a despatch
      from the lawyers it had retained to fight the Railroad, that the judge of
      the court in San Francisco, where the test cases were being tried, might
      be expected to hand down his decision the next day.
    </p>
    <p>
      Very soon after the announcement of the new grading of the ranchers'
      lands, the corporation had offered, through S. Behrman, to lease the
      disputed lands to the ranchers at a nominal figure. The offer had been
      angrily rejected, and the Railroad had put up the lands for sale at
      Ruggles's office in Bonneville. At the exorbitant price named, buyers
      promptly appeared&mdash;dummy buyers, beyond shadow of doubt, acting
      either for the Railroad or for S. Behrman&mdash;men hitherto unknown in
      the county, men without property, without money, adventurers, heelers.
      Prominent among them, and bidding for the railroad's holdings included on
      Annixter's ranch, was Delaney.
    </p>
    <p>
      The farce of deeding the corporation's sections to these fictitious
      purchasers was solemnly gone through with at Ruggles's office, the
      Railroad guaranteeing them possession. The League refused to allow the
      supposed buyers to come upon the land, and the Railroad, faithful to its
      pledge in the matter of guaranteeing its dummies possession, at once began
      suits in ejectment in the district court in Visalia, the county seat.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the preliminary skirmish, the reconnaisance in force, the
      combatants feeling each other's strength, willing to proceed with caution,
      postponing the actual death-grip for a while till each had strengthened
      its position and organised its forces.
    </p>
    <p>
      During the time the cases were on trial at Visalia, S. Behrman was much in
      evidence in and about the courts. The trial itself, after tedious
      preliminaries, was brief. The ranchers lost. The test cases were
      immediately carried up to the United States Circuit Court in San
      Francisco. At the moment the decision of this court was pending.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, this is news,&rdquo; exclaimed Lyman, in response to the Governor's
      announcement; &ldquo;I did not expect them to be so prompt. I was in court only
      last week and there seemed to be no end of business ahead. I suppose you
      are very anxious?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus nodded. He had seated himself in one of Lyman's deep chairs, his
      grey top-hat, with its wide brim, on the floor beside him. His coat of
      black broad-cloth that had been tightly packed in his valise, was yet
      wrinkled and creased; his trousers were strapped under his high boots. As
      he spoke, he stroked the bridge of his hawklike nose with his bent
      forefinger.
    </p>
    <p>
      Leaning-back in his chair, he watched his two sons with secret delight. To
      his eye, both were perfect specimens of their class, intelligent,
      well-looking, resourceful. He was intensely proud of them. He was never
      happier, never more nearly jovial, never more erect, more military, more
      alert, and buoyant than when in the company of his two sons. He honestly
      believed that no finer examples of young manhood existed throughout the
      entire nation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think we should win in this court,&rdquo; Harran observed, watching the
      bubbles break in his glass. &ldquo;The investigation has been much more complete
      than in the Visalia trial. Our case this time is too good. It has made too
      much talk. The court would not dare render a decision for the Railroad.
      Why, there's the agreement in black and white&mdash;and the circulars the
      Railroad issued. How CAN one get around those?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, well, we shall know in a few hours now,&rdquo; remarked Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; exclaimed Lyman, surprised, &ldquo;it is for this morning, then. Why
      aren't you at the court?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It seemed undignified, boy,&rdquo; answered the Governor. &ldquo;We shall know soon
      enough.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; exclaimed Harran abruptly, &ldquo;when I think of what is involved.
      Why, Lyman, it's our home, the ranch house itself, nearly all Los Muertos,
      practically our whole fortune, and just now when there is promise of an
      enormous crop of wheat. And it is not only us. There are over half a
      million acres of the San Joaquin involved. In some cases of the smaller
      ranches, it is the confiscation of the whole of the rancher's land. If
      this thing goes through, it will absolutely beggar nearly a hundred men.
      Broderson wouldn't have a thousand acres to his name. Why, it's
      monstrous.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But the corporations offered to lease these lands,&rdquo; remarked Lyman. &ldquo;Are
      any of the ranchers taking up that offer&mdash;or are any of them buying
      outright?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Buying! At the new figure!&rdquo; exclaimed Harran, &ldquo;at twenty and thirty an
      acre! Why, there's not one in ten that CAN. They are land-poor. And as for
      leasing&mdash;leasing land they virtually own&mdash;no, there's precious
      few are doing that, thank God! That would be acknowledging the railroad's
      ownership right away&mdash;forfeiting their rights for good. None of the
      LEAGUERS are doing it, I know. That would be the rankest treachery.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He paused for a moment, drinking the rest of the mineral water, then
      interrupting Lyman, who was about to speak to Presley, drawing him into
      the conversation through politeness, said: &ldquo;Matters are just romping right
      along to a crisis these days. It's a make or break for the wheat growers
      of the State now, no mistake. Here are the land cases and the new grain
      tariff drawing to a head at about the same time. If we win our land cases,
      there's your new freight rates to be applied, and then all is beer and
      skittles. Won't the San Joaquin go wild if we pull it off, and I believe
      we will.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How we wheat growers are exploited and trapped and deceived at every
      turn,&rdquo; observed Magnus sadly. &ldquo;The courts, the capitalists, the railroads,
      each of them in turn hoodwinks us into some new and wonderful scheme, only
      to betray us in the end. Well,&rdquo; he added, turning to Lyman, &ldquo;one thing at
      least we can depend on. We will cut their grain rates for them, eh,
      Lyman?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Lyman crossed his legs and settled himself in his office chair.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have wanted to have a talk with you about that, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Yes, we
      will cut the rates&mdash;an average 10 per cent. cut throughout the State,
      as we are pledged. But I am going to warn you, Governor, and you, Harran;
      don't expect too much at first. The man who, even after twenty years'
      training in the operation of railroads, can draw an equitable, smoothly
      working schedule of freight rates between shipping point and common point,
      is capable of governing the United States. What with main lines, and
      leased lines, and points of transfer, and the laws governing common
      carriers, and the rulings of the Inter-State Commerce Commission, the
      whole matter has become so confused that Vanderbilt himself couldn't
      straighten it out. And how can it be expected that railroad commissions
      who are chosen&mdash;well, let's be frank&mdash;as ours was, for instance,
      from out a number of men who don't know the difference between a switching
      charge and a differential rate, are going to regulate the whole business
      in six months' time? Cut rates; yes, any fool can do that; any fool can
      write one dollar instead of two, but if you cut too low by a fraction of
      one per cent. and if the railroad can get out an injunction, tie you up
      and show that your new rate prevents the road being operated at a profit,
      how are you any better off?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your conscientiousness does you credit, Lyman,&rdquo; said the Governor. &ldquo;I
      respect you for it, my son. I know you will be fair to the railroad. That
      is all we want. Fairness to the corporation is fairness to the farmer, and
      we won't expect you to readjust the whole matter out of hand. Take your
      time. We can afford to wait.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And suppose the next commission is a railroad board, and reverses all our
      figures?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The one-time mining king, the most redoubtable poker player of Calaveras
      County, permitted himself a momentary twinkle of his eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By then it will be too late. We will, all of us, have made our fortunes
      by then.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The remark left Presley astonished out of all measure He never could
      accustom himself to these strange lapses in the Governor's character.
      Magnus was by nature a public man, judicious, deliberate, standing firm
      for principle, yet upon rare occasion, by some such remark as this, he
      would betray the presence of a sub-nature of recklessness, inconsistent,
      all at variance with his creeds and tenets.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the very bottom, when all was said and done, Magnus remained the
      Forty-niner. Deep down in his heart the spirit of the Adventurer yet
      persisted. &ldquo;We will all of us have made fortunes by then.&rdquo; That was it
      precisely. &ldquo;After us the deluge.&rdquo; For all his public spirit, for all his
      championship of justice and truth, his respect for law, Magnus remained
      the gambler, willing to play for colossal stakes, to hazard a fortune on
      the chance of winning a million. It was the true California spirit that
      found expression through him, the spirit of the West, unwilling to occupy
      itself with details, refusing to wait, to be patient, to achieve by
      legitimate plodding; the miner's instinct of wealth acquired in a single
      night prevailed, in spite of all. It was in this frame of mind that Magnus
      and the multitude of other ranchers of whom he was a type, farmed their
      ranches. They had no love for their land. They were not attached to the
      soil. They worked their ranches as a quarter of a century before they had
      worked their mines. To husband the resources of their marvellous San
      Joaquin, they considered niggardly, petty, Hebraic. To get all there was
      out of the land, to squeeze it dry, to exhaust it, seemed their policy.
      When, at last, the land worn out, would refuse to yield, they would invest
      their money in something else; by then, they would all have made fortunes.
      They did not care. &ldquo;After us the deluge.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Lyman, however, was obviously uneasy, willing to change the subject. He
      rose to his feet, pulling down his cuffs.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By the way,&rdquo; he observed, &ldquo;I want you three to lunch with me to-day at my
      club. It is close by. You can wait there for news of the court's decision
      as well as anywhere else, and I should like to show you the place. I have
      just joined.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      At the club, when the four men were seated at a small table in the round
      window of the main room, Lyman's popularity with all classes was very
      apparent. Hardly a man entered that did not call out a salutation to him,
      some even coming over to shake his hand. He seemed to be every man's
      friend, and to all he seemed equally genial. His affability, even to those
      whom he disliked, was unfailing.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;See that fellow yonder,&rdquo; he said to Magnus, indicating a certain
      middle-aged man, flamboyantly dressed, who wore his hair long, who was
      afflicted with sore eyes, and the collar of whose velvet coat was
      sprinkled with dandruff, &ldquo;that's Hartrath, the artist, a man absolutely
      devoid of even the commonest decency. How he got in here is a mystery to
      me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Yet, when this Hartrath came across to say &ldquo;How do you do&rdquo; to Lyman, Lyman
      was as eager in his cordiality as his warmest friend could have expected.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why the devil are you so chummy with him, then?&rdquo; observed Harran when
      Hartrath had gone away.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lyman's explanation was vague. The truth of the matter was, that Magnus's
      oldest son was consumed by inordinate ambition. Political preferment was
      his dream, and to the realisation of this dream popularity was an
      essential. Every man who could vote, blackguard or gentleman, was to be
      conciliated, if possible. He made it his study to become known throughout
      the entire community&mdash;to put influential men under obligations to
      himself. He never forgot a name or a face. With everybody he was the
      hail-fellow-well-met. His ambition was not trivial. In his disregard for
      small things, he resembled his father. Municipal office had no attraction
      for him. His goal was higher. He had planned his life twenty years ahead.
      Already Sheriff's Attorney, Assistant District Attorney and Railroad
      Commissioner, he could, if he desired, attain the office of District
      Attorney itself. Just now, it was a question with him whether or not it
      would be politic to fill this office. Would it advance or sidetrack him in
      the career he had outlined for himself? Lyman wanted to be something
      better than District Attorney, better than Mayor, than State Senator, or
      even than member of the United States Congress. He wanted to be, in fact,
      what his father was only in name&mdash;to succeed where Magnus had failed.
      He wanted to be governor of the State. He had put his teeth together, and,
      deaf to all other considerations, blind to all other issues, he worked
      with the infinite slowness, the unshakable tenacity of the coral insect to
      this one end.
    </p>
    <p>
      After luncheon was over, Lyman ordered cigars and liqueurs, and with the
      three others returned to the main room of the club. However, their former
      place in the round window was occupied. A middle-aged man, with iron grey
      hair and moustache, who wore a frock coat and a white waistcoat, and in
      some indefinable manner suggested a retired naval officer, was sitting at
      their table smoking a long, thin cigar. At sight of him, Presley became
      animated. He uttered a mild exclamation:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, isn't that Mr. Cedarquist?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Cedarquist?&rdquo; repeated Lyman Derrick. &ldquo;I know him well. Yes, of course, it
      is,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;Governor, you must know him. He is one of our
      representative men. You would enjoy talking to him. He was the head of the
      big Atlas Iron Works. They have shut down recently, you know. Not failed
      exactly, but just ceased to be a paying investment, and Cedarquist closed
      them out. He has other interests, though. He's a rich man&mdash;a
      capitalist.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Lyman brought the group up to the gentleman in question and introduced
      them. &ldquo;Mr. Magnus Derrick, of course,&rdquo; observed Cedarquist, as he took the
      Governor's hand. &ldquo;I've known you by repute for some time, sir. This is a
      great pleasure, I assure you.&rdquo; Then, turning to Presley, he added: &ldquo;Hello,
      Pres, my boy. How is the great, the very great Poem getting on?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's not getting on at all, sir,&rdquo; answered Presley, in some
      embarrassment, as they all sat down. &ldquo;In fact, I've about given up the
      idea. There's so much interest in what you might call 'living issues' down
      at Los Muertos now, that I'm getting further and further from it every
      day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I should say as much,&rdquo; remarked the manufacturer, turning towards Magnus.
      &ldquo;I'm watching your fight with Shelgrim, Mr. Derrick, with every degree of
      interest.&rdquo; He raised his drink of whiskey and soda. &ldquo;Here's success to
      you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As he replaced his glass, the artist Hartrath joined the group uninvited.
      As a pretext, he engaged Lyman in conversation. Lyman, he believed, was a
      man with a &ldquo;pull&rdquo; at the City Hall. In connection with a projected
      Million-Dollar Fair and Flower Festival, which at that moment was the talk
      of the city, certain statues were to be erected, and Hartrath bespoke
      Lyman's influence to further the pretensions of a sculptor friend of his,
      who wished to be Art Director of the affair. In the matter of this Fair
      and Flower Festival, Hartrath was not lacking in enthusiasm. He addressed
      the others with extravagant gestures, blinking his inflamed eyelids.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A million dollars,&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Hey! think of that. Why, do you know
      that we have five hundred thousand practically pledged already? Talk about
      public spirit, gentlemen, this is the most public-spirited city on the
      continent. And the money is not thrown away. We will have Eastern visitors
      here by the thousands&mdash;capitalists&mdash;men with money to invest.
      The million we spend on our fair will be money in our pockets. Ah, you
      should see how the women of this city are taking hold of the matter. They
      are giving all kinds of little entertainments, teas, 'Olde Tyme Singing
      Skules,' amateur theatricals, gingerbread fetes, all for the benefit of
      the fund, and the business men, too&mdash;pouring out their money like
      water. It is splendid, splendid, to see a community so patriotic.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The manufacturer, Cedarquist, fixed the artist with a glance of melancholy
      interest.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And how much,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;will they contribute&mdash;your gingerbread
      women and public-spirited capitalists, towards the blowing up of the ruins
      of the Atlas Iron Works?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Blowing up? I don't understand,&rdquo; murmured the artist, surprised. &ldquo;When
      you get your Eastern capitalists out here with your Million-Dollar Fair,&rdquo;
       continued Cedarquist, &ldquo;you don't propose, do you, to let them see a
      Million-Dollar Iron Foundry standing idle, because of the indifference of
      San Francisco business men? They might ask pertinent questions, your
      capitalists, and we should have to answer that our business men preferred
      to invest their money in corner lots and government bonds, rather than to
      back up a legitimate, industrial enterprise. We don't want fairs. We want
      active furnaces. We don't want public statues, and fountains, and park
      extensions and gingerbread fetes. We want business enterprise. Isn't it
      like us? Isn't it like us?&rdquo; he exclaimed sadly. &ldquo;What a melancholy
      comment! San Francisco! It is not a city&mdash;it is a Midway Plaisance.
      California likes to be fooled. Do you suppose Shelgrim could convert the
      whole San Joaquin Valley into his back yard otherwise? Indifference to
      public affairs&mdash;absolute indifference, it stamps us all. Our State is
      the very paradise of fakirs. You and your Million-Dollar Fair!&rdquo; He turned
      to Hartrath with a quiet smile. &ldquo;It is just such men as you, Mr. Hartrath,
      that are the ruin of us. You organise a sham of tinsel and pasteboard, put
      on fool's cap and bells, beat a gong at a street corner, and the crowd
      cheers you and drops nickels into your hat. Your ginger-bread fete; yes, I
      saw it in full blast the other night on the grounds of one of your women's
      places on Sutter Street. I was on my way home from the last board meeting
      of the Atlas Company. A gingerbread fete, my God! and the Atlas plant
      shutting down for want of financial backing. A million dollars spent to
      attract the Eastern investor, in order to show him an abandoned rolling
      mill, wherein the only activity is the sale of remnant material and scrap
      steel.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Lyman, however, interfered. The situation was becoming strained. He tried
      to conciliate the three men&mdash;the artist, the manufacturer, and the
      farmer, the warring elements. But Hartrath, unwilling to face the enmity
      that he felt accumulating against him, took himself away. A picture of his&mdash;&ldquo;A
      Study of the Contra Costa Foot-hills&rdquo;&mdash;was to be raffled in the club
      rooms for the benefit of the Fair. He, himself, was in charge of the
      matter. He disappeared.
    </p>
    <p>
      Cedarquist looked after him with contemplative interest. Then, turning to
      Magnus, excused himself for the acridity of his words.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He's no worse than many others, and the people of this State and city
      are, after all, only a little more addle-headed than other Americans.&rdquo; It
      was his favourite topic. Sure of the interest of his hearers, he
      unburdened himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If I were to name the one crying evil of American life, Mr. Derrick,&rdquo; he
      continued, &ldquo;it would be the indifference of the better people to public
      affairs. It is so in all our great centres. There are other great trusts,
      God knows, in the United States besides our own dear P. and S. W.
      Railroad. Every State has its own grievance. If it is not a railroad
      trust, it is a sugar trust, or an oil trust, or an industrial trust, that
      exploits the People, BECAUSE THE PEOPLE ALLOW IT. The indifference of the
      People is the opportunity of the despot. It is as true as that the whole
      is greater than the part, and the maxim is so old that it is trite&mdash;it
      is laughable. It is neglected and disused for the sake of some new
      ingenious and complicated theory, some wonderful scheme of reorganisation,
      but the fact remains, nevertheless, simple, fundamental, everlasting. The
      People have but to say 'No,' and not the strongest tyranny, political,
      religious, or financial, that was ever organised, could survive one week.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The others, absorbed, attentive, approved, nodding their heads in silence
      as the manufacturer finished.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's one reason, Mr. Derrick,&rdquo; the other resumed after a moment, &ldquo;why I
      have been so glad to meet you. You and your League are trying to say 'No'
      to the trust. I hope you will succeed. If your example will rally the
      People to your cause, you will. Otherwise&mdash;&rdquo; he shook his head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;One stage of the fight is to be passed this very day,&rdquo; observed Magnus.
      &ldquo;My sons and myself are expecting hourly news from the City Hall, a
      decision in our case is pending.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We are both of us fighters, it seems, Mr. Derrick,&rdquo; said Cedarquist.
      &ldquo;Each with his particular enemy. We are well met, indeed, the farmer and
      the manufacturer, both in the same grist between the two millstones of the
      lethargy of the Public and the aggression of the Trust, the two great
      evils of modern America. Pres, my boy, there is your epic poem ready to
      hand.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Cedarquist was full of another idea. Rarely did so favourable an
      opportunity present itself for explaining his theories, his ambitions.
      Addressing himself to Magnus, he continued:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fortunately for myself, the Atlas Company was not my only investment. I
      have other interests. The building of ships&mdash;steel sailing ships&mdash;has
      been an ambition of mine,&mdash;for this purpose, Mr. Derrick, to carry
      American wheat. For years, I have studied this question of American wheat,
      and at last, I have arrived at a theory. Let me explain. At present, all
      our California wheat goes to Liverpool, and from that port is distributed
      over the world. But a change is coming. I am sure of it. You young men,&rdquo;
       he turned to Presley, Lyman, and Harran, &ldquo;will live to see it. Our century
      is about done. The great word of this nineteenth century has been
      Production. The great word of the twentieth century will be&mdash;listen
      to me, you youngsters&mdash;Markets. As a market for our Production&mdash;or
      let me take a concrete example&mdash;as a market for our WHEAT, Europe is
      played out. Population in Europe is not increasing fast enough to keep up
      with the rapidity of our production. In some cases, as in France, the
      population is stationary. WE, however, have gone on producing wheat at a
      tremendous rate.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The result is over-production. We supply more than Europe can eat, and
      down go the prices. The remedy is NOT in the curtailing of our wheat
      areas, but in this, we MUST HAVE NEW MARKETS, GREATER MARKETS. For years
      we have been sending our wheat from East to West, from California to
      Europe. But the time will come when we must send it from West to East. We
      must march with the course of empire, not against it. I mean, we must look
      to China. Rice in China is losing its nutritive quality. The Asiatics,
      though, must be fed; if not on rice, then on wheat. Why, Mr. Derrick, if
      only one-half the population of China ate a half ounce of flour per man
      per day all the wheat areas in California could not feed them. Ah, if I
      could only hammer that into the brains of every rancher of the San
      Joaquin, yes, and of every owner of every bonanza farm in Dakota and
      Minnesota. Send your wheat to China; handle it yourselves; do away with
      the middleman; break up the Chicago wheat pits and elevator rings and
      mixing houses. When in feeding China you have decreased the European
      shipments, the effect is instantaneous. Prices go up in Europe without
      having the least effect upon the prices in China. We hold the key, we have
      the wheat,&mdash;infinitely more than we ourselves can eat. Asia and
      Europe must look to America to be fed. What fatuous neglect of opportunity
      to continue to deluge Europe with our surplus food when the East trembles
      upon the verge of starvation!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The two men, Cedarquist and Magnus, continued the conversation a little
      further. The manufacturer's idea was new to the Governor. He was greatly
      interested. He withdrew from the conversation. Thoughtful, he leaned back
      in his place, stroking the bridge of his beak-like nose with a crooked
      forefinger.
    </p>
    <p>
      Cedarquist turned to Harran and began asking details as to the conditions
      of the wheat growers of the San Joaquin. Lyman still maintained an
      attitude of polite aloofness, yawning occasionally behind three fingers,
      and Presley was left to the company of his own thoughts.
    </p>
    <p>
      There had been a day when the affairs and grievances of the farmers of his
      acquaintance&mdash;Magnus, Annixter, Osterman, and old Broderson&mdash;had
      filled him only with disgust. His mind full of a great, vague epic poem of
      the West, he had kept himself apart, disdainful of what he chose to
      consider their petty squabbles. But the scene in Annixter's harness room
      had thrilled and uplifted him. He was palpitating with excitement all
      through the succeeding months. He abandoned the idea of an epic poem. In
      six months he had not written a single verse. Day after day he trembled
      with excitement as the relations between the Trust and League became more
      and more strained. He saw the matter in its true light. It was typical. It
      was the world-old war between Freedom and Tyranny, and at times his hatred
      of the railroad shook him like a crisp and withered reed, while the
      languid indifference of the people of the State to the quarrel filled him
      with a blind exasperation.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, as he had once explained to Vanamee, he must find expression. He felt
      that he would suffocate otherwise. He had begun to keep a journal. As the
      inclination spurred him, he wrote down his thoughts and ideas in this,
      sometimes every day, sometimes only three or four times a month. Also he
      flung aside his books of poems&mdash;Milton, Tennyson, Browning, even
      Homer&mdash;and addressed himself to Mill, Malthus, Young, Poushkin, Henry
      George, Schopenhauer. He attacked the subject of Social Inequality with
      unbounded enthusiasm. He devoured, rather than read, and emerged from the
      affair, his mind a confused jumble of conflicting notions, sick with
      over-effort, raging against injustice and oppression, and with not one
      sane suggestion as to remedy or redress.
    </p>
    <p>
      The butt of his cigarette scorched his fingers and roused him from his
      brooding. In the act of lighting another, he glanced across the room and
      was surprised to see two very prettily dressed young women in the company
      of an older gentleman, in a long frock coat, standing before Hartrath's
      painting, examining it, their heads upon one side.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley uttered a murmur of surprise. He, himself, was a member of the
      club, and the presence of women within its doors, except on special
      occasions, was not tolerated. He turned to Lyman Derrick for an
      explanation, but this other had also seen the women and abruptly
      exclaimed:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I declare, I had forgotten about it. Why, this is Ladies' Day, of
      course.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; interposed Cedarquist, glancing at the women over his
      shoulder. &ldquo;Didn't you know? They let 'em in twice a year, you remember,
      and this is a double occasion. They are going to raffle Hartrath's
      picture,&mdash;for the benefit of the Gingerbread Fair. Why, you are not
      up to date, Lyman. This is a sacred and religious rite,&mdash;an important
      public event.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Of course, of course,&rdquo; murmured Lyman. He found means to survey Harran
      and Magnus. Certainly, neither his father nor his brother were dressed for
      the function that impended. He had been stupid. Magnus invariably
      attracted attention, and now with his trousers strapped under his boots,
      his wrinkled frock coat&mdash;Lyman twisted his cuffs into sight with an
      impatient, nervous movement of his wrists, glancing a second time at his
      brother's pink face, forward curling, yellow hair and clothes of a country
      cut. But there was no help for it. He wondered what were the club
      regulations in the matter of bringing in visitors on Ladies' Day. &ldquo;Sure
      enough, Ladies' Day,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;I am very glad you struck it,
      Governor. We can sit right where we are. I guess this is as good a place
      as any to see the crowd. It's a good chance to see all the big guns of the
      city. Do you expect your people here, Mr. Cedarquist?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My wife may come, and my daughters,&rdquo; said the manufacturer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; murmured Presley, &ldquo;so much the better. I was going to give myself
      the pleasure of calling upon your daughters, Mr. Cedarquist, this
      afternoon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You can save your carfare, Pres,&rdquo; said Cedarquist, &ldquo;you will see them
      here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      No doubt, the invitations for the occasion had appointed one o'clock as
      the time, for between that hour and two, the guests arrived in an almost
      unbroken stream. From their point of vantage in the round window of the
      main room, Magnus, his two sons, and Presley looked on very interested.
      Cedarquist had excused himself, affirming that he must look out for his
      women folk.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of every ten of the arrivals, seven, at least, were ladies. They entered
      the room&mdash;this unfamiliar masculine haunt, where their husbands,
      brothers, and sons spent so much of their time&mdash;with a certain show
      of hesitancy and little, nervous, oblique glances, moving their heads from
      side to side like a file of hens venturing into a strange barn. They came
      in groups, ushered by a single member of the club, doing the honours with
      effusive bows and polite gestures, indicating the various objects of
      interest, pictures, busts, and the like, that decorated the room.
    </p>
    <p>
      Fresh from his recollections of Bonneville, Guadalajara, and the dance in
      Annixter's barn, Presley was astonished at the beauty of these women and
      the elegance of their toilettes. The crowd thickened rapidly. A murmur of
      conversation arose, subdued, gracious, mingled with the soft rustle of
      silk, grenadines, velvet. The scent of delicate perfumes spread in the
      air, Violet de Parme, Peau d'Espagne. Colours of the most harmonious
      blends appeared and disappeared at intervals in the slowly moving press,
      touches of lavender-tinted velvets, pale violet crepes and cream-coloured
      appliqued laces.
    </p>
    <p>
      There seemed to be no need of introductions. Everybody appeared to be
      acquainted. There was no awkwardness, no constraint. The assembly
      disengaged an impression of refined pleasure. On every hand, innumerable
      dialogues seemed to go forward easily and naturally, without break or
      interruption, witty, engaging, the couple never at a loss for repartee. A
      third party was gracefully included, then a fourth. Little groups were
      formed,&mdash;groups that divided themselves, or melted into other groups,
      or disintegrated again into isolated pairs, or lost themselves in the
      background of the mass,&mdash;all without friction, without embarrassment,&mdash;the
      whole affair going forward of itself, decorous, tactful, well-bred.
    </p>
    <p>
      At a distance, and not too loud, a stringed orchestra sent up a pleasing
      hum. Waiters, with brass buttons on their full dress coats, went from
      group to group, silent, unobtrusive, serving salads and ices.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the focus of the assembly was the little space before Hartrath's
      painting. It was called &ldquo;A Study of the Contra Costa Foothills,&rdquo; and was
      set in a frame of natural redwood, the bark still adhering. It was
      conspicuously displayed on an easel at the right of the entrance to the
      main room of the club, and was very large. In the foreground, and to the
      left, under the shade of a live-oak, stood a couple of reddish cows,
      knee-deep in a patch of yellow poppies, while in the right-hand corner, to
      balance the composition, was placed a girl in a pink dress and white
      sunbonnet, in which the shadows were indicated by broad dashes of pale
      blue paint. The ladies and young girls examined the production with little
      murmurs of admiration, hazarding remembered phrases, searching for the
      exact balance between generous praise and critical discrimination,
      expressing their opinions in the mild technicalities of the Art Books and
      painting classes. They spoke of atmospheric effects, of middle distance,
      of &ldquo;chiaro-oscuro,&rdquo; of fore-shortening, of the decomposition of light, of
      the subordination of individuality to fidelity of interpretation.
    </p>
    <p>
      One tall girl, with hair almost white in its blondness, having observed
      that the handling of the masses reminded her strongly of Corot, her
      companion, who carried a gold lorgnette by a chain around her neck,
      answered:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! Millet, perhaps, but not Corot.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This verdict had an immediate success. It was passed from group to group.
      It seemed to imply a delicate distinction that carried conviction at once.
      It was decided formally that the reddish brown cows in the picture were
      reminiscent of Daubigny, and that the handling of the masses was
      altogether Millet, but that the general effect was not quite Corot.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley, curious to see the painting that was the subject of so much
      discussion, had left the group in the round window, and stood close by
      Hartrath, craning his head over the shoulders of the crowd, trying to
      catch a glimpse of the reddish cows, the milk-maid and the blue painted
      foothills. He was suddenly aware of Cedarquist's voice in his ear, and,
      turning about, found himself face to face with the manufacturer, his wife
      and his two daughters.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a meeting. Salutations were exchanged, Presley shaking hands all
      around, expressing his delight at seeing his old friends once more, for he
      had known the family from his boyhood, Mrs. Cedarquist being his aunt.
      Mrs. Cedarquist and her two daughters declared that the air of Los Muertos
      must certainly have done him a world of good. He was stouter, there could
      be no doubt of it. A little pale, perhaps. He was fatiguing himself with
      his writing, no doubt. Ah, he must take care. Health was everything, after
      all. Had he been writing any more verse? Every month they scanned the
      magazines, looking for his name.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Cedarquist was a fashionable woman, the president or chairman of a
      score of clubs. She was forever running after fads, appearing continually
      in the society wherein she moved with new and astounding proteges&mdash;fakirs
      whom she unearthed no one knew where, discovering them long in advance of
      her companions. Now it was a Russian Countess, with dirty finger nails,
      who travelled throughout America and borrowed money; now an Aesthete who
      possessed a wonderful collection of topaz gems, who submitted decorative
      schemes for the interior arrangement of houses and who &ldquo;received&rdquo; in Mrs.
      Cedarquist's drawing-rooms dressed in a white velvet cassock; now a widow
      of some Mohammedan of Bengal or Rajputana, who had a blue spot in the
      middle of her forehead and who solicited contributions for her sisters in
      affliction; now a certain bearded poet, recently back from the Klondike;
      now a decayed musician who had been ejected from a young ladies' musical
      conservatory of Europe because of certain surprising pamphlets on free
      love, and who had come to San Francisco to introduce the community to the
      music of Brahms; now a Japanese youth who wore spectacles and a grey
      flannel shirt and who, at intervals, delivered himself of the most
      astonishing poems, vague, unrhymed, unmetrical lucubrations, incoherent,
      bizarre; now a Christian Scientist, a lean, grey woman, whose creed was
      neither Christian nor scientific; now a university professor, with the
      bristling beard of an anarchist chief-of-section, and a roaring, guttural
      voice, whose intenseness left him gasping and apoplectic; now a civilised
      Cherokee with a mission; now a female elocutionist, whose forte was
      Byron's Songs of Greece; now a high caste Chinaman; now a miniature
      painter; now a tenor, a pianiste, a mandolin player, a missionary, a
      drawing master, a virtuoso, a collector, an Armenian, a botanist with a
      new flower, a critic with a new theory, a doctor with a new treatment.
    </p>
    <p>
      And all these people had a veritable mania for declamation and fancy
      dress. The Russian Countess gave talks on the prisons of Siberia, wearing
      the headdress and pinchbeck ornaments of a Slav bride; the Aesthete, in
      his white cassock, gave readings on obscure questions of art and ethics.
      The widow of India, in the costume of her caste, described the social life
      of her people at home. The bearded poet, perspiring in furs and boots of
      reindeer skin, declaimed verses of his own composition about the wild life
      of the Alaskan mining camps. The Japanese youth, in the silk robes of the
      Samurai two-sworded nobles, read from his own works&mdash;&ldquo;The
      flat-bordered earth, nailed down at night, rusting under the darkness,&rdquo;
       &ldquo;The brave, upright rains that came down like errands from iron-bodied
      yore-time.&rdquo; The Christian Scientist, in funereal, impressive black,
      discussed the contra-will and pan-psychic hylozoism. The university
      professor put on a full dress suit and lisle thread gloves at three in the
      afternoon and before literary clubs and circles bellowed extracts from
      Goethe and Schiler in the German, shaking his fists, purple with
      vehemence. The Cherokee, arrayed in fringed buckskin and blue beads,
      rented from a costumer, intoned folk songs of his people in the
      vernacular. The elocutionist in cheese-cloth toga and tin bracelets,
      rendered &ldquo;The Isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sung.&rdquo; The
      Chinaman, in the robes of a mandarin, lectured on Confucius. The Armenian,
      in fez and baggy trousers, spoke of the Unspeakable Turk. The mandolin
      player, dressed like a bull fighter, held musical conversaziones,
      interpreting the peasant songs of Andalusia.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the Fake, the eternal, irrepressible Sham; glib, nimble,
      ubiquitous, tricked out in all the paraphernalia of imposture, an endless
      defile of charlatans that passed interminably before the gaze of the city,
      marshalled by &ldquo;lady presidents,&rdquo; exploited by clubs of women, by literary
      societies, reading circles, and culture organisations. The attention the
      Fake received, the time devoted to it, the money which it absorbed, were
      incredible. It was all one that impostor after impostor was exposed; it
      was all one that the clubs, the circles, the societies were proved beyond
      doubt to have been swindled. The more the Philistine press of the city
      railed and guyed, the more the women rallied to the defence of their
      protege of the hour. That their favourite was persecuted, was to them a
      veritable rapture. Promptly they invested the apostle of culture with the
      glamour of a martyr.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fakirs worked the community as shell-game tricksters work a county
      fair, departing with bursting pocket-books, passing on the word to the
      next in line, assured that the place was not worked out, knowing well that
      there was enough for all.
    </p>
    <p>
      More frequently the public of the city, unable to think of more than one
      thing at one time, prostrated itself at the feet of a single apostle, but
      at other moments, such as the present, when a Flower Festival or a
      Million-Dollar Fair aroused enthusiasm in all quarters, the occasion was
      one of gala for the entire Fake. The decayed professors, virtuosi,
      litterateurs, and artists thronged to the place en masse. Their clamour
      filled all the air. On every hand one heard the scraping of violins, the
      tinkling of mandolins, the suave accents of &ldquo;art talks,&rdquo; the incoherencies
      of poets, the declamation of elocutionists, the inarticulate wanderings of
      the Japanese, the confused mutterings of the Cherokee, the guttural
      bellowing of the German university professor, all in the name of the
      Million-Dollar Fair. Money to the extent of hundreds of thousands was set
      in motion.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Cedarquist was busy from morning until night. One after another, she
      was introduced to newly arrived fakirs. To each poet, to each litterateur,
      to each professor she addressed the same question:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How long have you known you had this power?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She spent her days in one quiver of excitement and jubilation. She was &ldquo;in
      the movement.&rdquo; The people of the city were awakening to a Realisation of
      the Beautiful, to a sense of the higher needs of life. This was Art, this
      was Literature, this was Culture and Refinement. The Renaissance had
      appeared in the West.
    </p>
    <p>
      She was a short, rather stout, red-faced, very much over-dressed little
      woman of some fifty years. She was rich in her own name, even before her
      marriage, being a relative of Shelgrim himself and on familiar terms with
      the great financier and his family. Her husband, while deploring the
      policy of the railroad, saw no good reason for quarrelling with Shelgrim,
      and on more than one occasion had dined at his house. On this occasion,
      delighted that she had come upon a &ldquo;minor poet,&rdquo; she insisted upon
      presenting him to Hartrath.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You two should have so much in common,&rdquo; she explained.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley shook the flaccid hand of the artist, murmuring conventionalities,
      while Mrs. Cedarquist hastened to say:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am sure you know Mr. Presley's verse, Mr. Hartrath. You should, believe
      me. You two have much in common. I can see so much that is alike in your
      modes of interpreting nature. In Mr. Presley's sonnet, 'The Better Part,'
      there is the same note as in your picture, the same sincerity of tone, the
      same subtlety of touch, the same nuances,&mdash;ah.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, my dear Madame,&rdquo; murmured the artist, interrupting Presley's
      impatient retort; &ldquo;I am a mere bungler. You don't mean quite that, I am
      sure. I am too sensitive. It is my cross. Beauty,&rdquo; he closed his sore eyes
      with a little expression of pain, &ldquo;beauty unmans me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Mrs. Cedarquist was not listening. Her eyes were fixed on the artist's
      luxuriant hair, a thick and glossy mane, that all but covered his coat
      collar.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Leonine!&rdquo; she murmured&mdash; &ldquo;leonine! Like Samson of old.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      However, abruptly bestirring herself, she exclaimed a second later:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I must run away. I am selling tickets for you this afternoon, Mr.
      Hartrath. I am having such success. Twenty-five already. Mr. Presley, you
      will take two chances, I am sure, and, oh, by the way, I have such good
      news. You know I am one of the lady members of the subscription committee
      for our Fair, and you know we approached Mr. Shelgrim for a donation to
      help along. Oh, such a liberal patron, a real Lorenzo di' Medici. In the
      name of the Pacific and Southwestern he has subscribed, think of it, five
      thousand dollars; and yet they will talk of the meanness of the railroad.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Possibly it is to his interest,&rdquo; murmured Presley. &ldquo;The fairs and
      festivals bring people to the city over his railroad.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But the others turned on him, expostulating.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, you Philistine,&rdquo; declared Mrs. Cedarquist. &ldquo;And this from YOU!,
      Presley; to attribute such base motives&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If the poets become materialised, Mr. Presley,&rdquo; declared Hartrath, &ldquo;what
      can we say to the people?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And Shelgrim encourages your million-dollar fairs and fetes,&rdquo; said a
      voice at Presley's elbow, &ldquo;because it is throwing dust in the people's
      eyes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The group turned about and saw Cedarquist, who had come up unobserved in
      time to catch the drift of the talk. But he spoke without bitterness;
      there was even a good-humoured twinkle in his eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he continued, smiling, &ldquo;our dear Shelgrim promotes your fairs, not
      only as Pres says, because it is money in his pocket, but because it
      amuses the people, distracts their attention from the doings of his
      railroad. When Beatrice was a baby and had little colics, I used to jingle
      my keys in front of her nose, and it took her attention from the pain in
      her tummy; so Shelgrim.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The others laughed good-humouredly, protesting, nevertheless, and Mrs.
      Cedarquist shook her finger in warning at the artist and exclaimed:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The Philistines be upon thee, Samson!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By the way,&rdquo; observed Hartrath, willing to change the subject, &ldquo;I hear
      you are on the Famine Relief Committee. Does your work progress?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, most famously, I assure you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Such a movement as we have
      started. Those poor creatures. The photographs of them are simply
      dreadful. I had the committee to luncheon the other day and we passed them
      around. We are getting subscriptions from all over the State, and Mr.
      Cedarquist is to arrange for the ship.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Relief Committee in question was one of a great number that had been
      formed in California&mdash;and all over the Union, for the matter of that&mdash;to
      provide relief for the victims of a great famine in Central India. The
      whole world had been struck with horror at the reports of suffering and
      mortality in the affected districts, and had hastened to send aid. Certain
      women of San Francisco, with Mrs. Cedarquist at their head, had organised
      a number of committees, but the manufacturer's wife turned the meetings of
      these committees into social affairs&mdash;luncheons, teas, where one
      discussed the ways and means of assisting the starving Asiatics over
      teacups and plates of salad.
    </p>
    <p>
      Shortly afterward a mild commotion spread throughout the assemblage of the
      club's guests. The drawing of the numbers in the raffle was about to be
      made. Hartrath, in a flurry of agitation, excused himself. Cedarquist took
      Presley by the arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pres, let's get out of this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Come into the wine room and I
      will shake you for a glass of sherry.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They had some difficulty in extricating themselves. The main room where
      the drawing was to take place suddenly became densely thronged. All the
      guests pressed eagerly about the table near the picture, upon which one of
      the hall boys had just placed a ballot box containing the numbers. The
      ladies, holding their tickets in their hands, pushed forward. A staccato
      chatter of excited murmurs arose. &ldquo;What became of Harran and Lyman and the
      Governor?&rdquo; inquired Presley.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lyman had disappeared, alleging a business engagement, but Magnus and his
      younger son had retired to the library of the club on the floor above. It
      was almost deserted. They were deep in earnest conversation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Harran,&rdquo; said the Governor, with decision, &ldquo;there is a deal, there, in
      what Cedarquist says. Our wheat to China, hey, boy?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is certainly worth thinking of, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It appeals to me, boy; it appeals to me. It's big and there's a fortune
      in it. Big chances mean big returns; and I know&mdash;your old father
      isn't a back number yet, Harran&mdash;I may not have so wide an outlook as
      our friend Cedarquist, but I am quick to see my chance. Boy, the whole
      East is opening, disintegrating before the Anglo-Saxon. It is time that
      bread stuffs, as well, should make markets for themselves in the Orient.
      Just at this moment, too, when Lyman will scale down freight rates so we
      can haul to tidewater at little cost.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus paused again, his frown beetling, and in the silence the excited
      murmur from the main room of the club, the soprano chatter of a multitude
      of women, found its way to the deserted library.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I believe it's worth looking into, Governor,&rdquo; asserted Harran.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus rose, and, his hands behind him, paced the floor of the library a
      couple of times, his imagination all stimulated and vivid. The great
      gambler perceived his Chance, the kaleidoscopic shifting of circumstances
      that made a Situation. It had come silently, unexpectedly. He had not seen
      its approach. Abruptly he woke one morning to see the combination
      realised. But also he saw a vision. A sudden and abrupt revolution in the
      Wheat. A new world of markets discovered, the matter as important as the
      discovery of America. The torrent of wheat was to be diverted, flowing
      back upon itself in a sudden, colossal eddy, stranding the middleman, the
      ENTRE-PRENEUR, the elevator-and mixing-house men dry and despairing, their
      occupation gone. He saw the farmer suddenly emancipated, the world's food
      no longer at the mercy of the speculator, thousands upon thousands of men
      set free of the grip of Trust and ring and monopoly acting for themselves,
      selling their own wheat, organising into one gigantic trust, themselves,
      sending their agents to all the entry ports of China. Himself, Annixter,
      Broderson and Osterman would pool their issues. He would convince them of
      the magnificence of the new movement. They would be its pioneers. Harran
      would be sent to Hong Kong to represent the four. They would charter&mdash;probably
      buy&mdash;a ship, perhaps one of Cedarquist's, American built, the
      nation's flag at the peak, and the sailing of that ship, gorged with the
      crops from Broderson's and Osterman's ranches, from Quien Sabe and Los
      Muertos, would be like the sailing of the caravels from Palos. It would
      mark a new era; it would make an epoch.
    </p>
    <p>
      With this vision still expanding before the eye of his mind, Magnus, with
      Harran at his elbow, prepared to depart.
    </p>
    <p>
      They descended to the lower floor and involved themselves for a moment in
      the throng of fashionables that blocked the hallway and the entrance to
      the main room, where the numbers of the raffle were being drawn. Near the
      head of the stairs they encountered Presley and Cedarquist, who had just
      come out of the wine room.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus, still on fire with the new idea, pressed a few questions upon the
      manufacturer before bidding him good-bye. He wished to talk further upon
      the great subject, interested as to details, but Cedarquist was vague in
      his replies. He was no farmer, he hardly knew wheat when he saw it, only
      he knew the trend of the world's affairs; he felt them to be setting
      inevitably eastward.
    </p>
    <p>
      However, his very vagueness was a further inspiration to the Governor. He
      swept details aside. He saw only the grand coup, the huge results, the
      East conquered, the march of empire rolling westward, finally arriving at
      its starting point, the vague, mysterious Orient.
    </p>
    <p>
      He saw his wheat, like the crest of an advancing billow, crossing the
      Pacific, bursting upon Asia, flooding the Orient in a golden torrent. It
      was the new era. He had lived to see the death of the old and the birth of
      the new; first the mine, now the ranch; first gold, now wheat. Once again
      he became the pioneer, hardy, brilliant, taking colossal chances, blazing
      the way, grasping a fortune&mdash;a million in a single day. All the
      bigness of his nature leaped up again within him. At the magnitude of the
      inspiration he felt young again, indomitable, the leader at last, king of
      his fellows, wresting from fortune at this eleventh hour, before his old
      age, the place of high command which so long had been denied him. At last
      he could achieve.
    </p>
    <p>
      Abruptly Magnus was aware that some one had spoken his name. He looked
      about and saw behind him, at a little distance, two gentlemen, strangers
      to him. They had withdrawn from the crowd into a little recess. Evidently
      having no women to look after, they had lost interest in the afternoon's
      affair. Magnus realised that they had not seen him. One of them was
      reading aloud to his companion from an evening edition of that day's
      newspaper. It was in the course of this reading that Magnus caught the
      sound of his name. He paused, listening, and Presley, Harran and
      Cedarquist followed his example. Soon they all understood. They were
      listening to the report of the judge's decision, for which Magnus was
      waiting&mdash;the decision in the case of the League vs. the Railroad. For
      the moment, the polite clamour of the raffle hushed itself&mdash;the
      winning number was being drawn. The guests held their breath, and in the
      ensuing silence Magnus and the others heard these words distinctly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;.... It follows that the title to the lands in question is in the
      plaintiff&mdash;the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad, and the defendants
      have no title, and their possession is wrongful. There must be findings
      and judgment for the plaintiff, and it is so ordered.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In spite of himself, Magnus paled. Harran shut his teeth with an oath.
      Their exaltation of the previous moment collapsed like a pyramid of cards.
      The vision of the new movement of the wheat, the conquest of the East, the
      invasion of the Orient, seemed only the flimsiest mockery. With a brusque
      wrench, they were snatched back to reality. Between them and the vision,
      between the fecund San Joaquin, reeking with fruitfulness, and the
      millions of Asia crowding toward the verge of starvation, lay the
      iron-hearted monster of steel and steam, implacable, insatiable, huge&mdash;its
      entrails gorged with the life blood that it sucked from an entire
      commonwealth, its ever hungry maw glutted with the harvests that should
      have fed the famished bellies of the whole world of the Orient.
    </p>
    <p>
      But abruptly, while the four men stood there, gazing into each other's
      faces, a vigorous hand-clapping broke out. The raffle of Hartrath's
      picture was over, and as Presley turned about he saw Mrs. Cedarquist and
      her two daughters signalling eagerly to the manufacturer, unable to reach
      him because of the intervening crowd. Then Mrs. Cedarquist raised her
      voice and cried:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I've won. I've won.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Unnoticed, and with but a brief word to Cedarquist, Magnus and Harran went
      down the marble steps leading to the street door, silent, Harran's arm
      tight around his father's shoulder.
    </p>
    <p>
      At once the orchestra struck into a lively air. A renewed murmur of
      conversation broke out, and Cedarquist, as he said good-bye to Presley,
      looked first at the retreating figures of the ranchers, then at the gayly
      dressed throng of beautiful women and debonair young men, and indicating
      the whole scene with a single gesture, said, smiling sadly as he spoke:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not a city, Presley, not a city, but a Midway Plaisance.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER II
    </h2>
    <p>
      Underneath the Long Trestle where Broderson Creek cut the line of the
      railroad and the Upper Road, the ground was low and covered with a second
      growth of grey green willows. Along the borders of the creek were
      occasional marshy spots, and now and then Hilma Tree came here to gather
      water-cresses, which she made into salads.
    </p>
    <p>
      The place was picturesque, secluded, an oasis of green shade in all the
      limitless, flat monotony of the surrounding wheat lands. The creek had
      eroded deep into the little gully, and no matter how hot it was on the
      baking, shimmering levels of the ranches above, down here one always found
      one's self enveloped in an odorous, moist coolness. From time to time, the
      incessant murmur of the creek, pouring over and around the larger stones,
      was interrupted by the thunder of trains roaring out upon the trestle
      overhead, passing on with the furious gallop of their hundreds of iron
      wheels, leaving in the air a taint of hot oil, acrid smoke, and reek of
      escaping steam.
    </p>
    <p>
      On a certain afternoon, in the spring of the year, Hilma was returning to
      Quien Sabe from Hooven's by the trail that led from Los Muertos to
      Annixter's ranch houses, under the trestle. She had spent the afternoon
      with Minna Hooven, who, for the time being, was kept indoors because of a
      wrenched ankle. As Hilma descended into the gravel flats and thickets of
      willows underneath the trestle, she decided that she would gather some
      cresses for her supper that night. She found a spot around the base of one
      of the supports of the trestle where the cresses grew thickest, and
      plucked a couple of handfuls, washing them in the creek and pinning them
      up in her handkerchief. It made a little, round, cold bundle, and Hilma,
      warm from her walk, found a delicious enjoyment in pressing the damp ball
      of it to her cheeks and neck.
    </p>
    <p>
      For all the change that Annixter had noted in her upon the occasion of the
      barn dance, Hilma remained in many things a young child. She was never at
      loss for enjoyment, and could always amuse herself when left alone. Just
      now, she chose to drink from the creek, lying prone on the ground, her
      face half-buried in the water, and this, not because she was thirsty, but
      because it was a new way to drink. She imagined herself a belated
      traveller, a poor girl, an outcast, quenching her thirst at the wayside
      brook, her little packet of cresses doing duty for a bundle of clothes.
      Night was coming on. Perhaps it would storm. She had nowhere to go. She
      would apply at a hut for shelter.
    </p>
    <p>
      Abruptly, the temptation to dabble her feet in the creek presented itself
      to her. Always she had liked to play in the water. What a delight now to
      take off her shoes and stockings and wade out into the shallows near the
      bank! She had worn low shoes that afternoon, and the dust of the trail had
      filtered in above the edges. At times, she felt the grit and grey sand on
      the soles of her feet, and the sensation had set her teeth on edge. What a
      delicious alternative the cold, clean water suggested, and how easy it
      would be to do as she pleased just then, if only she were a little girl.
      In the end, it was stupid to be grown up.
    </p>
    <p>
      Sitting upon the bank, one finger tucked into the heel of her shoe, Hilma
      hesitated. Suppose a train should come! She fancied she could see the
      engineer leaning from the cab with a great grin on his face, or the
      brakeman shouting gibes at her from the platform. Abruptly she blushed
      scarlet. The blood throbbed in her temples. Her heart beat. Since the
      famous evening of the barn dance, Annixter had spoken to her but twice.
      Hilma no longer looked after the ranch house these days. The thought of
      setting foot within Annixter's dining-room and bed-room terrified her, and
      in the end her mother had taken over that part of her work. Of the two
      meetings with the master of Quien Sabe, one had been a mere exchange of
      good mornings as the two happened to meet over by the artesian well; the
      other, more complicated, had occurred in the dairy-house again, Annixter,
      pretending to look over the new cheese press, asking about details of her
      work. When this had happened on that previous occasion, ending with
      Annixter's attempt to kiss her, Hilma had been talkative enough,
      chattering on from one subject to another, never at a loss for a theme.
      But this last time was a veritable ordeal. No sooner had Annixter appeared
      than her heart leaped and quivered like that of the hound-harried doe. Her
      speech failed her. Throughout the whole brief interview she had been
      miserably tongue-tied, stammering monosyllables, confused, horribly
      awkward, and when Annixter had gone away, she had fled to her little room,
      and bolting the door, had flung herself face downward on the bed and wept
      as though her heart were breaking, she did not know why.
    </p>
    <p>
      That Annixter had been overwhelmed with business all through the winter
      was an inexpressible relief to Hilma. His affairs took him away from the
      ranch continually. He was absent sometimes for weeks, making trips to San
      Francisco, or to Sacramento, or to Bonneville. Perhaps he was forgetting
      her, overlooking her; and while, at first, she told herself that she asked
      nothing better, the idea of it began to occupy her mind. She began to
      wonder if it was really so.
    </p>
    <p>
      She knew his trouble. Everybody did. The news of the sudden forward
      movement of the Railroad's forces, inaugurating the campaign, had flared
      white-hot and blazing all over the country side. To Hilma's notion,
      Annixter's attitude was heroic beyond all expression. His courage in
      facing the Railroad, as he had faced Delaney in the barn, seemed to her
      the pitch of sublimity. She refused to see any auxiliaries aiding him in
      his fight. To her imagination, the great League, which all the ranchers
      were joining, was a mere form. Single-handed, Annixter fronted the
      monster. But for him the corporation would gobble Quien Sabe, as a whale
      would a minnow. He was a hero who stood between them all and destruction.
      He was a protector of her family. He was her champion. She began to
      mention him in her prayers every night, adding a further petition to the
      effect that he would become a good man, and that he should not swear so
      much, and that he should never meet Delaney again.
    </p>
    <p>
      However, as Hilma still debated the idea of bathing her feet in the creek,
      a train did actually thunder past overhead&mdash;the regular evening
      Overland,&mdash;the through express, that never stopped between
      Bakersfield and Fresno. It stormed by with a deafening clamour, and a
      swirl of smoke, in a long succession of way-coaches, and chocolate
      coloured Pullmans, grimy with the dust of the great deserts of the
      Southwest. The quivering of the trestle's supports set a tremble in the
      ground underfoot. The thunder of wheels drowned all sound of the flowing
      of the creek, and also the noise of the buckskin mare's hoofs descending
      from the trail upon the gravel about the creek, so that Hilma, turning
      about after the passage of the train, saw Annixter close at hand, with the
      abruptness of a vision.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was looking at her, smiling as he rarely did, the firm line of his
      out-thrust lower lip relaxed good-humouredly. He had taken off his
      campaign hat to her, and though his stiff, yellow hair was twisted into a
      bristling mop, the little persistent tuft on the crown, usually defiantly
      erect as an Apache's scalp-lock, was nowhere in sight.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, it's you, is it, Miss Hilma?&rdquo; he exclaimed, getting down from the
      buckskin, and allowing her to drink.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hilma nodded, scrambling to her feet, dusting her skirt with nervous pats
      of both hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter sat down on a great rock close by and, the loop of the bridle
      over his arm, lit a cigar, and began to talk. He complained of the heat of
      the day, the bad condition of the Lower Road, over which he had come on
      his way from a committee meeting of the League at Los Muertos; of the
      slowness of the work on the irrigating ditch, and, as a matter of course,
      of the general hard times.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Miss Hilma,&rdquo; he said abruptly, &ldquo;never you marry a ranchman. He's never
      out of trouble.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma gasped, her eyes widening till the full round of the pupil was
      disclosed. Instantly, a certain, inexplicable guiltiness overpowered her
      with incredible confusion. Her hands trembled as she pressed the bundle of
      cresses into a hard ball between her palms.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter continued to talk. He was disturbed and excited himself at this
      unexpected meeting. Never through all the past winter months of strenuous
      activity, the fever of political campaigns, the harrowing delays and
      ultimate defeat in one law court after another, had he forgotten the look
      in Hilma's face as he stood with one arm around her on the floor of his
      barn, in peril of his life from the buster's revolver. That dumb
      confession of Hilma's wide-open eyes had been enough for him. Yet,
      somehow, he never had had a chance to act upon it. During the short period
      when he could be on his ranch Hilma had always managed to avoid him. Once,
      even, she had spent a month, about Christmas time, with her mother's
      father, who kept a hotel in San Francisco.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, to-day, however, he had her all to himself. He would put an end to
      the situation that troubled him, and vexed him, day after day, month after
      month. Beyond question, the moment had come for something definite, he
      could not say precisely what. Readjusting his cigar between his teeth, he
      resumed his speech. It suited his humour to take the girl into his
      confidence, following an instinct which warned him that this would bring
      about a certain closeness of their relations, a certain intimacy.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do you think of this row, anyways, Miss Hilma,&mdash;this railroad
      fuss in general? Think Shelgrim and his rushers are going to jump Quien
      Sabe&mdash;are going to run us off the ranch?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, no, sir,&rdquo; protested Hilma, still breathless. &ldquo;Oh, no, indeed not.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, what then?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma made a little uncertain movement of ignorance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know what.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, the League agreed to-day that if the test cases were lost in the
      Supreme Court&mdash;you know we've appealed to the Supreme Court, at
      Washington&mdash;we'd fight.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fight?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, fight.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fight like&mdash;like you and Mr. Delaney that time with&mdash;oh, dear&mdash;with
      guns?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; grumbled Annixter vaguely. &ldquo;What do YOU think?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma's low-pitched, almost husky voice trembled a little as she replied,
      &ldquo;Fighting&mdash;with guns&mdash;that's so terrible. Oh, those revolvers in
      the barn! I can hear them yet. Every shot seemed like the explosion of
      tons of powder.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shall we clear out, then? Shall we let Delaney have possession, and S.
      Behrman, and all that lot? Shall we give in to them?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Never, never,&rdquo; she exclaimed, her great eyes flashing.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;YOU wouldn't like to be turned out of your home, would you, Miss Hilma,
      because Quien Sabe is your home isn't it? You've lived here ever since you
      were as big as a minute. You wouldn't like to have S. Behrman and the rest
      of 'em turn you out?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;N-no,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;No, I shouldn't like that. There's mamma and&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, do you think for one second I'm going to let 'em?&rdquo; cried Annixter,
      his teeth tightening on his cigar. &ldquo;You stay right where you are. I'll
      take care of you, right enough. Look here,&rdquo; he demanded abruptly, &ldquo;you've
      no use for that roaring lush, Delaney, have you?&rdquo; &ldquo;I think he is a wicked
      man,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I know the Railroad has pretended to sell him part of
      the ranch, and he lets Mr. S. Behrman and Mr. Ruggles just use him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Right. I thought you wouldn't be keen on him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a long pause. The buckskin began blowing among the pebbles,
      nosing for grass, and Annixter shifted his cigar to the other corner of
      his mouth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pretty place,&rdquo; he muttered, looking around him. Then he added: &ldquo;Miss
      Hilma, see here, I want to have a kind of talk with you, if you don't
      mind. I don't know just how to say these sort of things, and if I get all
      balled up as I go along, you just set it down to the fact that I've never
      had any experience in dealing with feemale girls; understand? You see,
      ever since the barn dance&mdash;yes, and long before then&mdash;I've been
      thinking a lot about you. Straight, I have, and I guess you know it.
      You're about the only girl that I ever knew well, and I guess,&rdquo; he
      declared deliberately, &ldquo;you're about the only one I want to know. It's my
      nature. You didn't say anything that time when we stood there together and
      Delaney was playing the fool, but, somehow, I got the idea that you didn't
      want Delaney to do for me one little bit; that if he'd got me then you
      would have been sorrier than if he'd got any one else. Well, I felt just
      that way about you. I would rather have had him shoot any other girl in
      the room than you; yes, or in the whole State. Why, if anything should
      happen to you, Miss Hilma&mdash;well, I wouldn't care to go on with
      anything. S. Behrman could jump Quien Sabe, and welcome. And Delaney could
      shoot me full of holes whenever he got good and ready. I'd quit. I'd lay
      right down. I wouldn't care a whoop about anything any more. You are the
      only girl for me in the whole world. I didn't think so at first. I didn't
      want to. But seeing you around every day, and seeing how pretty you were,
      and how clever, and hearing your voice and all, why, it just got all
      inside of me somehow, and now I can't think of anything else. I hate to go
      to San Francisco, or Sacramento, or Visalia, or even Bonneville, for only
      a day, just because you aren't there, in any of those places, and I just
      rush what I've got to do so as I can get back here. While you were away
      that Christmas time, why, I was as lonesome as&mdash;oh, you don't know
      anything about it. I just scratched off the days on the calendar every
      night, one by one, till you got back. And it just comes to this, I want
      you with me all the time. I want you should have a home that's my home,
      too. I want to take care of you, and have you all for myself, you
      understand. What do you say?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma, standing up before him, retied a knot in her handkerchief bundle
      with elaborate precaution, blinking at it through her tears.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do you say, Miss Hilma?&rdquo; Annixter repeated. &ldquo;How about that? What do
      you say?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Just above a whisper, Hilma murmured:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I&mdash;I don't know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't know what? Don't you think we could hit it off together?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know we could, Hilma. I don't mean to scare you. What are you crying
      for?&rdquo; &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter got up, cast away his cigar, and dropping the buckskin's bridle,
      came and stood beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder. Hilma did not
      move, and he felt her trembling. She still plucked at the knot of the
      handkerchief. &ldquo;I can't do without you, little girl,&rdquo; Annixter continued,
      &ldquo;and I want you. I want you bad. I don't get much fun out of life ever.
      It, sure, isn't my nature, I guess. I'm a hard man. Everybody is trying to
      down me, and now I'm up against the Railroad. I'm fighting 'em all, Hilma,
      night and day, lock, stock, and barrel, and I'm fighting now for my home,
      my land, everything I have in the world. If I win out, I want somebody to
      be glad with me. If I don't&mdash;I want somebody to be sorry for me,
      sorry with me,&mdash;and that somebody is you. I am dog-tired of going it
      alone. I want some one to back me up. I want to feel you alongside of me,
      to give me a touch of the shoulder now and then. I'm tired of fighting for
      THINGS&mdash;land, property, money. I want to fight for some PERSON&mdash;somebody
      beside myself. Understand? want to feel that it isn't all selfishness&mdash;that
      there are other interests than mine in the game&mdash;that there's some
      one dependent on me, and that's thinking of me as I'm thinking of them&mdash;some
      one I can come home to at night and put my arm around&mdash;like this, and
      have her put her two arms around me&mdash;like&mdash;&rdquo; He paused a second,
      and once again, as it had been in that moment of imminent peril, when he
      stood with his arm around her, their eyes met,&mdash;&ldquo;put her two arms
      around me,&rdquo; prompted Annixter, half smiling, &ldquo;like&mdash;like what,
      Hilma?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Like what, Hilma?&rdquo; he insisted.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Like&mdash;like this?&rdquo; she questioned. With a movement of infinite
      tenderness and affection she slid her arms around his neck, still crying a
      little.
    </p>
    <p>
      The sensation of her warm body in his embrace, the feeling of her smooth,
      round arm, through the thinness of her sleeve, pressing against his cheek,
      thrilled Annixter with a delight such as he had never known. He bent his
      head and kissed her upon the nape of her neck, where the delicate amber
      tint melted into the thick, sweet smelling mass of her dark brown hair.
      She shivered a little, holding him closer, ashamed as yet to look up.
      Without speech, they stood there for a long minute, holding each other
      close. Then Hilma pulled away from him, mopping her tear-stained cheeks
      with the little moist ball of her handkerchief.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do you say? Is it a go?&rdquo; demanded Annixter jovially.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I thought I hated you all the time,&rdquo; she said, and the velvety huskiness
      of her voice never sounded so sweet to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And I thought it was that crockery smashing goat of a lout of a
      cow-puncher.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Delaney? The idea! Oh, dear! I think it must always have been you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Since when, Hilma?&rdquo; he asked, putting his arm around her. &ldquo;Ah, but it is
      good to have you, my girl,&rdquo; he exclaimed, delighted beyond words that she
      permitted this freedom. &ldquo;Since when? Tell us all about it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, since always. It was ever so long before I came to think of you&mdash;to,
      well, to think about&mdash;I mean to remember&mdash;oh, you know what I
      mean. But when I did, oh, THEN!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Then what?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know&mdash;I haven't thought&mdash;that way long enough to know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you said you thought it must have been me always.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know; but that was different&mdash;oh, I'm all mixed up. I'm so nervous
      and trembly now. Oh,&rdquo; she cried suddenly, her face overcast with a look of
      earnestness and great seriousness, both her hands catching at his wrist,
      &ldquo;Oh, you WILL be good to me, now, won't you? I'm only a little, little
      child in so many ways, and I've given myself to you, all in a minute, and
      I can't go back of it now, and it's for always. I don't know how it
      happened or why. Sometimes I think I didn't wish it, but now it's done,
      and I am glad and happy. But NOW if you weren't good to me&mdash;oh, think
      of how it would be with me. You are strong, and big, and rich, and I am
      only a servant of yours, a little nobody, but I've given all I had to you&mdash;myself&mdash;and
      you must be so good to me now. Always remember that. Be good to me and be
      gentle and kind to me in LITTLE things,&mdash;in everything, or you will
      break my heart.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter took her in his arms. He was speechless. No words that he had at
      his command seemed adequate. All he could say was:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's all right, little girl. Don't you be frightened. I'll take care of
      you. That's all right, that's all right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      For a long time they sat there under the shade of the great trestle, their
      arms about each other, speaking only at intervals. An hour passed. The
      buckskin, finding no feed to her taste, took the trail stablewards, the
      bridle dragging. Annixter let her go. Rather than to take his arm from
      around Hilma's waist he would have lost his whole stable. At last,
      however, he bestirred himself and began to talk. He thought it time to
      formulate some plan of action.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, now, Hilma, what are we going to do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Why, must we do anything? Oh, isn't this enough?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's better ahead,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;I want to fix you up somewhere where
      you can have a bit of a home all to yourself. Let's see; Bonneville
      wouldn't do. There's always a lot of yaps about there that know us, and
      they would begin to cackle first off. How about San Francisco. We might go
      up next week and have a look around. I would find rooms you could take
      somewheres, and we would fix 'em up as lovely as how-do-you-do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, but why go away from Quien Sabe?&rdquo; she protested. &ldquo;And, then, so soon,
      too. Why must we have a wedding trip, now that you are so busy? Wouldn't
      it be better&mdash;oh, I tell you, we could go to Monterey after we were
      married, for a little week, where mamma's people live, and then come back
      here to the ranch house and settle right down where we are and let me keep
      house for you. I wouldn't even want a single servant.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter heard and his face grew troubled.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hum,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I see.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He gathered up a handful of pebbles and began snapping them carefully into
      the creek. He fell thoughtful. Here was a phase of the affair he had not
      planned in the least. He had supposed all the time that Hilma took his
      meaning. His old suspicion that she was trying to get a hold on him
      stirred again for a moment. There was no good of such talk as that. Always
      these feemale girls seemed crazy to get married, bent on complicating the
      situation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Isn't that best?&rdquo; said Hilma, glancing at him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; he muttered gloomily.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, then, let's not. Let's come right back to Quien Sabe without going
      to Monterey. Anything that you want I want.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hadn't thought of it in just that way,&rdquo; he observed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In what way, then?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Can't we&mdash;can't we wait about this marrying business?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's just it,&rdquo; she said gayly. &ldquo;I said it was too soon. There would be
      so much to do between whiles. Why not say at the end of the summer?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say what?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Our marriage, I mean.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why get married, then? What's the good of all that fuss about it? I don't
      go anything upon a minister puddling round in my affairs. What's the
      difference, anyhow? We understand each other. Isn't that enough? Pshaw,
      Hilma, I'M no marrying man.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She looked at him a moment, bewildered, then slowly she took his meaning.
      She rose to her feet, her eyes wide, her face paling with terror. He did
      not look at her, but he could hear the catch in her throat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; she exclaimed, with a long, deep breath, and again &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; the back of
      her hand against her lips.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a quick gasp of a veritable physical anguish. Her eyes brimmed
      over. Annixter rose, looking at her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said, awkwardly, &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma leaped back from him with an instinctive recoil of her whole being,
      throwing out her hands in a gesture of defence, fearing she knew not what.
      There was as yet no sense of insult in her mind, no outraged modesty. She
      was only terrified. It was as though searching for wild flowers she had
      come suddenly upon a snake.
    </p>
    <p>
      She stood for an instant, spellbound, her eyes wide, her bosom swelling;
      then, all at once, turned and fled, darting across the plank that served
      for a foot bridge over the creek, gaining the opposite bank and
      disappearing with a brisk rustle of underbrush, such as might have been
      made by the flight of a frightened fawn.
    </p>
    <p>
      Abruptly Annixter found himself alone. For a moment he did not move, then
      he picked up his campaign hat, carefully creased its limp crown and put it
      on his head and stood for a moment, looking vaguely at the ground on both
      sides of him. He went away without uttering a word, without change of
      countenance, his hands in his pockets, his feet taking great strides along
      the trail in the direction of the ranch house.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had no sight of Hilma again that evening, and the next morning he was
      up early and did not breakfast at the ranch house. Business of the League
      called him to Bonneville to confer with Magnus and the firm of lawyers
      retained by the League to fight the land-grabbing cases. An appeal was to
      be taken to the Supreme Court at Washington, and it was to be settled that
      day which of the cases involved should be considered as test cases.
    </p>
    <p>
      Instead of driving or riding into Bonneville, as he usually did, Annixter
      took an early morning train, the Bakersfield-Fresno local at Guadalajara,
      and went to Bonneville by rail, arriving there at twenty minutes after
      seven and breakfasting by appointment with Magnus Derrick and Osterman at
      the Yosemite House, on Main Street.
    </p>
    <p>
      The conference of the committee with the lawyers took place in a front
      room of the Yosemite, one of the latter bringing with him his clerk, who
      made a stenographic report of the proceedings and took carbon copies of
      all letters written. The conference was long and complicated, the business
      transacted of the utmost moment, and it was not until two o'clock that
      Annixter found himself at liberty.
    </p>
    <p>
      However, as he and Magnus descended into the lobby of the hotel, they were
      aware of an excited and interested group collected about the swing doors
      that opened from the lobby of the Yosemite into the bar of the same name.
      Dyke was there&mdash;even at a distance they could hear the reverberation
      of his deep-toned voice, uplifted in wrath and furious expostulation.
      Magnus and Annixter joined the group wondering, and all at once fell full
      upon the first scene of a drama.
    </p>
    <p>
      That same morning Dyke's mother had awakened him according to his
      instructions at daybreak. A consignment of his hop poles from the north
      had arrived at the freight office of the P. and S. W. in Bonneville, and
      he was to drive in on his farm wagon and bring them out. He would have a
      busy day.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, hello,&rdquo; he said, as his mother pulled his ear to arouse him;
      &ldquo;morning, mamma.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's time,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;after five already. Your breakfast is on the
      stove.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He took her hand and kissed it with great affection. He loved his mother
      devotedly, quite as much as he did the little tad. In their little
      cottage, in the forest of green hops that surrounded them on every hand,
      the three led a joyous and secluded life, contented, industrious, happy,
      asking nothing better. Dyke, himself, was a big-hearted, jovial man who
      spread an atmosphere of good-humour wherever he went. In the evenings he
      played with Sidney like a big boy, an older brother, lying on the bed, or
      the sofa, taking her in his arms. Between them they had invented a great
      game. The ex-engineer, his boots removed, his huge legs in the air,
      hoisted the little tad on the soles of his stockinged feet like a circus
      acrobat, dandling her there, pretending he was about to let her fall.
      Sidney, choking with delight, held on nervously, with little screams and
      chirps of excitement, while he shifted her gingerly from one foot to
      another, and thence, the final act, the great gallery play, to the palm of
      one great hand. At this point Mrs. Dyke was called in, both father and
      daughter, children both, crying out that she was to come in and look,
      look. She arrived out of breath from the kitchen, the potato masher in her
      hand. &ldquo;Such children,&rdquo; she murmured, shaking her head at them, amused for
      all that, tucking the potato masher under her arm and clapping her hands.
      In the end, it was part of the game that Sidney should tumble down upon
      Dyke, whereat he invariably vented a great bellow as if in pain, declaring
      that his ribs were broken. Gasping, his eyes shut, he pretended to be in
      the extreme of dissolution&mdash;perhaps he was dying. Sidney, always a
      little uncertain, amused but distressed, shook him nervously, tugging at
      his beard, pushing open his eyelid with one finger, imploring him not to
      frighten her, to wake up and be good.
    </p>
    <p>
      On this occasion, while yet he was half-dressed, Dyke tiptoed into his
      mother's room to look at Sidney fast asleep in her little iron cot, her
      arm under her head, her lips parted. With infinite precaution he kissed
      her twice, and then finding one little stocking, hung with its mate very
      neatly over the back of a chair, dropped into it a dime, rolled up in a
      wad of paper. He winked all to himself and went out again, closing the
      door with exaggerated carefulness.
    </p>
    <p>
      He breakfasted alone, Mrs. Dyke pouring his coffee and handing him his
      plate of ham and eggs, and half an hour later took himself off in his
      springless, skeleton wagon, humming a tune behind his beard and cracking
      the whip over the backs of his staid and solid farm horses.
    </p>
    <p>
      The morning was fine, the sun just coming up. He left Guadalajara,
      sleeping and lifeless, on his left, and going across lots, over an angle
      of Quien Sabe, came out upon the Upper Road, a mile below the Long
      Trestle. He was in great spirits, looking about him over the brown fields,
      ruddy with the dawn. Almost directly in front of him, but far off, the
      gilded dome of the court-house at Bonneville was glinting radiant in the
      first rays of the sun, while a few miles distant, toward the north, the
      venerable campanile of the Mission San Juan stood silhouetted in purplish
      black against the flaming east. As he proceeded, the great farm horses
      jogging forward, placid, deliberate, the country side waked to another
      day. Crossing the irrigating ditch further on, he met a gang of
      Portuguese, with picks and shovels over their shoulders, just going to
      work. Hooven, already abroad, shouted him a &ldquo;Goot mornun&rdquo; from behind the
      fence of Los Muertos. Far off, toward the southwest, in the bare expanse
      of the open fields, where a clump of eucalyptus and cypress trees set a
      dark green note, a thin stream of smoke rose straight into the air from
      the kitchen of Derrick's ranch houses.
    </p>
    <p>
      But a mile or so beyond the Long Trestle he was surprised to see Magnus
      Derrick's protege, the one-time shepherd, Vanamee, coming across Quien
      Sabe, by a trail from one of Annixter's division houses. Without knowing
      exactly why, Dyke received the impression that the young man had not been
      in bed all of that night.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the two approached each other, Dyke eyed the young fellow. He was
      distrustful of Vanamee, having the country-bred suspicion of any person he
      could not understand. Vanamee was, beyond doubt, no part of the life of
      ranch and country town. He was an alien, a vagabond, a strange fellow who
      came and went in mysterious fashion, making no friends, keeping to
      himself. Why did he never wear a hat, why indulge in a fine, black,
      pointed beard, when either a round beard or a mustache was the invariable
      custom? Why did he not cut his hair? Above all, why did he prowl about so
      much at night? As the two passed each other, Dyke, for all his
      good-nature, was a little blunt in his greeting and looked back at the
      ex-shepherd over his shoulder.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke was right in his suspicion. Vanamee's bed had not been disturbed for
      three nights. On the Monday of that week he had passed the entire night in
      the garden of the Mission, overlooking the Seed ranch, in the little
      valley. Tuesday evening had found him miles away from that spot, in a deep
      arroyo in the Sierra foothills to the eastward, while Wednesday he had
      slept in an abandoned 'dobe on Osterman's stock range, twenty miles from
      his resting place of the night before.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fact of the matter was that the old restlessness had once more seized
      upon Vanamee. Something began tugging at him; the spur of some unseen
      rider touched his flank. The instinct of the wanderer woke and moved. For
      some time now he had been a part of the Los Muertos staff. On Quien Sabe,
      as on the other ranches, the slack season was at hand. While waiting for
      the wheat to come up no one was doing much of anything. Vanamee had come
      over to Los Muertos and spent most of his days on horseback, riding the
      range, rounding up and watching the cattle in the fourth division of the
      ranch. But if the vagabond instinct now roused itself in the strange
      fellow's nature, a counter influence had also set in. More and more
      Vanamee frequented the Mission garden after nightfall, sometimes remaining
      there till the dawn began to whiten, lying prone on the ground, his chin
      on his folded arms, his eyes searching the darkness over the little valley
      of the Seed ranch, watching, watching. As the days went by, he became more
      reticent than ever. Presley often came to find him on the stock range, a
      lonely figure in the great wilderness of bare, green hillsides, but
      Vanamee no longer took him into his confidence. Father Sarria alone heard
      his strange stories.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke drove on toward Bonneville, thinking over the whole matter. He knew,
      as every one did in that part of the country, the legend of Vanamee and
      Angele, the romance of the Mission garden, the mystery of the Other,
      Vanamee's flight to the deserts of the southwest, his periodic returns,
      his strange, reticent, solitary character, but, like many another of the
      country people, he accounted for Vanamee by a short and easy method. No
      doubt, the fellow's wits were turned. That was the long and short of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ex-engineer reached the Post Office in Bonneville towards eleven
      o'clock, but he did not at once present his notice of the arrival of his
      consignment at Ruggles's office. It entertained him to indulge in an
      hour's lounging about the streets. It was seldom he got into town, and
      when he did he permitted himself the luxury of enjoying his evident
      popularity. He met friends everywhere, in the Post Office, in the drug
      store, in the barber shop and around the court-house. With each one he
      held a moment's conversation; almost invariably this ended in the same
      way:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come on 'n have a drink.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I don't care if I do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And the friends proceeded to the Yosemite bar, pledging each other with
      punctilious ceremony. Dyke, however, was a strictly temperate man. His
      life on the engine had trained him well. Alcohol he never touched,
      drinking instead ginger ale, sarsaparilla-and-iron&mdash;soft drinks.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the drug store, which also kept a stock of miscellaneous stationery,
      his eye was caught by a &ldquo;transparent slate,&rdquo; a child's toy, where upon a
      little pane of frosted glass one could trace with considerable elaboration
      outline figures of cows, ploughs, bunches of fruit and even rural water
      mills that were printed on slips of paper underneath.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, there's an idea, Jim,&rdquo; he observed to the boy behind the soda-water
      fountain; &ldquo;I know a little tad that would just about jump out of her skin
      for that. Think I'll have to take it with me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How's Sidney getting along?&rdquo; the other asked, while wrapping up the
      package.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke's enthusiasm had made of his little girl a celebrity throughout
      Bonneville.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ex-engineer promptly became voluble, assertive, doggedly emphatic.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Smartest little tad in all Tulare County, and more fun! A regular whole
      show in herself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And the hops?&rdquo; inquired the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Bully,&rdquo; declared Dyke, with the good-natured man's readiness to talk of
      his private affairs to any one who would listen. &ldquo;Bully. I'm dead sure of
      a bonanza crop by now. The rain came JUST right. I actually don't know as
      I can store the crop in those barns I built, it's going to be so big. That
      foreman of mine was a daisy. Jim, I'm going to make money in that deal.
      After I've paid off the mortgage&mdash;you know I had to mortgage, yes,
      crop and homestead both, but I can pay it off and all the interest to
      boot, lovely,&mdash;well, and as I was saying, after all expenses are paid
      off I'll clear big money, m' son. Yes, sir. I KNEW there was boodle in
      hops. You know the crop is contracted for already. Sure, the foreman
      managed that. He's a daisy. Chap in San Francisco will take it all and at
      the advanced price. I wanted to hang on, to see if it wouldn't go to six
      cents, but the foreman said, 'No, that's good enough.' So I signed. Ain't
      it bully, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Then what'll you do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I don't know. I'll have a lay-off for a month or so and take the
      little tad and mother up and show 'em the city&mdash;'Frisco&mdash;until
      it's time for the schools to open, and then we'll put Sid in the seminary
      at Marysville. Catch on?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose you'll stay right by hops now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Right you are, m'son. I know a good thing when I see it. There's plenty
      others going into hops next season. I set 'em the example. Wouldn't be
      surprised if it came to be a regular industry hereabouts. I'm planning
      ahead for next year already. I can let the foreman go, now that I've
      learned the game myself, and I think I'll buy a piece of land off Quien
      Sabe and get a bigger crop, and build a couple more barns, and, by George,
      in about five years time I'll have things humming. I'm going to make
      MONEY, Jim.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He emerged once more into the street and went up the block leisurely,
      planting his feet squarely. He fancied that he could feel he was
      considered of more importance nowadays. He was no longer a subordinate, an
      employee. He was his own man, a proprietor, an owner of land, furthering a
      successful enterprise. No one had helped him; he had followed no one's
      lead. He had struck out unaided for himself, and his success was due
      solely to his own intelligence, industry, and foresight. He squared his
      great shoulders till the blue gingham of his jumper all but cracked. Of
      late, his great blond beard had grown and the work in the sun had made his
      face very red. Under the visor of his cap&mdash;relic of his engineering
      days&mdash;his blue eyes twinkled with vast good-nature. He felt that he
      made a fine figure as he went by a group of young girls in lawns and
      muslins and garden hats on their way to the Post Office. He wondered if
      they looked after him, wondered if they had heard that he was in a fair
      way to become a rich man.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the chronometer in the window of the jewelry store warned him that
      time was passing. He turned about, and, crossing the street, took his way
      to Ruggles's office, which was the freight as well as the land office of
      the P. and S. W. Railroad.
    </p>
    <p>
      As he stood for a moment at the counter in front of the wire partition,
      waiting for the clerk to make out the order for the freight agent at the
      depot, Dyke was surprised to see a familiar figure in conference with
      Ruggles himself, by a desk inside the railing.
    </p>
    <p>
      The figure was that of a middle-aged man, fat, with a great stomach, which
      he stroked from time to time. As he turned about, addressing a remark to
      the clerk, Dyke recognised S. Behrman. The banker, railroad agent, and
      political manipulator seemed to the ex-engineer's eyes to be more gross
      than ever. His smooth-shaven jowl stood out big and tremulous on either
      side of his face; the roll of fat on the nape of his neck, sprinkled with
      sparse, stiff hairs, bulged out with greater prominence. His great
      stomach, covered with a light brown linen vest, stamped with innumerable
      interlocked horseshoes, protruded far in advance, enormous, aggressive. He
      wore his inevitable round-topped hat of stiff brown straw, varnished so
      bright that it reflected the light of the office windows like a helmet,
      and even from where he stood Dyke could hear his loud breathing and the
      clink of the hollow links of his watch chain upon the vest buttons of
      imitation pearl, as his stomach rose and fell.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke looked at him with attention. There was the enemy, the representative
      of the Trust with which Derrick's League was locking horns. The great
      struggle had begun to invest the combatants with interest. Daily, almost
      hourly, Dyke was in touch with the ranchers, the wheat-growers. He heard
      their denunciations, their growls of exasperation and defiance. Here was
      the other side&mdash;this placid, fat man, with a stiff straw hat and
      linen vest, who never lost his temper, who smiled affably upon his
      enemies, giving them good advice, commiserating with them in one defeat
      after another, never ruffled, never excited, sure of his power, conscious
      that back of him was the Machine, the colossal force, the inexhaustible
      coffers of a mighty organisation, vomiting millions to the League's
      thousands.
    </p>
    <p>
      The League was clamorous, ubiquitous, its objects known to every urchin on
      the streets, but the Trust was silent, its ways inscrutable, the public
      saw only results. It worked on in the dark, calm, disciplined,
      irresistible. Abruptly Dyke received the impression of the multitudinous
      ramifications of the colossus. Under his feet the ground seemed mined;
      down there below him in the dark the huge tentacles went silently twisting
      and advancing, spreading out in every direction, sapping the strength of
      all opposition, quiet, gradual, biding the time to reach up and out and
      grip with a sudden unleashing of gigantic strength.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll be wanting some cars of you people before the summer is out,&rdquo;
       observed Dyke to the clerk as he folded up and put away the order that the
      other had handed him. He remembered perfectly well that he had arranged
      the matter of transporting his crop some months before, but his role of
      proprietor amused him and he liked to busy himself again and again with
      the details of his undertaking.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;you'll be able to give 'em to me. There'll be a
      big wheat crop to move this year and I don't want to be caught in any car
      famine.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you'll get your cars,&rdquo; murmured the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll be the means of bringing business your way,&rdquo; Dyke went on; &ldquo;I've
      done so well with my hops that there are a lot of others going into the
      business next season. Suppose,&rdquo; he continued, struck with an idea,
      &ldquo;suppose we went into some sort of pool, a sort of shippers' organisation,
      could you give us special rates, cheaper rates&mdash;say a cent and a
      half?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other looked up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A cent and a half! Say FOUR cents and a half and maybe I'll talk business
      with you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Four cents and a half,&rdquo; returned Dyke, &ldquo;I don't see it. Why, the regular
      rate is only two cents.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, it isn't,&rdquo; answered the clerk, looking him gravely in the eye, &ldquo;it's
      five cents.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, there's where you are wrong, m'son,&rdquo; Dyke retorted, genially. &ldquo;You
      look it up. You'll find the freight on hops from Bonneville to 'Frisco is
      two cents a pound for car load lots. You told me that yourself last fall.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That was last fall,&rdquo; observed the clerk. There was a silence. Dyke shot a
      glance of suspicion at the other. Then, reassured, he remarked:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You look it up. You'll see I'm right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman came forward and shook hands politely with the ex-engineer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Anything I can do for you, Mr. Dyke?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke explained. When he had done speaking, the clerk turned to S. Behrman
      and observed, respectfully:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Our regular rate on hops is five cents.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered S. Behrman, pausing to reflect; &ldquo;yes, Mr. Dyke, that's
      right&mdash;five cents.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The clerk brought forward a folder of yellow paper and handed it to Dyke.
      It was inscribed at the top &ldquo;Tariff Schedule No. 8,&rdquo; and underneath these
      words, in brackets, was a smaller inscription, &ldquo;SUPERSEDES NO. 7 OF AUG.
      1&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;See for yourself,&rdquo; said S. Behrman. He indicated an item under the head
      of &ldquo;Miscellany.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The following rates for carriage of hops in car load lots,&rdquo; read Dyke,
      &ldquo;take effect June 1, and will remain in force until superseded by a later
      tariff. Those quoted beyond Stockton are subject to changes in traffic
      arrangements with carriers by water from that point.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In the list that was printed below, Dyke saw that the rate for hops
      between Bonneville or Guadalajara and San Francisco was five cents.
    </p>
    <p>
      For a moment Dyke was confused. Then swiftly the matter became clear in
      his mind. The Railroad had raised the freight on hops from two cents to
      five.
    </p>
    <p>
      All his calculations as to a profit on his little investment he had based
      on a freight rate of two cents a pound. He was under contract to deliver
      his crop. He could not draw back. The new rate ate up every cent of his
      gains. He stood there ruined.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, what do you mean?&rdquo; he burst out. &ldquo;You promised me a rate of two
      cents and I went ahead with my business with that understanding. What do
      you mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman and the clerk watched him from the other side of the counter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The rate is five cents,&rdquo; declared the clerk doggedly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that ruins me,&rdquo; shouted Dyke. &ldquo;Do you understand? I won't make
      fifty cents. MAKE! Why, I will OWE,&mdash;I'll be&mdash;be&mdash;That
      ruins me, do you understand?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other, raised a shoulder.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We don't force you to ship. You can do as you like. The rate is five
      cents.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well&mdash;but&mdash;damn you, I'm under contract to deliver. What am I
      going to do? Why, you told me&mdash;you promised me a two-cent rate.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't remember it,&rdquo; said the clerk. &ldquo;I don't know anything about that.
      But I know this; I know that hops have gone up. I know the German crop was
      a failure and that the crop in New York wasn't worth the hauling. Hops
      have gone up to nearly a dollar. You don't suppose we don't know that, do
      you, Mr. Dyke?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's the price of hops got to do with you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's got THIS to do with us,&rdquo; returned the other with a sudden
      aggressiveness, &ldquo;that the freight rate has gone up to meet the price.
      We're not doing business for our health. My orders are to raise your rate
      to five cents, and I think you are getting off easy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke stared in blank astonishment. For the moment, the audacity of the
      affair was what most appealed to him. He forgot its personal application.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good Lord,&rdquo; he murmured, &ldquo;good Lord! What will you people do next? Look
      here. What's your basis of applying freight rates, anyhow?&rdquo; he suddenly
      vociferated with furious sarcasm. &ldquo;What's your rule? What are you guided
      by?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But at the words, S. Behrman, who had kept silent during the heat of the
      discussion, leaned abruptly forward. For the only time in his knowledge,
      Dyke saw his face inflamed with anger and with the enmity and contempt of
      all this farming element with whom he was contending.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, what's your rule? What's your basis?&rdquo; demanded Dyke, turning swiftly
      to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman emphasised each word of his reply with a tap of one forefinger
      on the counter before him:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All&mdash;the&mdash;traffic&mdash;will&mdash;bear.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The ex-engineer stepped back a pace, his fingers on the ledge of the
      counter, to steady himself. He felt himself grow pale, his heart became a
      mere leaden weight in his chest, inert, refusing to beat.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a second the whole affair, in all its bearings, went speeding before
      the eye of his imagination like the rapid unrolling of a panorama. Every
      cent of his earnings was sunk in this hop business of his. More than that,
      he had borrowed money to carry it on, certain of success&mdash;borrowed of
      S. Behrman, offering his crop and his little home as security. Once he
      failed to meet his obligations, S. Behrman would foreclose. Not only would
      the Railroad devour every morsel of his profits, but also it would take
      from him his home; at a blow he would be left penniless and without a
      home. What would then become of his mother&mdash;and what would become of
      the little tad? She, whom he had been planning to educate like a veritable
      lady. For all that year he had talked of his ambition for his little
      daughter to every one he met. All Bonneville knew of it. What a mark for
      gibes he had made of himself. The workingman turned farmer! What a target
      for jeers&mdash;he who had fancied he could elude the Railroad! He
      remembered he had once said the great Trust had overlooked his little
      enterprise, disdaining to plunder such small fry. He should have known
      better than that. How had he ever imagined the Road would permit him to
      make any money?
    </p>
    <p>
      Anger was not in him yet; no rousing of the blind, white-hot wrath that
      leaps to the attack with prehensile fingers, moved him. The blow merely
      crushed, staggered, confused.
    </p>
    <p>
      He stepped aside to give place to a coatless man in a pink shirt, who
      entered, carrying in his hands an automatic door-closing apparatus.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where does this go?&rdquo; inquired the man.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke sat down for a moment on a seat that had been removed from a worn-out
      railway car to do duty in Ruggles's office. On the back of a yellow
      envelope he made some vague figures with a stump of blue pencil,
      multiplying, subtracting, perplexing himself with many errors.
    </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman, the clerk, and the man with the door-closing apparatus
      involved themselves in a long argument, gazing intently at the top panel
      of the door. The man who had come to fix the apparatus was unwilling to
      guarantee it, unless a sign was put on the outside of the door, warning
      incomers that the door was self-closing. This sign would cost fifteen
      cents extra.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you didn't say anything about this when the thing was ordered,&rdquo;
       declared S. Behrman. &ldquo;No, I won't pay it, my friend. It's an overcharge.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You needn't think,&rdquo; observed the clerk, &ldquo;that just because you are
      dealing with the Railroad you are going to work us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Genslinger came in, accompanied by Delaney. S. Behrman and the clerk,
      abruptly dismissing the man with the door-closing machine, put themselves
      behind the counter and engaged in conversation with these two. Genslinger
      introduced Delaney. The buster had a string of horses he was shipping
      southward. No doubt he had come to make arrangements with the Railroad in
      the matter of stock cars. The conference of the four men was amicable in
      the extreme.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke, studying the figures on the back of the envelope, came forward
      again. Absorbed only in his own distress, he ignored the editor and the
      cow-puncher.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; he hazarded, &ldquo;how about this? I make out&mdash;&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We've told you what our rates are, Mr. Dyke,&rdquo; exclaimed the clerk
      angrily. &ldquo;That's all the arrangement we will make. Take it or leave it.&rdquo;
       He turned again to Genslinger, giving the ex-engineer his back.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke moved away and stood for a moment in the centre of the room, staring
      at the figures on the envelope.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't see,&rdquo; he muttered, &ldquo;just what I'm going to do. No, I don't see
      what I'm going to do at all.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ruggles came in, bringing with him two other men in whom Dyke recognised
      dummy buyers of the Los Muertos and Osterman ranchos. They brushed by him,
      jostling his elbow, and as he went out of the door he heard them exchange
      jovial greetings with Delaney, Genslinger, and S. Behrman.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke went down the stairs to the street and proceeded onward aimlessly in
      the direction of the Yosemite House, fingering the yellow envelope and
      looking vacantly at the sidewalk.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a stoop to his massive shoulders. His great arms dangled loosely
      at his sides, the palms of his hands open.
    </p>
    <p>
      As he went along, a certain feeling of shame touched him. Surely his
      predicament must be apparent to every passer-by. No doubt, every one
      recognised the unsuccessful man in the very way he slouched along. The
      young girls in lawns, muslins, and garden hats, returning from the Post
      Office, their hands full of letters, must surely see in him the type of
      the failure, the bankrupt.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then brusquely his tardy rage flamed up. By God, NO, it was not his fault;
      he had made no mistake. His energy, industry, and foresight had been
      sound. He had been merely the object of a colossal trick, a sordid
      injustice, a victim of the insatiate greed of the monster, caught and
      choked by one of those millions of tentacles suddenly reaching up from
      below, from out the dark beneath his feet, coiling around his throat,
      throttling him, strangling him, sucking his blood. For a moment he thought
      of the courts, but instantly laughed at the idea. What court was immune
      from the power of the monster? Ah, the rage of helplessness, the fury of
      impotence! No help, no hope,&mdash;ruined in a brief instant&mdash;he a
      veritable giant, built of great sinews, powerful, in the full tide of his
      manhood, having all his health, all his wits. How could he now face his
      home? How could he tell his mother of this catastrophe? And Sidney&mdash;the
      little tad; how could he explain to her this wretchedness&mdash;how soften
      her disappointment? How keep the tears from out her eyes&mdash;how keep
      alive her confidence in him&mdash;her faith in his resources?
    </p>
    <p>
      Bitter, fierce, ominous, his wrath loomed up in his heart. His fists
      gripped tight together, his teeth clenched. Oh, for a moment to have his
      hand upon the throat of S. Behrman, wringing the breath from him,
      wrenching out the red life of him&mdash;staining the street with the blood
      sucked from the veins of the People!
    </p>
    <p>
      To the first friend that he met, Dyke told the tale of the tragedy, and to
      the next, and to the next. The affair went from mouth to mouth, spreading
      with electrical swiftness, overpassing and running ahead of Dyke himself,
      so that by the time he reached the lobby of the Yosemite House, he found
      his story awaiting him. A group formed about him. In his immediate
      vicinity business for the instant was suspended. The group swelled. One
      after another of his friends added themselves to it. Magnus Derrick joined
      it, and Annixter. Again and again, Dyke recounted the matter, beginning
      with the time when he was discharged from the same corporation's service
      for refusing to accept an unfair wage. His voice quivered with
      exasperation; his heavy frame shook with rage; his eyes were injected,
      bloodshot; his face flamed vermilion, while his deep bass rumbled
      throughout the running comments of his auditors like the thunderous
      reverberation of diapason.
    </p>
    <p>
      From all points of view, the story was discussed by those who listened to
      him, now in the heat of excitement, now calmly, judicially. One verdict,
      however, prevailed. It was voiced by Annixter: &ldquo;You're stuck. You can roar
      till you're black in the face, but you can't buck against the Railroad.
      There's nothing to be done.&rdquo; &ldquo;You can shoot the ruffian, you can shoot S.
      Behrman,&rdquo; clamoured one of the group. &ldquo;Yes, sir; by the Lord, you can
      shoot him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Poor fool,&rdquo; commented Annixter, turning away.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nothing to be done. No, there was nothing to be done&mdash;not one thing.
      Dyke, at last alone and driving his team out of the town, turned the
      business confusedly over in his mind from end to end. Advice, suggestion,
      even offers of financial aid had been showered upon him from all
      directions. Friends were not wanting who heatedly presented to his
      consideration all manner of ingenious plans, wonderful devices. They were
      worthless. The tentacle held fast. He was stuck.
    </p>
    <p>
      By degrees, as his wagon carried him farther out into the country, and
      open empty fields, his anger lapsed, and the numbness of bewilderment
      returned. He could not look one hour ahead into the future; could
      formulate no plans even for the next day. He did not know what to do. He
      was stuck.
    </p>
    <p>
      With the limpness and inertia of a sack of sand, the reins slipping
      loosely in his dangling fingers, his eyes fixed, staring between the
      horses' heads, he allowed himself to be carried aimlessly along. He
      resigned himself. What did he care? What was the use of going on? He was
      stuck.
    </p>
    <p>
      The team he was driving had once belonged to the Los Muertos stables and
      unguided as the horses were, they took the county road towards Derrick's
      ranch house. Dyke, all abroad, was unaware of the fact till, drawn by the
      smell of water, the horses halted by the trough in front of Caraher's
      saloon.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ex-engineer dismounted, looking about him, realising where he was. So
      much the worse; it did not matter. Now that he had come so far it was as
      short to go home by this route as to return on his tracks. Slowly he
      unchecked the horses and stood at their heads, watching them drink.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't see,&rdquo; he muttered, &ldquo;just what I am going to do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Caraher appeared at the door of his place, his red face, red beard, and
      flaming cravat standing sharply out from the shadow of the doorway. He
      called a welcome to Dyke.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, Captain.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke looked up, nodding his head listlessly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, Caraher,&rdquo; he answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; continued the saloonkeeper, coming forward a step, &ldquo;what's the
      news in town?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke told him. Caraher's red face suddenly took on a darker colour. The
      red glint in his eyes shot from under his eyebrows. Furious, he vented a
      rolling explosion of oaths.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And now it's your turn,&rdquo; he vociferated. &ldquo;They ain't after only the big
      wheat-growers, the rich men. By God, they'll even pick the poor man's
      pocket. Oh, they'll get their bellies full some day. It can't last
      forever. They'll wake up the wrong kind of man some morning, the man
      that's got guts in him, that will hit back when he's kicked and that will
      talk to 'em with a torch in one hand and a stick of dynamite in the
      other.&rdquo; He raised his clenched fists in the air. &ldquo;So help me, God,&rdquo; he
      cried, &ldquo;when I think it all over I go crazy, I see red. Oh, if the people
      only knew their strength. Oh, if I could wake 'em up. There's not only
      Shelgrim, but there's others. All the magnates, all the butchers, all the
      blood-suckers, by the thousands. Their day will come, by God, it will.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      By now, the ex-engineer and the bar-keeper had retired to the saloon back
      of the grocery to talk over the details of this new outrage. Dyke, still a
      little dazed, sat down by one of the tables, preoccupied, saying but
      little, and Caraher as a matter of course set the whiskey bottle at his
      elbow.
    </p>
    <p>
      It happened that at this same moment, Presley, returning to Los Muertos
      from Bonneville, his pockets full of mail, stopped in at the grocery to
      buy some black lead for his bicycle. In the saloon, on the other side of
      the narrow partition, he overheard the conversation between Dyke and
      Caraher. The door was open. He caught every word distinctly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tell us all about it, Dyke,&rdquo; urged Caraher.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the fiftieth time Dyke told the story. Already it had crystallised
      into a certain form. He used the same phrases with each repetition, the
      same sentences, the same words. In his mind it became set. Thus he would
      tell it to any one who would listen from now on, week after week, year
      after year, all the rest of his life&mdash;&ldquo;And I based my calculations on
      a two-cent rate. So soon as they saw I was to make money they doubled the
      tariff&mdash;all the traffic would bear&mdash;and I mortgaged to S.
      Behrman&mdash;ruined me with a turn of the hand&mdash;stuck, cinched, and
      not one thing to be done.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As he talked, he drank glass after glass of whiskey, and the honest rage,
      the open, above-board fury of his mind coagulated, thickened, and sunk to
      a dull, evil hatred, a wicked, oblique malevolence. Caraher, sure now of
      winning a disciple, replenished his glass.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you blame us now,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;us others, the Reds? Ah, yes, it's all
      very well for your middle class to preach moderation. I could do it, too.
      You could do it, too, if your belly was fed, if your property was safe, if
      your wife had not been murdered if your children were not starving. Easy
      enough then to preach law-abiding methods, legal redress, and all such
      rot. But how about US?&rdquo; he vociferated. &ldquo;Ah, yes, I'm a loud-mouthed
      rum-seller, ain't I? I'm a wild-eyed striker, ain't I? I'm a blood-thirsty
      anarchist, ain't I? Wait till you've seen your wife brought home to you
      with the face you used to kiss smashed in by a horse's hoof&mdash;killed
      by the Trust, as it happened to me. Then talk about moderation! And you,
      Dyke, black-listed engineer, discharged employee, ruined agriculturist,
      wait till you see your little tad and your mother turned out of doors when
      S. Behrman forecloses. Wait till you see 'em getting thin and white, and
      till you hear your little girl ask you why you all don't eat a little more
      and that she wants her dinner and you can't give it to her. Wait till you
      see&mdash;at the same time that your family is dying for lack of bread&mdash;a
      hundred thousand acres of wheat&mdash;millions of bushels of food&mdash;grabbed
      and gobbled by the Railroad Trust, and then talk of moderation. That talk
      is just what the Trust wants to hear. It ain't frightened of that. There's
      one thing only it does listen to, one thing it is frightened of&mdash;the
      people with dynamite in their hands,&mdash;six inches of plugged gaspipe.
      THAT talks.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke did not reply. He filled another pony of whiskey and drank it in two
      gulps. His frown had lowered to a scowl, his face was a dark red, his head
      had sunk, bull-like, between his massive shoulders; without winking he
      gazed long and with troubled eyes at his knotted, muscular hands, lying
      open on the table before him, idle, their occupation gone.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley forgot his black lead. He listened to Caraher. Through the open
      door he caught a glimpse of Dyke's back, broad, muscled, bowed down, the
      great shoulders stooping.
    </p>
    <p>
      The whole drama of the doubled freight rate leaped salient and distinct in
      the eye of his mind. And this was but one instance, an isolated case.
      Because he was near at hand he happened to see it. How many others were
      there, the length and breadth of the State? Constantly this sort of thing
      must occur&mdash;little industries choked out in their very beginnings,
      the air full of the death rattles of little enterprises, expiring
      unobserved in far-off counties, up in canyons and arroyos of the
      foothills, forgotten by every one but the monster who was daunted by the
      magnitude of no business, however great, who overlooked no opportunity of
      plunder, however petty, who with one tentacle grabbed a hundred thousand
      acres of wheat, and with another pilfered a pocketful of growing hops.
    </p>
    <p>
      He went away without a word, his head bent, his hands clutched tightly on
      the cork grips of the handle bars of his bicycle. His lips were white. In
      his heart a blind demon of revolt raged tumultuous, shrieking blasphemies.
    </p>
    <p>
      At Los Muertos, Presley overtook Annixter. As he guided his wheel up the
      driveway to Derrick's ranch house, he saw the master of Quien Sabe and
      Harran in conversation on the steps of the porch. Magnus stood in the
      doorway, talking to his wife.
    </p>
    <p>
      Occupied with the press of business and involved in the final conference
      with the League's lawyers on the eve of the latter's departure for
      Washington, Annixter had missed the train that was to take him back to
      Guadalajara and Quien Sabe. Accordingly, he had accepted the Governor's
      invitation to return with him on his buck-board to Los Muertos, and before
      leaving Bonneville had telephoned to his ranch to have young Vacca bring
      the buckskin, by way of the Lower Road, to meet him at Los Muertos. He
      found her waiting there for him, but before going on, delayed a few
      moments to tell Harran of Dyke's affair.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I wonder what he will do now?&rdquo; observed Harran when his first outburst of
      indignation had subsided.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; declared Annixter. &ldquo;He's stuck.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That eats up every cent of Dyke's earnings,&rdquo; Harran went on. &ldquo;He has been
      ten years saving them. Oh, I told him to make sure of the Railroad when he
      first spoke to me about growing hops.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I've just seen him,&rdquo; said Presley, as he joined the others. &ldquo;He was at
      Caraher's. I only saw his back. He was drinking at a table and his back
      was towards me. But the man looked broken&mdash;absolutely crushed. It is
      terrible, terrible.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He was at Caraher's, was he?&rdquo; demanded Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Drinking, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think so. Yes, I saw a bottle.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Drinking at Caraher's,&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter, rancorously; &ldquo;I can see HIS
      finish.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a silence. It seemed as if nothing more was to be said. They
      paused, looking thoughtfully on the ground.
    </p>
    <p>
      In silence, grim, bitter, infinitely sad, the three men as if at that
      moment actually standing in the bar-room of Caraher's roadside saloon,
      contemplated the slow sinking, the inevitable collapse and submerging of
      one of their companions, the wreck of a career, the ruin of an individual;
      an honest man, strong, fearless, upright, struck down by a colossal power,
      perverted by an evil influence, go reeling to his ruin.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see his finish,&rdquo; repeated Annixter. &ldquo;Exit Dyke, and score another tally
      for S. Behrman, Shelgrim and Co.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He moved away impatiently, loosening the tie-rope with which the buckskin
      was fastened. He swung himself up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;God for us all,&rdquo; he declared as he rode away, &ldquo;and the devil take the
      hindmost. Good-bye, I'm going home. I still have one a little longer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He galloped away along the Lower Road, in the direction of Quien Sabe,
      emerging from the grove of cypress and eucalyptus about the ranch house,
      and coming out upon the bare brown plain of the wheat land, stretching
      away from him in apparent barrenness on either hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was late in the day, already his shadow was long upon the padded dust
      of the road in front of him. On ahead, a long ways off, and a little to
      the north, the venerable campanile of the Mission San Juan was glinting
      radiant in the last rays of the sun, while behind him, towards the north
      and west, the gilded dome of the courthouse at Bonneville stood
      silhouetted in purplish black against the flaming west. Annixter spurred
      the buck-skin forward. He feared he might be late to his supper. He
      wondered if it would be brought to him by Hilma.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hilma! The name struck across in his brain with a pleasant, glowing
      tremour. All through that day of activity, of strenuous business, the
      minute and cautious planning of the final campaign in the great war of the
      League and the Trust, the idea of her and the recollection of her had been
      the undercurrent of his thoughts. At last he was alone. He could put all
      other things behind him and occupy himself solely with her.
    </p>
    <p>
      In that glory of the day's end, in that chaos of sunshine, he saw her
      again. Unimaginative, crude, direct, his fancy, nevertheless, placed her
      before him, steeped in sunshine, saturated with glorious light, brilliant,
      radiant, alluring. He saw the sweet simplicity of her carriage, the
      statuesque evenness of the contours of her figure, the single, deep swell
      of her bosom, the solid masses of her hair. He remembered the small
      contradictory suggestions of feminine daintiness he had so often remarked
      about her, her slim, narrow feet, the little steel buckles of her low
      shoes, the knot of black ribbon she had begun to wear of late on the back
      of her head, and he heard her voice, low-pitched, velvety, a sweet,
      murmuring huskiness that seemed to come more from her chest than from her
      throat.
    </p>
    <p>
      The buckskin's hoofs clattered upon the gravelly flats of Broderson's
      Creek underneath the Long Trestle. Annixter's mind went back to the scene
      of the previous evening, when he had come upon her at this place. He set
      his teeth with anger and disappointment. Why had she not been able to
      understand? What was the matter with these women, always set upon this
      marrying notion? Was it not enough that he wanted her more than any other
      girl he knew and that she wanted him? She had said as much. Did she think
      she was going to be mistress of Quien Sabe? Ah, that was it. She was after
      his property, was for marrying him because of his money. His unconquerable
      suspicion of the woman, his innate distrust of the feminine element would
      not be done away with. What fathomless duplicity was hers, that she could
      appear so innocent. It was almost unbelievable; in fact, was it
      believable?
    </p>
    <p>
      For the first time doubt assailed him. Suppose Hilma was indeed all that
      she appeared to be. Suppose it was not with her a question of his
      property, after all; it was a poor time to think of marrying him for his
      property when all Quien Sabe hung in the issue of the next few months.
      Suppose she had been sincere. But he caught himself up. Was he to be
      fooled by a feemale girl at this late date? He, Buck Annixter, crafty,
      hard-headed, a man of affairs? Not much. Whatever transpired he would
      remain the master.
    </p>
    <p>
      He reached Quien Sabe in this frame of mind. But at this hour, Annixter,
      for all his resolutions, could no longer control his thoughts. As he
      stripped the saddle from the buckskin and led her to the watering trough
      by the stable corral, his heart was beating thick at the very notion of
      being near Hilma again. It was growing dark, but covertly he glanced here
      and there out of the corners of his eyes to see if she was anywhere about.
      Annixter&mdash;how, he could not tell&mdash;had become possessed of the
      idea that Hilma would not inform her parents of what had passed between
      them the previous evening under the Long Trestle. He had no idea that
      matters were at an end between himself and the young woman. He must
      apologise, he saw that clearly enough, must eat crow, as he told himself.
      Well, he would eat crow. He was not afraid of her any longer, now that she
      had made her confession to him. He would see her as soon as possible and
      get this business straightened out, and begin again from a new starting
      point. What he wanted with Hilma, Annixter did not define clearly in his
      mind. At one time he had known perfectly well what he wanted. Now, the
      goal of his desires had become vague. He could not say exactly what it
      was. He preferred that things should go forward without much idea of
      consequences; if consequences came, they would do so naturally enough, and
      of themselves; all that he positively knew was that Hilma occupied his
      thoughts morning, noon, and night; that he was happy when he was with her,
      and miserable when away from her.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Chinese cook served his supper in silence. Annixter ate and drank and
      lighted a cigar, and after his meal sat on the porch of his house, smoking
      and enjoying the twilight. The evening was beautiful, warm, the sky one
      powder of stars. From the direction of the stables he heard one of the
      Portuguese hands picking a guitar.
    </p>
    <p>
      But he wanted to see Hilma. The idea of going to bed without at least a
      glimpse of her became distasteful to him. Annixter got up and descending
      from the porch began to walk aimlessly about between the ranch buildings,
      with eye and ear alert. Possibly he might meet her somewheres.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Trees' little house, toward which inevitably Annixter directed his
      steps, was dark. Had they all gone to bed so soon? He made a wide circuit
      about it, listening, but heard no sound. The door of the dairy-house stood
      ajar. He pushed it open, and stepped into the odorous darkness of its
      interior. The pans and deep cans of polished metal glowed faintly from the
      corners and from the walls. The smell of new cheese was pungent in his
      nostrils. Everything was quiet. There was nobody there. He went out again,
      closing the door, and stood for a moment in the space between the
      dairy-house and the new barn, uncertain as to what he should do next.
    </p>
    <p>
      As he waited there, his foreman came out of the men's bunk house, on the
      other side of the kitchens, and crossed over toward the barn. &ldquo;Hello,
      Billy,&rdquo; muttered Annixter as he passed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, good evening, Mr. Annixter,&rdquo; said the other, pausing in front of him.
      &ldquo;I didn't know you were back. By the way,&rdquo; he added, speaking as though
      the matter was already known to Annixter, &ldquo;I see old man Tree and his
      family have left us. Are they going to be gone long? Have they left for
      good?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo; Annixter exclaimed. &ldquo;When did they go? Did all of them go,
      all three?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, I thought you knew. Sure, they all left on the afternoon train for
      San Francisco. Cleared out in a hurry&mdash;took all their trunks. Yes,
      all three went&mdash;the young lady, too. They gave me notice early this
      morning. They ain't ought to have done that. I don't know who I'm to get
      to run the dairy on such short notice. Do you know any one, Mr. Annixter?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, why in hell did you let them go?&rdquo; vociferated Annixter. &ldquo;Why didn't
      you keep them here till I got back? Why didn't you find out if they were
      going for good? I can't be everywhere. What do I feed you for if it ain't
      to look after things I can't attend to?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He turned on his heel and strode away straight before him, not caring
      where he was going. He tramped out from the group of ranch buildings;
      holding on over the open reach of his ranch, his teeth set, his heels
      digging furiously into the ground. The minutes passed. He walked on
      swiftly, muttering to himself from time to time.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gone, by the Lord. Gone, by the Lord. By the Lord Harry, she's cleared
      out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As yet his head was empty of all thought. He could not steady his wits to
      consider this new turn of affairs. He did not even try.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gone, by the Lord,&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;By the Lord, she's cleared out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He found the irrigating ditch, and the beaten path made by the ditch
      tenders that bordered it, and followed it some five minutes; then struck
      off at right angles over the rugged surface of the ranch land, to where a
      great white stone jutted from the ground. There he sat down, and leaning
      forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and looked out vaguely into the
      night, his thoughts swiftly readjusting themselves.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was alone. The silence of the night, the infinite repose of the flat,
      bare earth&mdash;two immensities&mdash;widened around and above him like
      illimitable seas. A grey half-light, mysterious, grave, flooded downward
      from the stars.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter was in torment. Now, there could be no longer any doubt&mdash;now
      it was Hilma or nothing. Once out of his reach, once lost to him, and the
      recollection of her assailed him with unconquerable vehemence. Much as she
      had occupied his mind, he had never realised till now how vast had been
      the place she had filled in his life. He had told her as much, but even
      then he did not believe it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly, a bitter rage against himself overwhelmed him as he thought of
      the hurt he had given her the previous evening. He should have managed
      differently. How, he did not know, but the sense of the outrage he had put
      upon her abruptly recoiled against him with cruel force. Now, he was sorry
      for it, infinitely sorry, passionately sorry. He had hurt her. He had
      brought the tears to her eyes. He had so flagrantly insulted her that she
      could no longer bear to breathe the same air with him. She had told her
      parents all. She had left Quien Sabe&mdash;had left him for good, at the
      very moment when he believed he had won her. Brute, beast that he was, he
      had driven her away.
    </p>
    <p>
      An hour went by; then two, then four, then six. Annixter still sat in his
      place, groping and battling in a confusion of spirit, the like of which he
      had never felt before. He did not know what was the matter with him. He
      could not find his way out of the dark and out of the turmoil that wheeled
      around him. He had had no experience with women. There was no precedent to
      guide him. How was he to get out of this? What was the clew that would set
      everything straight again?
    </p>
    <p>
      That he would give Hilma up, never once entered his head. Have her he
      would. She had given herself to him. Everything should have been easy
      after that, and instead, here he was alone in the night, wrestling with
      himself, in deeper trouble than ever, and Hilma farther than ever away
      from him.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was true, he might have Hilma, even now, if he was willing to marry
      her. But marriage, to his mind, had been always a vague, most remote
      possibility, almost as vague and as remote as his death,&mdash;a thing
      that happened to some men, but that would surely never occur to him, or,
      if it did, it would be after long years had passed, when he was older,
      more settled, more mature&mdash;an event that belonged to the period of
      his middle life, distant as yet.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had never faced the question of his marriage. He had kept it at an
      immense distance from him. It had never been a part of his order of
      things. He was not a marrying man.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Hilma was an ever-present reality, as near to him as his right hand.
      Marriage was a formless, far distant abstraction. Hilma a tangible,
      imminent fact. Before he could think of the two as one; before he could
      consider the idea of marriage, side by side with the idea of Hilma,
      measureless distances had to be traversed, things as disassociated in his
      mind as fire and water, had to be fused together; and between the two he
      was torn as if upon a rack.
    </p>
    <p>
      Slowly, by imperceptible degrees, the imagination, unused, unwilling
      machine, began to work. The brain's activity lapsed proportionately. He
      began to think less, and feel more. In that rugged composition, confused,
      dark, harsh, a furrow had been driven deep, a little seed planted, a
      little seed at first weak, forgotten, lost in the lower dark places of his
      character.
    </p>
    <p>
      But as the intellect moved slower, its functions growing numb, the idea of
      self dwindled. Annixter no longer considered himself; no longer considered
      the notion of marriage from the point of view of his own comfort, his own
      wishes, his own advantage. He realised that in his newfound desire to make
      her happy, he was sincere. There was something in that idea, after all. To
      make some one happy&mdash;how about that now? It was worth thinking of.
    </p>
    <p>
      Far away, low down in the east, a dim belt, a grey light began to whiten
      over the horizon. The tower of the Mission stood black against it. The
      dawn was coming. The baffling obscurity of the night was passing. Hidden
      things were coming into view.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, his eyes half-closed, his chin upon his fist, allowed his
      imagination full play. How would it be if he should take Hilma into his
      life, this beautiful young girl, pure as he now knew her to be; innocent,
      noble with the inborn nobility of dawning womanhood? An overwhelming sense
      of his own unworthiness suddenly bore down upon him with crushing force,
      as he thought of this. He had gone about the whole affair wrongly. He had
      been mistaken from the very first. She was infinitely above him. He did
      not want&mdash;he should not desire to be the master. It was she, his
      servant, poor, simple, lowly even, who should condescend to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Abruptly there was presented to his mind's eye a picture of the years to
      come, if he now should follow his best, his highest, his most unselfish
      impulse. He saw Hilma, his own, for better or for worse, for richer or for
      poorer, all barriers down between them, he giving himself to her as
      freely, as nobly, as she had given herself to him. By a supreme effort,
      not of the will, but of the emotion, he fought his way across that vast
      gulf that for a time had gaped between Hilma and the idea of his marriage.
      Instantly, like the swift blending of beautiful colours, like the harmony
      of beautiful chords of music, the two ideas melted into one, and in that
      moment into his harsh, unlovely world a new idea was born. Annixter stood
      suddenly upright, a mighty tenderness, a gentleness of spirit, such as he
      had never conceived of, in his heart strained, swelled, and in a moment
      seemed to burst. Out of the dark furrows of his soul, up from the deep
      rugged recesses of his being, something rose, expanding. He opened his
      arms wide. An immense happiness overpowered him. Actual tears came to his
      eyes. Without knowing why, he was not ashamed of it. This poor, crude
      fellow, harsh, hard, narrow, with his unlovely nature, his fierce
      truculency, his selfishness, his obstinacy, abruptly knew that all the
      sweetness of life, all the great vivifying eternal force of humanity had
      burst into life within him.
    </p>
    <p>
      The little seed, long since planted, gathering strength quietly, had at
      last germinated.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then as the realisation of this hardened into certainty, in the growing
      light of the new day that had just dawned for him, Annixter uttered a cry.
      Now at length, he knew the meaning of it all.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why&mdash;I&mdash;I, I LOVE her,&rdquo; he cried. Never until then had it
      occurred to him. Never until then, in all his thoughts of Hilma, had that
      great word passed his lips.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a Memnonian cry, the greeting of the hard, harsh image of man,
      rough-hewn, flinty, granitic, uttering a note of joy, acclaiming the new
      risen sun.
    </p>
    <p>
      By now it was almost day. The east glowed opalescent. All about him
      Annixter saw the land inundated with light. But there was a change.
      Overnight something had occurred. In his perturbation the change seemed to
      him, at first, elusive, almost fanciful, unreal. But now as the light
      spread, he looked again at the gigantic scroll of ranch lands unrolled
      before him from edge to edge of the horizon. The change was not fanciful.
      The change was real. The earth was no longer bare. The land was no longer
      barren,&mdash;no longer empty, no longer dull brown. All at once Annixter
      shouted aloud.
    </p>
    <p>
      There it was, the Wheat, the Wheat! The little seed long planted,
      germinating in the deep, dark furrows of the soil, straining, swelling,
      suddenly in one night had burst upward to the light. The wheat had come
      up. It was there before him, around him, everywhere, illimitable,
      immeasurable. The winter brownness of the ground was overlaid with a
      little shimmer of green. The promise of the sowing was being fulfilled.
      The earth, the loyal mother, who never failed, who never disappointed, was
      keeping her faith again. Once more the strength of nations was renewed.
      Once more the force of the world was revivified. Once more the Titan,
      benignant, calm, stirred and woke, and the morning abruptly blazed into
      glory upon the spectacle of a man whose heart leaped exuberant with the
      love of a woman, and an exulting earth gleaming transcendent with the
      radiant magnificence of an inviolable pledge.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER III
    </h2>
    <p>
      Presley's room in the ranch house of Los Muertos was in the second story
      of the building. It was a corner room; one of its windows facing the
      south, the other the east. Its appointments were of the simplest. In one
      angle was the small white painted iron bed, covered with a white
      counterpane. The walls were hung with a white paper figured with knots of
      pale green leaves, very gay and bright. There was a straw matting on the
      floor. White muslin half-curtains hung in the windows, upon the sills of
      which certain plants bearing pink waxen flowers of which Presley did not
      know the name, grew in oblong green boxes. The walls were unadorned, save
      by two pictures, one a reproduction of the &ldquo;Reading from Homer,&rdquo; the other
      a charcoal drawing of the Mission of San Juan de Guadalajara, which
      Presley had made himself. By the east window stood the plainest of deal
      tables, innocent of any cloth or covering, such as might have been used in
      a kitchen. It was Presley's work table, and was invariably littered with
      papers, half-finished manuscripts, drafts of poems, notebooks, pens,
      half-smoked cigarettes, and the like. Near at hand, upon a shelf, were his
      books. There were but two chairs in the room&mdash;the straight backed
      wooden chair, that stood in front of the table, angular, upright, and in
      which it was impossible to take one's ease, and the long comfortable
      wicker steamer chair, stretching its length in front of the south window.
      Presley was immensely fond of this room. It amused and interested him to
      maintain its air of rigorous simplicity and freshness. He abhorred
      cluttered bric-a-brac and meaningless objets d'art. Once in so often he
      submitted his room to a vigorous inspection; setting it to rights,
      removing everything but the essentials, the few ornaments which, in a way,
      were part of his life.
    </p>
    <p>
      His writing had by this time undergone a complete change. The notes for
      his great Song of the West, the epic poem he once had hoped to write he
      had flung aside, together with all the abortive attempts at its beginning.
      Also he had torn up a great quantity of &ldquo;fugitive&rdquo; verses, preserving only
      a certain half-finished poem, that he called &ldquo;The Toilers.&rdquo; This poem was
      a comment upon the social fabric, and had been inspired by the sight of a
      painting he had seen in Cedarquist's art gallery. He had written all but
      the last verse.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the day that he had overheard the conversation between Dyke and
      Caraher, in the latter's saloon, which had acquainted him with the
      monstrous injustice of the increased tariff, Presley had returned to Los
      Muertos, white and trembling, roused to a pitch of exaltation, the like of
      which he had never known in all his life. His wrath was little short of
      even Caraher's. He too &ldquo;saw red&rdquo;; a mighty spirit of revolt heaved
      tumultuous within him. It did not seem possible that this outrage could go
      on much longer. The oppression was incredible; the plain story of it set
      down in truthful statement of fact would not be believed by the outside
      world.
    </p>
    <p>
      He went up to his little room and paced the floor with clenched fists and
      burning face, till at last, the repression of his contending thoughts all
      but suffocated him, and he flung himself before his table and began to
      write. For a time, his pen seemed to travel of itself; words came to him
      without searching, shaping themselves into phrases,&mdash;the phrases
      building themselves up to great, forcible sentences, full of eloquence, of
      fire, of passion. As his prose grew more exalted, it passed easily into
      the domain of poetry. Soon the cadence of his paragraphs settled to an
      ordered beat and rhythm, and in the end Presley had thrust aside his
      journal and was once more writing verse.
    </p>
    <p>
      He picked up his incomplete poem of &ldquo;The Toilers,&rdquo; read it hastily a
      couple of times to catch its swing, then the Idea of the last verse&mdash;the
      Idea for which he so long had sought in vain&mdash;abruptly springing to
      his brain, wrote it off without so much as replenishing his pen with ink.
      He added still another verse, bringing the poem to a definite close,
      resuming its entire conception, and ending with a single majestic thought,
      simple, noble, dignified, absolutely convincing.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair, with the certainty
      that for one moment he had touched untrod heights. His hands were cold,
      his head on fire, his heart leaping tumultuous in his breast.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now at last, he had achieved. He saw why he had never grasped the
      inspiration for his vast, vague, IMPERSONAL Song of the West. At the time
      when he sought for it, his convictions had not been aroused; he had not
      then cared for the People. His sympathies had not been touched. Small
      wonder that he had missed it. Now he was of the People; he had been
      stirred to his lowest depths. His earnestness was almost a frenzy. He
      BELIEVED, and so to him all things were possible at once.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then the artist in him reasserted itself. He became more interested in his
      poem, as such, than in the cause that had inspired it. He went over it
      again, retouching it carefully, changing a word here and there, and
      improving its rhythm. For the moment, he forgot the People, forgot his
      rage, his agitation of the previous hour, he remembered only that he had
      written a great poem.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then doubt intruded. After all, was it so great? Did not its sublimity
      overpass a little the bounds of the ridiculous? Had he seen true? Had he
      failed again? He re-read the poem carefully; and it seemed all at once to
      lose force.
    </p>
    <p>
      By now, Presley could not tell whether what he had written was true poetry
      or doggerel. He distrusted profoundly his own judgment. He must have the
      opinion of some one else, some one competent to judge. He could not wait;
      to-morrow would not do. He must know to a certainty before he could rest
      that night.
    </p>
    <p>
      He made a careful copy of what he had written, and putting on his hat and
      laced boots, went down stairs and out upon the lawn, crossing over to the
      stables. He found Phelps there, washing down the buckboard.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you know where Vanamee is to-day?&rdquo; he asked the latter. Phelps put his
      chin in the air.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ask me something easy,&rdquo; he responded. &ldquo;He might be at Guadalajara, or he
      might be up at Osterman's, or he might be a hundred miles away from either
      place. I know where he ought to be, Mr. Presley, but that ain't saying
      where the crazy gesabe is. He OUGHT to be range-riding over east of Four,
      at the head waters of Mission Creek.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll try for him there, at all events,&rdquo; answered Presley. &ldquo;If you see
      Harran when he comes in, tell him I may not be back in time for supper.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley found the pony in the corral, cinched the saddle upon him, and
      went off over the Lower Road, going eastward at a brisk canter.
    </p>
    <p>
      At Hooven's he called a &ldquo;How do you do&rdquo; to Minna, whom he saw lying in a
      slat hammock under the mammoth live oak, her foot in bandages; and then
      galloped on over the bridge across the irrigating ditch, wondering vaguely
      what would become of such a pretty girl as Minna, and if in the end she
      would marry the Portuguese foreman in charge of the ditching-gang. He told
      himself that he hoped she would, and that speedily. There was no lack of
      comment as to Minna Hooven about the ranches. Certainly she was a good
      girl, but she was seen at all hours here and there about Bonneville and
      Guadalajara, skylarking with the Portuguese farm hands of Quien Sabe and
      Los Muertos. She was very pretty; the men made fools of themselves over
      her. Presley hoped they would not end by making a fool of her.
    </p>
    <p>
      Just beyond the irrigating ditch, Presley left the Lower Road, and
      following a trail that branched off southeasterly from this point, held on
      across the Fourth Division of the ranch, keeping the Mission Creek on his
      left. A few miles farther on, he went through a gate in a barbed wire
      fence, and at once engaged himself in a system of little arroyos and low
      rolling hills, that steadily lifted and increased in size as he proceeded.
      This higher ground was the advance guard of the Sierra foothills, and
      served as the stock range for Los Muertos. The hills were huge rolling
      hummocks of bare ground, covered only by wild oats. At long intervals,
      were isolated live oaks. In the canyons and arroyos, the chaparral and
      manzanita grew in dark olive-green thickets. The ground was honey-combed
      with gopher-holes, and the gophers themselves were everywhere.
      Occasionally a jack rabbit bounded across the open, from one growth of
      chaparral to another, taking long leaps, his ears erect. High overhead, a
      hawk or two swung at anchor, and once, with a startling rush of wings, a
      covey of quail flushed from the brush at the side of the trail.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the hillsides, in thinly scattered groups were the cattle, grazing
      deliberately, working slowly toward the water-holes for their evening
      drink, the horses keeping to themselves, the colts nuzzling at their
      mothers' bellies, whisking their tails, stamping their unshod feet. But
      once in a remoter field, solitary, magnificent, enormous, the short hair
      curling tight upon his forehead, his small red eyes twinkling, his vast
      neck heavy with muscles, Presley came upon the monarch, the king, the
      great Durham bull, maintaining his lonely state, unapproachable, austere.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley found the one-time shepherd by a water-hole, in a far distant
      corner of the range. He had made his simple camp for the night. His
      blue-grey army blanket lay spread under a live oak, his horse grazed near
      at hand. He himself sat on his heels before a little fire of dead
      manzanita roots, cooking his coffee and bacon. Never had Presley conceived
      so keen an impression of loneliness as his crouching figure presented. The
      bald, bare landscape widened about him to infinity. Vanamee was a spot in
      it all, a tiny dot, a single atom of human organisation, floating
      endlessly on the ocean of an illimitable nature.
    </p>
    <p>
      The two friends ate together, and Vanamee, having snared a brace of
      quails, dressed and then roasted them on a sharpened stick. After eating,
      they drank great refreshing draughts from the water-hole. Then, at length,
      Presley having lit his cigarette, and Vanamee his pipe, the former said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Vanamee, I have been writing again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee turned his lean ascetic face toward him, his black eyes fixed
      attentively.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;your journal.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, this is a poem. You remember, I told you about it once. 'The
      Toilers,' I called it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, verse! Well, I am glad you have gone back to it. It is your natural
      vehicle.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You remember the poem?&rdquo; asked Presley. &ldquo;It was unfinished.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, I remember it. There was better promise in it than anything you ever
      wrote. Now, I suppose, you have finished it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Without reply, Presley brought it from out the breast pocket of his
      shooting coat. The moment seemed propitious. The stillness of the vast,
      bare hills was profound. The sun was setting in a cloudless brazier of red
      light; a golden dust pervaded all the landscape. Presley read his poem
      aloud. When he had finished, his friend looked at him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What have you been doing lately?&rdquo; he demanded. Presley, wondering, told
      of his various comings and goings.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't mean that,&rdquo; returned the other. &ldquo;Something has happened to you,
      something has aroused you. I am right, am I not? Yes, I thought so. In
      this poem of yours, you have not been trying to make a sounding piece of
      literature. You wrote it under tremendous stress. Its very imperfections
      show that. It is better than a mere rhyme. It is an Utterance&mdash;a
      Message. It is Truth. You have come back to the primal heart of things,
      and you have seen clearly. Yes, it is a great poem.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; exclaimed Presley fervidly. &ldquo;I had begun to mistrust myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; observed Vanamee, &ldquo;I presume you will rush it into print. To have
      formulated a great thought, simply to have accomplished, is not enough.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think I am sincere,&rdquo; objected Presley. &ldquo;If it is good it will do good
      to others. You said yourself it was a Message. If it has any value, I do
      not think it would be right to keep it back from even a very small and
      most indifferent public.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't publish it in the magazines at all events,&rdquo; Vanamee answered. &ldquo;Your
      inspiration has come FROM the People. Then let it go straight TO the
      People&mdash;not the literary readers of the monthly periodicals, the
      rich, who would only be indirectly interested. If you must publish it, let
      it be in the daily press. Don't interrupt. I know what you will say. It
      will be that the daily press is common, is vulgar, is undignified; and I
      tell you that such a poem as this of yours, called as it is, 'The
      Toilers,' must be read BY the Toilers. It MUST BE common; it must be
      vulgarised. You must not stand upon your dignity with the People, if you
      are to reach them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That is true, I suppose,&rdquo; Presley admitted, &ldquo;but I can't get rid of the
      idea that it would be throwing my poem away. The great magazine gives me
      such&mdash;a&mdash;background; gives me such weight.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gives YOU such weight, gives you such background. Is it YOURSELF you
      think of? You helper of the helpless. Is that your sincerity? You must
      sink yourself; must forget yourself and your own desire of fame, of
      admitted success. It is your POEM, your MESSAGE, that must prevail,&mdash;not
      YOU, who wrote it. You preach a doctrine of abnegation, of
      self-obliteration, and you sign your name to your words as high on the
      tablets as you can reach, so that all the world may see, not the poem, but
      the poet. Presley, there are many like you. The social reformer writes a
      book on the iniquity of the possession of land, and out of the proceeds,
      buys a corner lot. The economist who laments the hardships of the poor,
      allows himself to grow rich upon the sale of his book.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Presley would hear no further.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I know I am sincere, and to prove it to you, I will
      publish my poem, as you say, in the daily press, and I will accept no
      money for it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They talked on for about an hour, while the evening wore away. Presley
      very soon noticed that Vanamee was again preoccupied. More than ever of
      late, his silence, his brooding had increased. By and by he rose abruptly,
      turning his head to the north, in the direction of the Mission church of
      San Juan. &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; he said to Presley, &ldquo;that I must be going.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Going? Where to at this time of night?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Off there.&rdquo; Vanamee made an uncertain gesture toward the north.
      &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; and without another word he disappeared in the grey of the
      twilight. Presley was left alone wondering. He found his horse, and,
      tightening the girths, mounted and rode home under the sheen of the stars,
      thoughtful, his head bowed. Before he went to bed that night he sent &ldquo;The
      Toilers&rdquo; to the Sunday Editor of a daily newspaper in San Francisco.
    </p>
    <p>
      Upon leaving Presley, Vanamee, his thumbs hooked into his empty cartridge
      belt, strode swiftly down from the hills of the Los Muertos stock-range
      and on through the silent town of Guadalajara. His lean, swarthy face,
      with its hollow cheeks, fine, black, pointed beard, and sad eyes, was set
      to the northward. As was his custom, he was bareheaded, and the rapidity
      of his stride made a breeze in his long, black hair. He knew where he was
      going. He knew what he must live through that night.
    </p>
    <p>
      Again, the deathless grief that never slept leaped out of the shadows, and
      fastened upon his shoulders. It was scourging him back to that scene of a
      vanished happiness, a dead romance, a perished idyl,&mdash;the Mission
      garden in the shade of the venerable pear trees.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, besides this, other influences tugged at his heart. There was a
      mystery in the garden. In that spot the night was not always empty, the
      darkness not always silent. Something far off stirred and listened to his
      cry, at times drawing nearer to him. At first this presence had been a
      matter for terror; but of late, as he felt it gradually drawing nearer,
      the terror had at long intervals given place to a feeling of an almost
      ineffable sweetness. But distrusting his own senses, unwilling to submit
      himself to such torturing, uncertain happiness, averse to the terrible
      confusion of spirit that followed upon a night spent in the garden,
      Vanamee had tried to keep away from the place. However, when the sorrow of
      his life reassailed him, and the thoughts and recollections of Angele
      brought the ache into his heart, and the tears to his eyes, the temptation
      to return to the garden invariably gripped him close. There were times
      when he could not resist. Of themselves, his footsteps turned in that
      direction. It was almost as if he himself had been called.
    </p>
    <p>
      Guadalajara was silent, dark. Not even in Solotari's was there a light.
      The town was asleep. Only the inevitable guitar hummed from an unseen
      'dobe. Vanamee pushed on. The smell of the fields and open country, and a
      distant scent of flowers that he knew well, came to his nostrils, as he
      emerged from the town by way of the road that led on towards the Mission
      through Quien Sabe. On either side of him lay the brown earth, silently
      nurturing the implanted seed. Two days before it had rained copiously, and
      the soil, still moist, disengaged a pungent aroma of fecundity.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee, following the road, passed through the collection of buildings of
      Annixter's home ranch. Everything slept. At intervals, the aer-motor on
      the artesian well creaked audibly, as it turned in a languid breeze from
      the northeast. A cat, hunting field-mice, crept from the shadow of the
      gigantic barn and paused uncertainly in the open, the tip of her tail
      twitching. From within the barn itself came the sound of the friction of a
      heavy body and a stir of hoofs, as one of the dozing cows lay down with a
      long breath.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee left the ranch house behind him and proceeded on his way. Beyond
      him, to the right of the road, he could make out the higher ground in the
      Mission enclosure, and the watching tower of the Mission itself. The
      minutes passed. He went steadily forward. Then abruptly he paused, his
      head in the air, eye and ear alert. To that strange sixth sense of his,
      responsive as the leaves of the sensitive plant, had suddenly come the
      impression of a human being near at hand. He had neither seen nor heard,
      but for all that he stopped an instant in his tracks; then, the sensation
      confirmed, went on again with slow steps, advancing warily.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last, his swiftly roving eyes lighted upon an object, just darker than
      the grey-brown of the night-ridden land. It was at some distance from the
      roadside. Vanamee approached it cautiously, leaving the road, treading
      carefully upon the moist clods of earth underfoot. Twenty paces distant,
      he halted.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter was there, seated upon a round, white rock, his back towards him.
      He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. He
      did not move. Silent, motionless, he gazed out upon the flat, sombre land.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the night wherein the master of Quien Sabe wrought out his
      salvation, struggling with Self from dusk to dawn. At the moment when
      Vanamee came upon him, the turmoil within him had only begun. The heart of
      the man had not yet wakened. The night was young, the dawn far distant,
      and all around him the fields of upturned clods lay bare and brown, empty
      of all life, unbroken by a single green shoot.
    </p>
    <p>
      For a moment, the life-circles of these two men, of so widely differing
      characters, touched each other, there in the silence of the night under
      the stars. Then silently Vanamee withdrew, going on his way, wondering at
      the trouble that, like himself, drove this hardheaded man of affairs,
      untroubled by dreams, out into the night to brood over an empty land.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then speedily he forgot all else. The material world drew off from him.
      Reality dwindled to a point and vanished like the vanishing of a star at
      moonrise. Earthly things dissolved and disappeared, as a strange, unnamed
      essence flowed in upon him. A new atmosphere for him pervaded his
      surroundings. He entered the world of the Vision, of the Legend, of the
      Miracle, where all things were possible. He stood at the gate of the
      Mission garden.
    </p>
    <p>
      Above him rose the ancient tower of the Mission church. Through the arches
      at its summit, where swung the Spanish queen's bells, he saw the
      slow-burning stars. The silent bats, with flickering wings, threw their
      dancing shadows on the pallid surface of the venerable facade.
    </p>
    <p>
      Not the faintest chirring of a cricket broke the silence. The bees were
      asleep. In the grasses, in the trees, deep in the calix of punka flower
      and magnolia bloom, the gnats, the caterpillars, the beetles, all the
      microscopic, multitudinous life of the daytime drowsed and dozed. Not even
      the minute scuffling of a lizard over the warm, worn pavement of the
      colonnade disturbed the infinite repose, the profound stillness. Only
      within the garden, the intermittent trickling of the fountain made itself
      heard, flowing steadily, marking off the lapse of seconds, the progress of
      hours, the cycle of years, the inevitable march of centuries. At one time,
      the doorway before which Vanamee now stood had been hermetically closed.
      But he, himself, had long since changed that. He stood before it for a
      moment, steeping himself in the mystery and romance of the place, then
      raising he latch, pushed open the gate, entered, and closed it softly
      behind him. He was in the cloister garden.
    </p>
    <p>
      The stars were out, strewn thick and close in the deep blue of the sky,
      the milky way glowing like a silver veil. Ursa Major wheeled gigantic in
      the north. The great nebula in Orion was a whorl of shimmering star dust.
      Venus flamed a lambent disk of pale saffron, low over the horizon. From
      edge to edge of the world marched the constellations, like the progress of
      emperors, and from the innumerable glory of their courses a mysterious
      sheen of diaphanous light disengaged itself, expanding over all the earth,
      serene, infinite, majestic.
    </p>
    <p>
      The little garden revealed itself but dimly beneath the brooding light,
      only half emerging from the shadow. The polished surfaces of the leaves of
      the pear trees winked faintly back the reflected light as the trees just
      stirred in the uncertain breeze. A blurred shield of silver marked the
      ripples of the fountain. Under the flood of dull blue lustre, the
      gravelled walks lay vague amid the grasses, like webs of white satin on
      the bed of a lake. Against the eastern wall the headstones of the graves,
      an indistinct procession of grey cowls ranged themselves.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee crossed the garden, pausing to kiss the turf upon Angele's grave.
      Then he approached the line of pear trees, and laid himself down in their
      shadow, his chin propped upon his hands, his eyes wandering over the
      expanse of the little valley that stretched away from the foot of the hill
      upon which the Mission was built.
    </p>
    <p>
      Once again he summoned the Vision. Once again he conjured up the Illusion.
      Once again, tortured with doubt, racked with a deathless grief, he craved
      an Answer of the night. Once again, mystic that he was, he sent his mind
      out from him across the enchanted sea of the Supernatural. Hope, of what
      he did not know, roused up within him. Surely, on such a night as this,
      the hallucination must define itself. Surely, the Manifestation must be
      vouchsafed.
    </p>
    <p>
      His eyes closed, his will girding itself to a supreme effort, his senses
      exalted to a state of pleasing numbness, he called upon Angele to come to
      him, his voiceless cry penetrating far out into that sea of faint,
      ephemeral light that floated tideless over the little valley beneath him.
      Then motionless, prone upon the ground, he waited.
    </p>
    <p>
      Months had passed since that first night when, at length, an Answer had
      come to Vanamee. At first, startled out of all composure, troubled and
      stirred to his lowest depths, because of the very thing for which he
      sought, he resolved never again to put his strange powers to the test. But
      for all that, he had come a second night to the garden, and a third, and a
      fourth. At last, his visits were habitual. Night after night he was there,
      surrendering himself to the influences of the place, gradually convinced
      that something did actually answer when he called. His faith increased as
      the winter grew into spring. As the spring advanced and the nights became
      shorter, it crystallised into certainty. Would he have her again, his
      love, long dead? Would she come to him once more out of the grave, out of
      the night? He could not tell; he could only hope. All that he knew was
      that his cry found an answer, that his outstretched hands, groping in the
      darkness, met the touch of other fingers. Patiently he waited. The nights
      became warmer as the spring drew on. The stars shone clearer. The nights
      seemed brighter. For nearly a month after the occasion of his first answer
      nothing new occurred. Some nights it failed him entirely; upon others it
      was faint, illusive.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then, at last, the most subtle, the barest of perceptible changes began.
      His groping mind far-off there, wandering like a lost bird over the
      valley, touched upon some thing again, touched and held it and this time
      drew it a single step closer to him. His heart beating, the blood surging
      in his temples, he watched with the eyes of his imagination, this gradual
      approach. What was coming to him? Who was coming to him? Shrouded in the
      obscurity of the night, whose was the face now turned towards his? Whose
      the footsteps that with such infinite slowness drew nearer to where he
      waited? He did not dare to say.
    </p>
    <p>
      His mind went back many years to that time before the tragedy of Angele's
      death, before the mystery of the Other. He waited then as he waited now.
      But then he had not waited in vain. Then, as now, he had seemed to feel
      her approach, seemed to feel her drawing nearer and nearer to their
      rendezvous. Now, what would happen? He did not know. He waited. He waited,
      hoping all things. He waited, believing all things. He waited, enduring
      all things. He trusted in the Vision.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meanwhile, as spring advanced, the flowers in the Seed ranch began to come
      to life. Over the five hundred acres whereon the flowers were planted, the
      widening growth of vines and bushes spread like the waves of a green sea.
      Then, timidly, colours of the faintest tints began to appear. Under the
      moonlight, Vanamee saw them expanding, delicate pink, faint blue,
      tenderest variations of lavender and yellow, white shimmering with
      reflections of gold, all subdued and pallid in the moonlight.
    </p>
    <p>
      By degrees, the night became impregnated with the perfume of the flowers.
      Illusive at first, evanescent as filaments of gossamer; then as the buds
      opened, emphasising itself, breathing deeper, stronger. An exquisite
      mingling of many odours passed continually over the Mission, from the
      garden of the Seed ranch, meeting and blending with the aroma of its
      magnolia buds and punka blossoms.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the colours of the flowers of the Seed ranch deepened, and as their
      odours penetrated deeper and more distinctly, as the starlight of each
      succeeding night grew brighter and the air became warmer, the illusion
      defined itself. By imperceptible degrees, as Vanamee waited under the
      shadows of the pear trees, the Answer grew nearer and nearer. He saw
      nothing but the distant glimmer of the flowers. He heard nothing but the
      drip of the fountain. Nothing moved about him but the invisible,
      slow-passing breaths of perfume; yet he felt the approach of the Vision.
    </p>
    <p>
      It came first to about the middle of the Seed ranch itself, some half a
      mile away, where the violets grew; shrinking, timid flowers, hiding close
      to the ground. Then it passed forward beyond the violets, and drew nearer
      and stood amid the mignonette, hardier blooms that dared look heavenward
      from out the leaves. A few nights later it left the mignonette behind, and
      advanced into the beds of white iris that pushed more boldly forth from
      the earth, their waxen petals claiming the attention. It advanced then a
      long step into the proud, challenging beauty of the carnations and roses;
      and at last, after many nights, Vanamee felt that it paused, as if
      trembling at its hardihood, full in the superb glory of the royal lilies
      themselves, that grew on the extreme border of the Seed ranch nearest to
      him. After this, there was a certain long wait. Then, upon a dark
      midnight, it advanced again. Vanamee could scarcely repress a cry. Now,
      the illusion emerged from the flowers. It stood, not distant, but unseen,
      almost at the base of the hill upon whose crest he waited, in a depression
      of the ground where the shadows lay thickest. It was nearly within
      earshot.
    </p>
    <p>
      The nights passed. The spring grew warmer. In the daytime intermittent
      rains freshened all the earth. The flowers of the Seed ranch grew rapidly.
      Bud after bud burst forth, while those already opened expanded to full
      maturity. The colour of the Seed ranch deepened.
    </p>
    <p>
      One night, after hours of waiting, Vanamee felt upon his cheek the touch
      of a prolonged puff of warm wind, breathing across the little valley from
      out the east. It reached the Mission garden and stirred the branches of
      the pear trees. It seemed veritably to be compounded of the very essence
      of the flowers. Never had the aroma been so sweet, so pervasive. It passed
      and faded, leaving in its wake an absolute silence. Then, at length, the
      silence of the night, that silence to which Vanamee had so long appealed,
      was broken by a tiny sound. Alert, half-risen from the ground, he
      listened; for now, at length, he heard something. The sound repeated
      itself. It came from near at hand, from the thick shadow at the foot of
      the hill. What it was, he could not tell, but it did not belong to a
      single one of the infinite similar noises of the place with which he was
      so familiar. It was neither the rustle of a leaf, the snap of a parted
      twig, the drone of an insect, the dropping of a magnolia blossom. It was a
      vibration merely, faint, elusive, impossible of definition; a minute notch
      in the fine, keen edge of stillness.
    </p>
    <p>
      Again the nights passed. The summer stars became brighter. The warmth
      increased. The flowers of the Seed ranch grew still more. The five hundred
      acres of the ranch were carpeted with them.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length, upon a certain midnight, a new light began to spread in the
      sky. The thin scimitar of the moon rose, veiled and dim behind the
      earth-mists. The light increased. Distant objects, until now hidden, came
      into view, and as the radiance brightened, Vanamee, looking down upon the
      little valley, saw a spectacle of incomparable beauty. All the buds of the
      Seed ranch had opened. The faint tints of the flowers had deepened, had
      asserted themselves. They challenged the eye. Pink became a royal red.
      Blue rose into purple. Yellow flamed into orange. Orange glowed golden and
      brilliant. The earth disappeared under great bands and fields of
      resplendent colour. Then, at length, the moon abruptly soared zenithward
      from out the veiling mist, passing from one filmy haze to another. For a
      moment there was a gleam of a golden light, and Vanamee, his eyes
      searching the shade at the foot of the hill, felt his heart suddenly leap,
      and then hang poised, refusing to beat. In that instant of passing light,
      something had caught his eye. Something that moved, down there, half in
      and half out of the shadow, at the hill's foot. It had come and gone in an
      instant. The haze once more screened the moonlight. The shade again
      engulfed the vision. What was it he had seen? He did not know. So brief
      had been that movement, the drowsy brain had not been quick enough to
      interpret the cipher message of the eye. Now it was gone. But something
      had been there. He had seen it. Was it the lifting of a strand of hair,
      the wave of a white hand, the flutter of a garment's edge? He could not
      tell, but it did not belong to any of those sights which he had seen so
      often in that place. It was neither the glancing of a moth's wing, the
      nodding of a wind-touched blossom, nor the noiseless flitting of a bat. It
      was a gleam merely, faint, elusive, impossible of definition, an
      intangible agitation, in the vast, dim blur of the darkness.
    </p>
    <p>
      And that was all. Until now no single real thing had occurred, nothing
      that Vanamee could reduce to terms of actuality, nothing he could put into
      words. The manifestation, when not recognisable to that strange sixth
      sense of his, appealed only to the most refined, the most delicate
      perception of eye and ear. It was all ephemeral, filmy, dreamy, the mystic
      forming of the Vision&mdash;the invisible developing a concrete nucleus,
      the starlight coagulating, the radiance of the flowers thickening to
      something actual; perfume, the most delicious fragrance, becoming a
      tangible presence.
    </p>
    <p>
      But into that garden the serpent intruded. Though cradled in the slow
      rhythm of the dream, lulled by this beauty of a summer's night, heavy with
      the scent of flowers, the silence broken only by a rippling fountain, the
      darkness illuminated by a world of radiant blossoms, Vanamee could not
      forget the tragedy of the Other; that terror of many years ago,&mdash;that
      prowler of the night, that strange, fearful figure with the unseen face,
      swooping in there from out the darkness, gone in an instant, yet leaving
      behind the trail and trace of death and of pollution.
    </p>
    <p>
      Never had Vanamee seen this more clearly than when leaving Presley on the
      stock range of Los Muertos, he had come across to the Mission garden by
      way of the Quien Sabe ranch.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the same night in which Annixter out-watched the stars, coming, at
      last, to himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the hours passed, the two men, far apart, ignoring each other, waited
      for the Manifestation,&mdash;Annixter on the ranch, Vanamee in the garden.
    </p>
    <p>
      Prone upon his face, under the pear trees, his forehead buried in the
      hollow of his arm, Vanamee lay motionless. For the last time, raising his
      head, he sent his voiceless cry out into the night across the
      multi-coloured levels of the little valley, calling upon the miracle,
      summoning the darkness to give Angele back to him, resigning himself to
      the hallucination. He bowed his head upon his arm again and waited. The
      minutes passed. The fountain dripped steadily. Over the hills a haze of
      saffron light foretold the rising of the full moon. Nothing stirred. The
      silence was profound.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then, abruptly, Vanamee's right hand shut tight upon his wrist. There&mdash;there
      it was. It began again, his invocation was answered. Far off there, the
      ripple formed again upon the still, black pool of the night. No sound, no
      sight; vibration merely, appreciable by some sublimated faculty of the
      mind as yet unnamed. Rigid, his nerves taut, motionless, prone on the
      ground, he waited.
    </p>
    <p>
      It advanced with infinite slowness. Now it passed through the beds of
      violets, now through the mignonette. A moment later, and he knew it stood
      among the white iris. Then it left those behind. It was in the splendour
      of the red roses and carnations. It passed like a moving star into the
      superb abundance, the imperial opulence of the royal lilies. It was
      advancing slowly, but there was no pause. He held his breath, not daring
      to raise his head. It passed beyond the limits of the Seed ranch, and
      entered the shade at the foot of the hill below him. Would it come farther
      than this? Here it had always stopped hitherto, stopped for a moment, and
      then, in spite of his efforts, had slipped from his grasp and faded back
      into the night. But now he wondered if he had been willing to put forth
      his utmost strength, after all. Had there not always been an element of
      dread in the thought of beholding the mystery face to face? Had he not
      even allowed the Vision to dissolve, the Answer to recede into the
      obscurity whence it came?
    </p>
    <p>
      But never a night had been so beautiful as this. It was the full period of
      the spring. The air was a veritable caress. The infinite repose of the
      little garden, sleeping under the night, was delicious beyond expression.
      It was a tiny corner of the world, shut off, discreet, distilling romance,
      a garden of dreams, of enchantments.
    </p>
    <p>
      Below, in the little valley, the resplendent colourations of the million
      flowers, roses, lilies, hyacinths, carnations, violets, glowed like
      incandescence in the golden light of the rising moon. The air was thick
      with the perfume, heavy with it, clogged with it. The sweetness filled the
      very mouth. The throat choked with it. Overhead wheeled the illimitable
      procession of the constellations. Underfoot, the earth was asleep. The
      very flowers were dreaming. A cathedral hush overlay all the land, and a
      sense of benediction brooded low,&mdash;a divine kindliness manifesting
      itself in beauty, in peace, in absolute repose.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a time for visions. It was the hour when dreams come true, and
      lying deep in the grasses beneath the pear trees, Vanamee, dizzied with
      mysticism, reaching up and out toward the supernatural, felt, as it were,
      his mind begin to rise upward from out his body. He passed into a state of
      being the like of which he had not known before. He felt that his
      imagination was reshaping itself, preparing to receive an impression never
      experienced until now. His body felt light to him, then it dwindled,
      vanished. He saw with new eyes, heard with new ears, felt with a new
      heart.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come to me,&rdquo; he murmured.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then slowly he felt the advance of the Vision. It was approaching. Every
      instant it drew gradually nearer. At last, he was to see. It had left the
      shadow at the base of the hill; it was on the hill itself. Slowly,
      steadily, it ascended the slope; just below him there, he heard a faint
      stirring. The grasses rustled under the touch of a foot. The leaves of the
      bushes murmured, as a hand brushed against them; a slender twig creaked.
      The sounds of approach were more distinct. They came nearer. They reached
      the top of the hill. They were within whispering distance.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee, trembling, kept his head buried in his arm. The sounds, at
      length, paused definitely. The Vision could come no nearer. He raised his
      head and looked. The moon had risen. Its great shield of gold stood over
      the eastern horizon. Within six feet of Vanamee, clear and distinct,
      against the disk of the moon, stood the figure of a young girl. She was
      dressed in a gown of scarlet silk, with flowing sleeves, such as Japanese
      wear, embroidered with flowers and figures of birds worked in gold
      threads. On either side of her face, making three-cornered her round,
      white forehead, hung the soft masses of her hair of gold. Her hands hung
      limply at her sides. But from between her parted lips&mdash;lips of almost
      an Egyptian fulness&mdash;her breath came slow and regular, and her eyes,
      heavy lidded, slanting upwards toward the temples, perplexing, oriental,
      were closed. She was asleep.
    </p>
    <p>
      From out this life of flowers, this world of colour, this atmosphere
      oppressive with perfume, this darkness clogged and cloyed, and thickened
      with sweet odours, she came to him. She came to him from out of the
      flowers, the smell of the roses in her hair of gold, the aroma and the
      imperial red of the carnations in her lips, the whiteness of the lilies,
      the perfume of the lilies, and the lilies' slender, balancing grace in her
      neck. Her hands disengaged the scent of the heliotrope. The folds of her
      scarlet gown gave off the enervating smell of poppies. Her feet were
      redolent of hyacinth. She stood before him, a Vision realised&mdash;a
      dream come true. She emerged from out the invisible. He beheld her, a
      figure of gold and pale vermilion, redolent of perfume, poised motionless
      in the faint saffron sheen of the new-risen moon. She, a creation of
      sleep, was herself asleep. She, a dream, was herself dreaming.
    </p>
    <p>
      Called forth from out the darkness, from the grip of the earth, the
      embrace of the grave, from out the memory of corruption, she rose into
      light and life, divinely pure. Across that white forehead was no smudge,
      no trace of an earthly pollution&mdash;no mark of a terrestrial dishonour.
      He saw in her the same beauty of untainted innocence he had known in his
      youth. Years had made no difference with her. She was still young. It was
      the old purity that returned, the deathless beauty, the ever-renascent
      life, the eternal consecrated and immortal youth. For a few seconds, she
      stood there before him, and he, upon the ground at her feet, looked up at
      her, spellbound. Then, slowly she withdrew. Still asleep, her eyelids
      closed, she turned from him, descending the slope. She was gone.
    </p>
    <p>
      Vanamee started up, coming, as it were, to himself, looking wildly about
      him. Sarria was there.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I saw her,&rdquo; said the priest. &ldquo;It was Angele, the little girl, your
      Angele's daughter. She is like her mother.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Vanamee scarcely heard. He walked as if in a trance, pushing by
      Sarria, going forth from the garden. Angele or Angele's daughter, it was
      all one with him. It was She. Death was overcome. The grave vanquished.
      Life, ever-renewed, alone existed. Time was naught; change was naught; all
      things were immortal but evil; all things eternal but grief.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly, the dawn came; the east burned roseate toward the zenith.
      Vanamee walked on, he knew not where. The dawn grew brighter. At length,
      he paused upon the crest of a hill overlooking the ranchos, and cast his
      eye below him to the southward. Then, suddenly flinging up his arms, he
      uttered a great cry.
    </p>
    <p>
      There it was. The Wheat! The Wheat! In the night it had come up. It was
      there, everywhere, from margin to margin of the horizon. The earth, long
      empty, teemed with green life. Once more the pendulum of the seasons swung
      in its mighty arc, from death back to life. Life out of death, eternity
      rising from out dissolution. There was the lesson. Angele was not the
      symbol, but the PROOF of immortality. The seed dying, rotting and
      corrupting in the earth; rising again in life unconquerable, and in
      immaculate purity,&mdash;Angele dying as she gave birth to her little
      daughter, life springing from her death,&mdash;the pure, unconquerable,
      coming forth from the defiled. Why had he not had the knowledge of God?
      Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. So the
      seed had died. So died Angele. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not
      that body that shall be, but bare grain. It may chance of wheat, or of
      some other grain. The wheat called forth from out the darkness, from out
      the grip of the earth, of the grave, from out corruption, rose triumphant
      into light and life. So Angele, so life, so also the resurrection of the
      dead. It is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown
      in dishonour. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised
      in power. Death was swallowed up in Victory.
    </p>
    <p>
      The sun rose. The night was over. The glory of the terrestrial was one,
      and the glory of the celestial was another. Then, as the glory of sun
      banished the lesser glory of moon and stars, Vanamee, from his mountain
      top, beholding the eternal green life of the growing Wheat, bursting its
      bonds, and in his heart exulting in his triumph over the grave, flung out
      his arms with a mighty shout:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Death, where is thy sting? Oh, Grave, where is thy victory?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IV
    </h2>
    <p>
      Presley's Socialistic poem, &ldquo;The Toilers,&rdquo; had an enormous success. The
      editor of the Sunday supplement of the San Francisco paper to which it was
      sent, printed it in Gothic type, with a scare-head title so decorative as
      to be almost illegible, and furthermore caused the poem to be illustrated
      by one of the paper's staff artists in a most impressive fashion. The
      whole affair occupied an entire page. Thus advertised, the poem attracted
      attention. It was promptly copied in New York, Boston, and Chicago papers.
      It was discussed, attacked, defended, eulogised, ridiculed. It was praised
      with the most fulsome adulation; assailed with the most violent
      condemnation. Editorials were written upon it. Special articles, in
      literary pamphlets, dissected its rhetoric and prosody. The phrases were
      quoted,&mdash;were used as texts for revolutionary sermons, reactionary
      speeches. It was parodied; it was distorted so as to read as an
      advertisement for patented cereals and infants' foods. Finally, the editor
      of an enterprising monthly magazine reprinted the poem, supplementing it
      by a photograph and biography of Presley himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley was stunned, bewildered. He began to wonder at himself. Was he
      actually the &ldquo;greatest American poet since Bryant&rdquo;? He had had no thought
      of fame while composing &ldquo;The Toilers.&rdquo; He had only been moved to his
      heart's foundations,&mdash;thoroughly in earnest, seeing clearly,&mdash;and
      had addressed himself to the poem's composition in a happy moment when
      words came easily to him, and the elaboration of fine sentences was not
      difficult. Was it thus fame was achieved? For a while he was tempted to
      cross the continent and go to New York and there come unto his own,
      enjoying the triumph that awaited him. But soon he denied himself this
      cheap reward. Now he was too much in earnest. He wanted to help his
      People, the community in which he lived&mdash;the little world of the San
      Joaquin, at grapples with the Railroad. The struggle had found its poet.
      He told himself that his place was here. Only the words of the manager of
      a lecture bureau troubled him for a moment. To range the entire nation,
      telling all his countrymen of the drama that was working itself out on
      this fringe of the continent, this ignored and distant Pacific Coast,
      rousing their interest and stirring them up to action&mdash;appealed to
      him. It might do great good. To devote himself to &ldquo;the Cause,&rdquo; accepting
      no penny of remuneration; to give his life to loosing the grip of the
      iron-hearted monster of steel and steam would be beyond question heroic.
      Other States than California had their grievances. All over the country
      the family of cyclops was growing. He would declare himself the champion
      of the People in their opposition to the Trust. He would be an apostle, a
      prophet, a martyr of Freedom.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Presley was essentially a dreamer, not a man of affairs. He hesitated
      to act at this precise psychological moment, striking while the iron was
      yet hot, and while he hesitated, other affairs near at hand began to
      absorb his attention.
    </p>
    <p>
      One night, about an hour after he had gone to bed, he was awakened by the
      sound of voices on the porch of the ranch house, and, descending, found
      Mrs. Dyke there with Sidney. The ex-engineer's mother was talking to
      Magnus and Harran, and crying as she talked. It seemed that Dyke was
      missing. He had gone into town early that afternoon with the wagon and
      team, and was to have been home for supper. By now it was ten o'clock and
      there was no news of him. Mrs. Dyke told how she first had gone to Quien
      Sabe, intending to telephone from there to Bonneville, but Annixter was in
      San Francisco, and in his absence the house was locked up, and the
      over-seer, who had a duplicate key, was himself in Bonneville. She had
      telegraphed three times from Guadalajara to Bonneville for news of her
      son, but without result. Then, at last, tortured with anxiety, she had
      gone to Hooven's, taking Sidney with her, and had prevailed upon
      &ldquo;Bismarck&rdquo; to hitch up and drive her across Los Muertos to the Governor's,
      to beg him to telephone into Bonneville, to know what had become of Dyke.
    </p>
    <p>
      While Harran rang up Central in town, Mrs. Dyke told Presley and Magnus of
      the lamentable change in Dyke.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They have broken my son's spirit, Mr. Derrick,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If you were
      only there to see. Hour after hour, he sits on the porch with his hands
      lying open in his lap, looking at them without a word. He won't look me in
      the face any more, and he don't sleep. Night after night, he has walked
      the floor until morning. And he will go on that way for days together,
      very silent, without a word, and sitting still in his chair, and then, all
      of a sudden, he will break out&mdash;oh, Mr. Derrick, it is terrible&mdash;into
      an awful rage, cursing, swearing, grinding his teeth, his hands clenched
      over his head, stamping so that the house shakes, and saying that if S.
      Behrman don't give him back his money, he will kill him with his two
      hands. But that isn't the worst, Mr. Derrick. He goes to Mr. Caraher's
      saloon now, and stays there for hours, and listens to Mr. Caraher. There
      is something on my son's mind; I know there is&mdash;something that he and
      Mr. Caraher have talked over together, and I can't find out what it is.
      Mr. Caraher is a bad man, and my son has fallen under his influence.&rdquo; The
      tears filled her eyes. Bravely, she turned to hide them, turning away to
      take Sidney in her arms, putting her head upon the little girl's shoulder.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I&mdash;I haven't broken down before, Mr. Derrick,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but after
      we have been so happy in our little house, just us three&mdash;and the
      future seemed so bright&mdash;oh, God will punish the gentlemen who own
      the railroad for being so hard and cruel.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran came out on the porch, from the telephone, and she interrupted
      herself, fixing her eyes eagerly upon him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think it is all right, Mrs. Dyke,&rdquo; he said, reassuringly. &ldquo;We know
      where he is, I believe. You and the little tad stay here, and Hooven and I
      will go after him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      About two hours later, Harran brought Dyke back to Los Muertos in Hooven's
      wagon. He had found him at Caraher's saloon, very drunk.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was nothing maudlin about Dyke's drunkenness. In him the alcohol
      merely roused the spirit of evil, vengeful, reckless.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the wagon passed out from under the eucalyptus trees about the ranch
      house, taking Mrs. Dyke, Sidney, and the one-time engineer back to the hop
      ranch, Presley leaning from his window heard the latter remark:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Caraher is right. There is only one thing they listen to, and that's
      dynamite.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The following day Presley drove Magnus over to Guadalajara to take the
      train for San Francisco. But after he had said good-bye to the Governor,
      he was moved to go on to the hop ranch to see the condition of affairs in
      that quarter. He returned to Los Muertos overwhelmed with sadness and
      trembling with anger. The hop ranch that he had last seen in the full tide
      of prosperity was almost a ruin. Work had evidently been abandoned long
      since. Weeds were already choking the vines. Everywhere the poles sagged
      and drooped. Many had even fallen, dragging the vines with them, spreading
      them over the ground in an inextricable tangle of dead leaves, decaying
      tendrils, and snarled string. The fence was broken; the unfinished
      storehouse, which never was to see completion, was a lamentable spectacle
      of gaping doors and windows&mdash;a melancholy skeleton. Last of all,
      Presley had caught a glimpse of Dyke himself, seated in his rocking chair
      on the porch, his beard and hair unkempt, motionless, looking with vague
      eyes upon his hands that lay palm upwards and idle in his lap.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus on his way to San Francisco was joined at Bonneville by Osterman.
      Upon seating himself in front of the master of Los Muertos in the
      smoking-car of the train, this latter, pushing back his hat and smoothing
      his bald head, observed:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Governor, you look all frazeled out. Anything wrong these days?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other answered in the negative, but, for all that, Osterman was right.
      The Governor had aged suddenly. His former erectness was gone, the broad
      shoulders stooped a little, the strong lines of his thin-lipped mouth were
      relaxed, and his hand, as it clasped over the yellowed ivory knob of his
      cane, had an unwonted tremulousness not hitherto noticeable. But the
      change in Magnus was more than physical. At last, in the full tide of
      power, President of the League, known and talked of in every county of the
      State, leader in a great struggle, consulted, deferred to as the
      &ldquo;Prominent Man,&rdquo; at length attaining that position, so long and vainly
      sought for, he yet found no pleasure in his triumph, and little but
      bitterness in life. His success had come by devious methods, had been
      reached by obscure means.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was a briber. He could never forget that. To further his ends,
      disinterested, public-spirited, even philanthropic as those were, he had
      connived with knavery, he, the politician of the old school, of such
      rigorous integrity, who had abandoned a &ldquo;career&rdquo; rather than compromise
      with honesty. At this eleventh hour, involved and entrapped in the
      fine-spun web of a new order of things, bewildered by Osterman's
      dexterity, by his volubility and glibness, goaded and harassed beyond the
      point of reason by the aggression of the Trust he fought, he had at last
      failed. He had fallen he had given a bribe. He had thought that, after
      all, this would make but little difference with him. The affair was known
      only to Osterman, Broderson, and Annixter; they would not judge him, being
      themselves involved. He could still preserve a bold front; could still
      hold his head high. As time went on the affair would lose its point.
    </p>
    <p>
      But this was not so. Some subtle element of his character had forsaken
      him. He felt it. He knew it. Some certain stiffness that had given him all
      his rigidity, that had lent force to his authority, weight to his
      dominance, temper to his fine, inflexible hardness, was diminishing day by
      day. In the decisions which he, as President of the League, was called
      upon to make so often, he now hesitated. He could no longer be arrogant,
      masterful, acting upon his own judgment, independent of opinion. He began
      to consult his lieutenants, asking their advice, distrusting his own
      opinions. He made mistakes, blunders, and when those were brought to his
      notice, took refuge in bluster. He knew it to be bluster&mdash;knew that
      sooner or later his subordinates would recognise it as such. How long
      could he maintain his position? So only he could keep his grip upon the
      lever of control till the battle was over, all would be well. If not, he
      would fall, and, once fallen, he knew that now, briber that he was, he
      would never rise again.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was on his way at this moment to the city to consult with Lyman as to a
      certain issue of the contest between the Railroad and the ranchers, which,
      of late, had been brought to his notice.
    </p>
    <p>
      When appeal had been taken to the Supreme Court by the League's Executive
      Committee, certain test cases had been chosen, which should represent all
      the lands in question. Neither Magnus nor Annixter had so appealed,
      believing, of course, that their cases were covered by the test cases on
      trial at Washington. Magnus had here blundered again, and the League's
      agents in San Francisco had written to warn him that the Railroad might be
      able to take advantage of a technicality, and by pretending that neither
      Quien Sabe nor Los Muertos were included in the appeal, attempt to put its
      dummy buyers in possession of the two ranches before the Supreme Court
      handed down its decision. The ninety days allowed for taking this appeal
      were nearly at an end and after then the Railroad could act. Osterman and
      Magnus at once decided to go up to the city, there joining Annixter (who
      had been absent from Quien Sabe for the last ten days), and talk the
      matter over with Lyman. Lyman, because of his position as Commissioner,
      might be cognisant of the Railroad's plans, and, at the same time, could
      give sound legal advice as to what was to be done should the new rumour
      prove true.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; remarked Osterman, as the train pulled out of the Bonneville
      station, and the two men settled themselves for the long journey, &ldquo;say
      Governor, what's all up with Buck Annixter these days? He's got a bean
      about something, sure.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I had not noticed,&rdquo; answered Magnus. &ldquo;Mr. Annixter has been away some
      time lately. I cannot imagine what should keep him so long in San
      Francisco.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's it,&rdquo; said Osterman, winking. &ldquo;Have three guesses. Guess right and
      you get a cigar. I guess g-i-r-l spells Hilma Tree. And a little while ago
      she quit Quien Sabe and hiked out to 'Frisco. So did Buck. Do I draw the
      cigar? It's up to you.&rdquo; &ldquo;I have noticed her,&rdquo; observed Magnus. &ldquo;A fine
      figure of a woman. She would make some man a good wife.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hoh! Wife! Buck Annixter marry! Not much. He's gone a-girling at last,
      old Buck! It's as funny as twins. Have to josh him about it when I see
      him, sure.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But when Osterman and Magnus at last fell in with Annixter in the
      vestibule of the Lick House, on Montgomery Street, nothing could be got
      out of him. He was in an execrable humour. When Magnus had broached the
      subject of business, he had declared that all business could go to pot,
      and when Osterman, his tongue in his cheek, had permitted himself a most
      distant allusion to a feemale girl, Annixter had cursed him for a
      &ldquo;busy-face&rdquo; so vociferously and tersely, that even Osterman was cowed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; insinuated Osterman, &ldquo;what are you dallying 'round 'Frisco so much
      for?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Cat fur, to make kitten-breeches,&rdquo; retorted Annixter with oracular
      vagueness.
    </p>
    <p>
      Two weeks before this time, Annixter had come up to the city and had gone
      at once to a certain hotel on Bush Street, behind the First National Bank,
      that he knew was kept by a family connection of the Trees. In his
      conjecture that Hilma and her parents would stop here, he was right. Their
      names were on the register. Ignoring custom, Annixter marched straight up
      to their rooms, and before he was well aware of it, was &ldquo;eating crow&rdquo;
       before old man Tree.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hilma and her mother were out at the time. Later on, Mrs. Tree returned
      alone, leaving Hilma to spend the day with one of her cousins who lived
      far out on Stanyan Street in a little house facing the park.
    </p>
    <p>
      Between Annixter and Hilma's parents, a reconciliation had been effected,
      Annixter convincing them both of his sincerity in wishing to make Hilma
      his wife. Hilma, however, refused to see him. As soon as she knew he had
      followed her to San Francisco she had been unwilling to return to the
      hotel and had arranged with her cousin to spend an indefinite time at her
      house.
    </p>
    <p>
      She was wretchedly unhappy during all this time; would not set foot out of
      doors, and cried herself to sleep night after night. She detested the
      city. Already she was miserably homesick for the ranch. She remembered the
      days she had spent in the little dairy-house, happy in her work, making
      butter and cheese; skimming the great pans of milk, scouring the copper
      vessels and vats, plunging her arms, elbow deep, into the white curds;
      coming and going in that atmosphere of freshness, cleanliness, and
      sunlight, gay, singing, supremely happy just because the sun shone. She
      remembered her long walks toward the Mission late in the afternoons, her
      excursions for cresses underneath the Long Trestle, the crowing of the
      cocks, the distant whistle of the passing trains, the faint sounding of
      the Angelus. She recalled with infinite longing the solitary expanse of
      the ranches, the level reaches between the horizons, full of light and
      silence; the heat at noon, the cloudless iridescence of the sunrise and
      sunset. She had been so happy in that life! Now, all those days were
      passed. This crude, raw city, with its crowding houses all of wood and
      tin, its blotting fogs, its uproarious trade winds, disturbed and saddened
      her. There was no outlook for the future.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length, one day, about a week after Annixter's arrival in the city, she
      was prevailed upon to go for a walk in the park. She went alone, putting
      on for the first time the little hat of black straw with its puff of white
      silk her mother had bought for her, a pink shirtwaist, her belt of
      imitation alligator skin, her new skirt of brown cloth, and her low shoes,
      set off with their little steel buckles.
    </p>
    <p>
      She found a tiny summer house, built in Japanese fashion, around a
      diminutive pond, and sat there for a while, her hands folded in her lap,
      amused with watching the goldfish, wishing&mdash;she knew not what.
    </p>
    <p>
      Without any warning, Annixter sat down beside her. She was too frightened
      to move. She looked at him with wide eyes that began to fill with tears.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; she said, at last, &ldquo;oh&mdash;I didn't know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter, &ldquo;here you are at last. I've been watching that
      blamed house till I was afraid the policeman would move me on. By the
      Lord,&rdquo; he suddenly cried, &ldquo;you're pale. You&mdash;you, Hilma, do you feel
      well?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;I am well,&rdquo; she faltered.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, you're not,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I know better. You are coming back to
      Quien Sabe with me. This place don't agree with you. Hilma, what's all the
      matter? Why haven't you let me see you all this time? Do you know&mdash;how
      things are with me? Your mother told you, didn't she? Do you know how
      sorry I am? Do you know that I see now that I made the mistake of my life
      there, that time, under the Long Trestle? I found it out the night after
      you went away. I sat all night on a stone out on the ranch somewhere and I
      don't know exactly what happened, but I've been a different man since
      then. I see things all different now. Why, I've only begun to live since
      then. I know what love means now, and instead of being ashamed of it, I'm
      proud of it. If I never was to see you again I would be glad I'd lived
      through that night, just the same. I just woke up that night. I'd been
      absolutely and completely selfish up to the moment I realised I really
      loved you, and now, whether you'll let me marry you or not, I mean to live&mdash;I
      don't know, in a different way. I've GOT to live different. I&mdash;well&mdash;oh,
      I can't make you understand, but just loving you has changed my life all
      around. It's made it easier to do the straight, clean thing. I want to do
      it, it's fun doing it. Remember, once I said I was proud of being a hard
      man, a driver, of being glad that people hated me and were afraid of me?
      Well, since I've loved you I'm ashamed of it all. I don't want to be hard
      any more, and nobody is going to hate me if I can help it. I'm happy and I
      want other people so. I love you,&rdquo; he suddenly exclaimed; &ldquo;I love you, and
      if you will forgive me, and if you will come down to such a beast as I am,
      I want to be to you the best a man can be to a woman, Hilma. Do you
      understand, little girl? I want to be your husband.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma looked at the goldfishes through her tears.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Have you got anything to say to me, Hilma?&rdquo; he asked, after a while.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know what you want me to say,&rdquo; she murmured.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, you do,&rdquo; he insisted. &ldquo;I've followed you 'way up here to hear it.
      I've waited around in these beastly, draughty picnic grounds for over a
      week to hear it. You know what I want to hear, Hilma.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well&mdash;I forgive you,&rdquo; she hazarded.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That will do for a starter,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;But that's not IT.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Then, I don't know what.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shall I say it for you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She hesitated a long minute, then:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You mightn't say it right,&rdquo; she replied.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Trust me for that. Shall I say it for you, Hilma?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know what you'll say.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll say what you are thinking of. Shall I say it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a very long pause. A goldfish rose to the surface of the little
      pond, with a sharp, rippling sound. The fog drifted overhead. There was
      nobody about.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Hilma, at length. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;I can say it for myself. I&mdash;&rdquo;
       All at once she turned to him and put her arms around his neck. &ldquo;Oh, DO
      you love me?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Is it really true? Do you mean every word of it?
      And you are sorry and you WILL be good to me if I will be your wife? You
      will be my dear, dear husband?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The tears sprang to Annixter's eyes. He took her in his arms and held her
      there for a moment. Never in his life had he felt so unworthy, so
      undeserving of this clean, pure girl who forgave him and trusted his
      spoken word and believed him to be the good man he could only wish to be.
      She was so far above him, so exalted, so noble that he should have bowed
      his forehead to her feet, and instead, she took him in her arms, believing
      him to be good, to be her equal. He could think of no words to say. The
      tears overflowed his eyes and ran down upon his cheeks. She drew away from
      him and held him a second at arm's length, looking at him, and he saw that
      she, too, had been crying.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we are a couple of softies.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; she insisted. &ldquo;I want to cry and want you to cry, too. Oh, dear,
      I haven't a handkerchief.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here, take mine.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They wiped each other's eyes like two children and for a long time sat in
      the deserted little Japanese pleasure house, their arms about each other,
      talking, talking, talking.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the following Saturday they were married in an uptown Presbyterian
      church, and spent the week of their honeymoon at a small, family hotel on
      Sutter Street. As a matter of course, they saw the sights of the city
      together. They made the inevitable bridal trip to the Cliff House and
      spent an afternoon in the grewsome and made-to-order beauties of Sutro's
      Gardens; they went through Chinatown, the Palace Hotel, the park museum&mdash;where
      Hilma resolutely refused to believe in the Egyptian mummy&mdash;and they
      drove out in a hired hack to the Presidio and the Golden Gate.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the sixth day of their excursions, Hilma abruptly declared they had had
      enough of &ldquo;playing out,&rdquo; and must be serious and get to work.
    </p>
    <p>
      This work was nothing less than the buying of the furniture and
      appointments for the rejuvenated ranch house at Quien Sabe, where they
      were to live. Annixter had telegraphed to his overseer to have the
      building repainted, replastered, and reshingled and to empty the rooms of
      everything but the telephone and safe. He also sent instructions to have
      the dimensions of each room noted down and the result forwarded to him. It
      was the arrival of these memoranda that had roused Hilma to action.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then ensued a most delicious week. Armed with formidable lists, written by
      Annixter on hotel envelopes, they two descended upon the department stores
      of the city, the carpet stores, the furniture stores. Right and left they
      bought and bargained, sending each consignment as soon as purchased to
      Quien Sabe. Nearly an entire car load of carpets, curtains, kitchen
      furniture, pictures, fixtures, lamps, straw matting, chairs, and the like
      were sent down to the ranch, Annixter making a point that their new home
      should be entirely equipped by San Francisco dealers.
    </p>
    <p>
      The furnishings of the bedroom and sitting-room were left to the very
      last. For the former, Hilma bought a &ldquo;set&rdquo; of pure white enamel, three
      chairs, a washstand and bureau, a marvellous bargain of thirty dollars,
      discovered by wonderful accident at a &ldquo;Friday Sale.&rdquo; The bed was a piece
      by itself, bought elsewhere, but none the less a wonder. It was of brass,
      very brave and gay, and actually boasted a canopy! They bought it
      complete, just as it stood in the window of the department store and Hilma
      was in an ecstasy over its crisp, clean, muslin curtains, spread, and
      shams. Never was there such a bed, the luxury of a princess, such a bed as
      she had dreamed about her whole life.
    </p>
    <p>
      Next the appointments of the sitting-room occupied her&mdash;since
      Annixter, himself, bewildered by this astonishing display, unable to offer
      a single suggestion himself, merely approved of all she bought. In the
      sitting-room was to be a beautiful blue and white paper, cool straw
      matting, set off with white wool rugs, a stand of flowers in the window, a
      globe of goldfish, rocking chairs, a sewing machine, and a great, round
      centre table of yellow oak whereon should stand a lamp covered with a deep
      shade of crinkly red tissue paper. On the walls were to hang several
      pictures&mdash;lovely affairs, photographs from life, all properly tinted&mdash;of
      choir boys in robes, with beautiful eyes; pensive young girls in pink
      gowns, with flowing yellow hair, drooping over golden harps; a coloured
      reproduction of &ldquo;Rouget de Lisle, Singing the Marseillaise,&rdquo; and two
      &ldquo;pieces&rdquo; of wood carving, representing a quail and a wild duck, hung by
      one leg in the midst of game bags and powder horns,&mdash;quite
      masterpieces, both.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last everything had been bought, all arrangements made, Hilma's trunks
      packed with her new dresses, and the tickets to Bonneville bought.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We'll go by the Overland, by Jingo,&rdquo; declared Annixter across the table
      to his wife, at their last meal in the hotel where they had been stopping;
      &ldquo;no way trains or locals for us, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But we reach Bonneville at SUCH an hour,&rdquo; protested Hilma. &ldquo;Five in the
      morning!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;we'll go home in PULLMAN'S, Hilma. I'm not
      going to have any of those slobs in Bonneville say I didn't know how to do
      the thing in style, and we'll have Vacca meet us with the team. No, sir,
      it is Pullman's or nothing. When it comes to buying furniture, I don't
      shine, perhaps, but I know what's due my wife.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was obdurate, and late one afternoon the couple boarded the
      Transcontinental (the crack Overland Flyer of the Pacific and
      Southwestern) at the Oakland mole. Only Hilma's parents were there to say
      good-bye. Annixter knew that Magnus and Osterman were in the city, but he
      had laid his plans to elude them. Magnus, he could trust to be dignified,
      but that goat Osterman, one could never tell what he would do next. He did
      not propose to start his journey home in a shower of rice. Annixter
      marched down the line of cars, his hands encumbered with wicker telescope
      baskets, satchels, and valises, his tickets in his mouth, his hat on wrong
      side foremost, Hilma and her parents hurrying on behind him, trying to
      keep up. Annixter was in a turmoil of nerves lest something should go
      wrong; catching a train was always for him a little crisis. He rushed
      ahead so furiously that when he had found his Pullman he had lost his
      party. He set down his valises to mark the place and charged back along
      the platform, waving his arms.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come on,&rdquo; he cried, when, at length, he espied the others. &ldquo;We've no more
      time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He shouldered and urged them forward to where he had set his valises, only
      to find one of them gone. Instantly he raised an outcry. Aha, a fine way
      to treat passengers! There was P. and S. W. management for you. He would,
      by the Lord, he would&mdash;but the porter appeared in the vestibule of
      the car to placate him. He had already taken his valises inside.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter would not permit Hilma's parents to board the car, declaring that
      the train might pull out any moment. So he and his wife, following the
      porter down the narrow passage by the stateroom, took their places and,
      raising the window, leaned out to say good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Tree. These
      latter would not return to Quien Sabe. Old man Tree had found a business
      chance awaiting him in the matter of supplying his relative's hotel with
      dairy products. But Bonneville was not too far from San Francisco; the
      separation was by no means final.
    </p>
    <p>
      The porters began taking up the steps that stood by the vestibule of each
      sleeping-car.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, have a good time, daughter,&rdquo; observed her father; &ldquo;and come up to
      see us whenever you can.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      From beyond the enclosure of the depot's reverberating roof came the
      measured clang of a bell.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I guess we're off,&rdquo; cried Annixter. &ldquo;Good-bye, Mrs. Tree.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Remember your promise, Hilma,&rdquo; her mother hastened to exclaim, &ldquo;to write
      every Sunday afternoon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There came a prolonged creaking and groan of straining wood and iron work,
      all along the length of the train. They all began to cry their good-byes
      at once. The train stirred, moved forward, and gathering slow headway,
      rolled slowly out into the sunlight. Hilma leaned out of the window and as
      long as she could keep her mother in sight waved her handkerchief. Then at
      length she sat back in her seat and looked at her husband.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; echoed Annixter, &ldquo;happy?&rdquo; for the tears rose in her eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      She nodded energetically, smiling at him bravely.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You look a little pale,&rdquo; he declared, frowning uneasily; &ldquo;feel well?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pretty well.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Promptly he was seized with uneasiness. &ldquo;But not ALL well, hey? Is that
      it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was true that Hilma had felt a faint tremour of seasickness on the
      ferry-boat coming from the city to the Oakland mole. No doubt a little
      nausea yet remained with her. But Annixter refused to accept this
      explanation. He was distressed beyond expression.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now you're going to be sick,&rdquo; he cried anxiously.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; she protested, &ldquo;not a bit.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you said you didn't feel very well. Where is it you feel sick?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know. I'm not sick. Oh, dear me, why will you bother?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Headache?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not the least.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You feel tired, then. That's it. No wonder, the way rushed you 'round
      to-day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dear, I'm NOT tired, and I'm NOT sick, and I'm all RIGHT.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no; I can tell. I think we'd best have the berth made up and you lie
      down.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That would be perfectly ridiculous.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, where is it you feel sick? Show me; put your hand on the place.
      Want to eat something?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      With elaborate minuteness, he cross-questioned her, refusing to let the
      subject drop, protesting that she had dark circles under her eyes; that
      she had grown thinner.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wonder if there's a doctor on board,&rdquo; he murmured, looking uncertainly
      about the car. &ldquo;Let me see your tongue. I know&mdash;a little whiskey is
      what you want, that and some pru&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no, NO,&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;I'm as well as I ever was in all my life.
      Look at me. Now, tell me, do l look likee a sick lady?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He scrutinised her face distressfully.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, don't I look the picture of health?&rdquo; she challenged.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In a way you do,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;and then again&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma beat a tattoo with her heels upon the floor, shutting her fists, the
      thumbs tucked inside. She closed her eyes, shaking her head energetically.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I won't listen, I won't listen, I won't listen,&rdquo; she cried.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, just the same&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gibble&mdash;gibble&mdash;gibble,&rdquo; she mocked. &ldquo;I won't Listen, I won't
      listen.&rdquo; She put a hand over his mouth. &ldquo;Look, here's the dining-car
      waiter, and the first call for supper, and your wife is hungry.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They went forward and had supper in the diner, while the long train, now
      out upon the main line, settled itself to its pace, the prolonged, even
      gallop that it would hold for the better part of the week, spinning out
      the miles as a cotton spinner spins thread.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was already dark when Antioch was left behind. Abruptly the sunset
      appeared to wheel in the sky and readjusted itself to the right of the
      track behind Mount Diablo, here visible almost to its base. The train had
      turned southward. Neroly was passed, then Brentwood, then Byron. In the
      gathering dusk, mountains began to build themselves up on either hand, far
      off, blocking the horizon. The train shot forward, roaring. Between the
      mountains the land lay level, cut up into farms, ranches. These
      continually grew larger; growing wheat began to appear, billowing in the
      wind of the train's passage. The mountains grew higher, the land richer,
      and by the time the moon rose, the train was well into the northernmost
      limits of the valley of the San Joaquin.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter had engaged an entire section, and after he and his wife went to
      bed had the porter close the upper berth. Hilma sat up in bed to say her
      prayers, both hands over her face, and then kissing Annixter good-night,
      went to sleep with the directness of a little child, holding his hand in
      both her own.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, who never could sleep on the train, dozed and tossed and fretted
      for hours, consulting his watch and time-table whenever there was a stop;
      twice he rose to get a drink of ice water, and between whiles was forever
      sitting up in the narrow berth, stretching himself and yawning, murmuring
      with uncertain relevance:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Lord! Oh-h-h LORD!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There were some dozen other passengers in the car&mdash;a lady with three
      children, a group of school-teachers, a couple of drummers, a stout
      gentleman with whiskers, and a well-dressed young man in a plaid
      travelling cap, whom Annixter had observed before supper time reading
      Daudet's &ldquo;Tartarin&rdquo; in the French.
    </p>
    <p>
      But by nine o'clock, all these people were in their berths. Occasionally,
      above the rhythmic rumble of the wheels, Annixter could hear one of the
      lady's children fidgeting and complaining. The stout gentleman snored
      monotonously in two notes, one a rasping bass, the other a prolonged
      treble. At intervals, a brakeman or the passenger conductor pushed down
      the aisle, between the curtains, his red and white lamp over his arm.
      Looking out into the car Annixter saw in an end section where the berths
      had not been made up, the porter, in his white duck coat, dozing, his
      mouth wide open, his head on his shoulder.
    </p>
    <p>
      The hours passed. Midnight came and went. Annixter, checking off the
      stations, noted their passage of Modesto, Merced, and Madeira. Then, after
      another broken nap, he lost count. He wondered where they were. Had they
      reached Fresno yet? Raising the window curtain, he made a shade with both
      hands on either side of his face and looked out. The night was thick,
      dark, clouded over. A fine rain was falling, leaving horizontal streaks on
      the glass of the outside window. Only the faintest grey blur indicated the
      sky. Everything else was impenetrable blackness.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think sure we must have passed Fresno,&rdquo; he muttered. He looked at his
      watch. It was about half-past three. &ldquo;If we have passed Fresno,&rdquo; he said
      to himself, &ldquo;I'd better wake the little girl pretty soon. She'll need
      about an hour to dress. Better find out for sure.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He drew on his trousers and shoes, got into his coat, and stepped out into
      the aisle. In the seat that had been occupied by the porter, the Pullman
      conductor, his cash box and car-schedules before him, was checking up his
      berths, a blue pencil behind his ear.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's the next stop, Captain?&rdquo; inquired Annixter, coming up. &ldquo;Have we
      reached Fresno yet?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Just passed it,&rdquo; the other responded, looking at Annixter over his
      spectacles.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's the next stop?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Goshen. We will be there in about forty-five minutes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fair black night, isn't it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Black as a pocket. Let's see, you're the party in upper and lower 9.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter caught at the back of the nearest seat, just in time to prevent a
      fall, and the conductor's cash box was shunted off the surface of the
      plush seat and came clanking to the floor. The Pintsch lights overhead
      vibrated with blinding rapidity in the long, sliding jar that ran through
      the train from end to end, and the momentum of its speed suddenly
      decreasing, all but pitched the conductor from his seat. A hideous
      ear-splitting rasp made itself heard from the clamped-down Westinghouse
      gear underneath, and Annixter knew that the wheels had ceased to revolve
      and that the train was sliding forward upon the motionless flanges.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, hello,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;what's all up now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Emergency brakes,&rdquo; declared the conductor, catching up his cash box and
      thrusting his papers and tickets into it. &ldquo;Nothing much; probably a cow on
      the track.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He disappeared, carrying his lantern with him.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the other passengers, all but the stout gentleman, were awake; heads
      were thrust from out the curtains, and Annixter, hurrying back to Hilma,
      was assailed by all manner of questions.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What was that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Anything wrong?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's up, anyways?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma was just waking as Annixter pushed the curtain aside.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I was so frightened. What's the matter, dear?&rdquo; she exclaimed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Only the emergency brakes. Just a cow on the
      track, I guess. Don't get scared. It isn't anything.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But with a final shriek of the Westinghouse appliance, the train came to a
      definite halt.
    </p>
    <p>
      At once the silence was absolute. The ears, still numb with the
      long-continued roar of wheels and clashing iron, at first refused to
      register correctly the smaller noises of the surroundings. Voices came
      from the other end of the car, strange and unfamiliar, as though heard at
      a great distance across the water. The stillness of the night outside was
      so profound that the rain, dripping from the car roof upon the road-bed
      underneath, was as distinct as the ticking of a clock.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, we've sure stopped,&rdquo; observed one of the drummers.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Hilma again. &ldquo;Are you sure there's nothing wrong?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; said Annixter. Outside, underneath their window, they heard the
      sound of hurried footsteps crushing into the clinkers by the side of the
      ties. They passed on, and Annixter heard some one in the distance shout:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, on the other side.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then the door at the end of their car opened and a brakeman with a red
      beard ran down the aisle and out upon the platform in front. The forward
      door closed. Everything was quiet again. In the stillness the fat
      gentleman's snores made themselves heard once more.
    </p>
    <p>
      The minutes passed; nothing stirred. There was no sound but the dripping
      rain. The line of cars lay immobilised and inert under the night. One of
      the drummers, having stepped outside on the platform for a look around,
      returned, saying:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There sure isn't any station anywheres about and no siding. Bet you they
      have had an accident of some kind.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ask the porter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I did. He don't know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Maybe they stopped to take on wood or water, or something.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, they wouldn't use the emergency brakes for that, would they? Why,
      this train stopped almost in her own length. Pretty near slung me out the
      berth. Those were the emergency brakes. I heard some one say so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      From far out towards the front of the train, near the locomotive, came the
      sharp, incisive report of a revolver; then two more almost simultaneously;
      then, after a long interval, a fourth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, that's SHOOTING. By God, boys, they're shooting. Say, this is a
      hold-up.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Instantly a white-hot excitement flared from end to end of the car.
      Incredibly sinister, heard thus in the night, and in the rain, mysterious,
      fearful, those four pistol shots started confusion from out the sense of
      security like a frightened rabbit hunted from her burrow. Wide-eyed, the
      passengers of the car looked into each other's faces. It had come to them
      at last, this, they had so often read about. Now they were to see the real
      thing, now they were to face actuality, face this danger of the night,
      leaping in from out the blackness of the roadside, masked, armed, ready to
      kill. They were facing it now. They were held up.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hilma said nothing, only catching Annixter's hand, looking squarely into
      his eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Steady, little girl,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They can't hurt you. I won't leave you.
      By the Lord,&rdquo; he suddenly exclaimed, his excitement getting the better of
      him for a moment. &ldquo;By the Lord, it's a hold-up.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The school-teachers were in the aisle of the car, in night gown, wrapper,
      and dressing sack, huddled together like sheep, holding on to each other,
      looking to the men, silently appealing for protection. Two of them were
      weeping, white to the lips.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, oh, oh, it's terrible. Oh, if they only won't hurt me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But the lady with the children looked out from her berth, smiled
      reassuringly, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm not a bit frightened. They won't do anything to us if we keep quiet.
      I've my watch and jewelry all ready for them in my little black bag, see?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She exhibited it to the passengers. Her children were all awake. They were
      quiet, looking about them with eager faces, interested and amused at this
      surprise. In his berth, the fat gentleman with whiskers snored profoundly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, I'm going out there,&rdquo; suddenly declared one of the drummers,
      flourishing a pocket revolver.
    </p>
    <p>
      His friend caught his arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't make a fool of yourself, Max,&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They won't come near us,&rdquo; observed the well-dressed young man; &ldquo;they are
      after the Wells-Fargo box and the registered mail. You won't do any good
      out there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But the other loudly protested. No; he was going out. He didn't propose to
      be buncoed without a fight. He wasn't any coward.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you don't go, that's all,&rdquo; said his friend, angrily. &ldquo;There's women
      and children in this car. You ain't going to draw the fire here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that's to be thought of,&rdquo; said the other, allowing himself to be
      pacified, but still holding his pistol.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't let him open that window,&rdquo; cried Annixter sharply from his place by
      Hilma's side, for the drummer had made as if to open the sash in one of
      the sections that had not been made up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure, that's right,&rdquo; said the others. &ldquo;Don't open any windows. Keep your
      head in. You'll get us all shot if you aren't careful.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      However, the drummer had got the window up and had leaned out before the
      others could interfere and draw him away.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, by jove,&rdquo; he shouted, as he turned back to the car, &ldquo;our engine's
      gone. We're standing on a curve and you can see the end of the train.
      She's gone, I tell you. Well, look for yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In spite of their precautions, one after another, his friends looked out.
      Sure enough, the train was without a locomotive.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They've done it so we can't get away,&rdquo; vociferated the drummer with the
      pistol. &ldquo;Now, by jiminy-Christmas, they'll come through the cars and stand
      us up. They'll be in here in a minute. LORD! WHAT WAS THAT?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      From far away up the track, apparently some half-mile ahead of the train,
      came the sound of a heavy explosion. The windows of the car vibrated with
      it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shooting again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That isn't shooting,&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter. &ldquo;They've pulled the express and
      mail car on ahead with the engine and now they are dynamiting her open.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That must be it. Yes, sure, that's just what they are doing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The forward door of the car opened and closed and the school-teachers
      shrieked and cowered. The drummer with the revolver faced about, his eyes
      bulging. However, it was only the train conductor, hatless, his lantern in
      his hand. He was soaked with rain. He appeared in the aisle.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is there a doctor in this car?&rdquo; he asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      Promptly the passengers surrounded him, voluble with questions. But he was
      in a bad temper.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know anything more than you,&rdquo; he shouted angrily. &ldquo;It was a
      hold-up. I guess you know that, don't you? Well, what more do you want to
      know? I ain't got time to fool around. They cut off our express car and
      have cracked it open, and they shot one of our train crew, that's all, and
      I want a doctor.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Did they shoot him&mdash;kill him, do you mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is he hurt bad?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Did the men get away?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, shut up, will you all?&rdquo; exclaimed the conductor.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do I know? Is there a DOCTOR in this car, that's what I want to
      know?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The well-dressed young man stepped forward.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm a doctor,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Well, come along then,&rdquo; returned the conductor,
      in a surly voice, &ldquo;and the passengers in this car,&rdquo; he added, turning back
      at the door and nodding his head menacingly, &ldquo;will go back to bed and STAY
      there. It's all over and there's nothing to see.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He went out, followed by the young doctor.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then ensued an interminable period of silence. The entire train seemed
      deserted. Helpless, bereft of its engine, a huge, decapitated monster it
      lay, half-way around a curve, rained upon, abandoned.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was more fear in this last condition of affairs, more terror in the
      idea of this prolonged line of sleepers, with their nickelled fittings,
      their plate glass, their upholstery, vestibules, and the like, loaded down
      with people, lost and forgotten in the night and the rain, than there had
      been when the actual danger threatened.
    </p>
    <p>
      What was to become of them now? Who was there to help them? Their engine
      was gone; they were helpless. What next was to happen?
    </p>
    <p>
      Nobody came near the car. Even the porter had disappeared. The wait seemed
      endless, and the persistent snoring of the whiskered gentleman rasped the
      nerves like the scrape of a file.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, how long are we going to stick here now?&rdquo; began one of the
      drummers. &ldquo;Wonder if they hurt the engine with their dynamite?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I know they will come through the car and rob us,&rdquo; wailed the
      school-teachers.
    </p>
    <p>
      The lady with the little children went back to bed, and Annixter, assured
      that the trouble was over, did likewise. But nobody slept. From berth to
      berth came the sound of suppressed voices talking it all over, formulating
      conjectures. Certain points seemed to be settled upon, no one knew how, as
      indisputable. The highwaymen had been four in number and had stopped the
      train by pulling the bell cord. A brakeman had attempted to interfere and
      had been shot. The robbers had been on the train all the way from San
      Francisco. The drummer named Max remembered to have seen four
      &ldquo;suspicious-looking characters&rdquo; in the smoking-car at Lathrop, and had
      intended to speak to the conductor about them. This drummer had been in a
      hold-up before, and told the story of it over and over again.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last, after what seemed to have been an hour's delay, and when the dawn
      had already begun to show in the east, the locomotive backed on to the
      train again with a reverberating jar that ran from car to car. At the
      jolting, the school-teachers screamed in chorus, and the whiskered
      gentleman stopped snoring and thrust his head from his curtains, blinking
      at the Pintsch lights. It appeared that he was an Englishman.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I say,&rdquo; he asked of the drummer named Max, &ldquo;I say, my friend, what place
      is this?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The others roared with derision.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We were HELD UP, sir, that's what we were. We were held up and you slept
      through it all. You missed the show of your life.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The gentleman fixed the group with a prolonged gaze. He said never a word,
      but little by little he was convinced that the drummers told the truth.
      All at once he grew wrathful, his face purpling. He withdrew his head
      angrily, buttoning his curtains together in a fury. The cause of his rage
      was inexplicable, but they could hear him resettling himself upon his
      pillows with exasperated movements of his head and shoulders. In a few
      moments the deep bass and shrill treble of his snoring once more sounded
      through the car.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last the train got under way again, with useless warning blasts of the
      engine's whistle. In a few moments it was tearing away through the dawn at
      a wonderful speed, rocking around curves, roaring across culverts, making
      up time.
    </p>
    <p>
      And all the rest of that strange night the passengers, sitting up in their
      unmade beds, in the swaying car, lighted by a strange mingling of pallid
      dawn and trembling Pintsch lights, rushing at break-neck speed through the
      misty rain, were oppressed by a vision of figures of terror, far behind
      them in the night they had left, masked, armed, galloping toward the
      mountains pistol in hand, the booty bound to the saddle bow, galloping,
      galloping on, sending a thrill of fear through all the country side.
    </p>
    <p>
      The young doctor returned. He sat down in the smoking-room, lighting a
      cigarette, and Annixter and the drummers pressed around him to know the
      story of the whole affair.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The man is dead,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;the brakeman. He was shot through the
      lungs twice. They think the fellow got away with about five thousand in
      gold coin.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The fellow? Wasn't there four of them?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No; only one. And say, let me tell you, he had his nerve with him. It
      seems he was on the roof of the express car all the time, and going as
      fast as we were, he jumped from the roof of the car down on to the coal on
      the engine's tender, and crawled over that and held up the men in the cab
      with his gun, took their guns from 'em and made 'em stop the train. Even
      ordered 'em to use the emergency gear, seems he knew all about it. Then he
      went back and uncoupled the express car himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;While he was doing this, a brakeman&mdash;you remember that brakeman that
      came through here once or twice&mdash;had a red mustache.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;THAT chap?&rdquo; &ldquo;Sure. Well, as soon as the train stopped, this brakeman
      guessed something was wrong and ran up, saw the fellow cutting off the
      express car and took a couple of shots at him, and the fireman says the
      fellow didn't even take his hand off the coupling-pin; just turned around
      as cool as how-do-you-do and NAILED the brakeman right there. They weren't
      five feet apart when they began shooting. The brakeman had come on him
      unexpected, had no idea he was so close.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And the express messenger, all this time?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, he did his best. Jumped out with his repeating shot-gun, but the
      fellow had him covered before he could turn round. Held him up and took
      his gun away from him. Say, you know I call that nerve, just the same. One
      man standing up a whole train-load, like that. Then, as soon as he'd cut
      the express car off, he made the engineer run her up the track about half
      a mile to a road crossing, WHERE HE HAD A HORSE TIED. What do you think of
      that? Didn't he have it all figured out close? And when he got there, he
      dynamited the safe and got the Wells-Fargo box. He took five thousand in
      gold coin; the messenger says it was railroad money that the company were
      sending down to Bakersfield to pay off with. It was in a bag. He never
      touched the registered mail, nor a whole wad of greenbacks that were in
      the safe, but just took the coin, got on his horse, and lit out. The
      engineer says he went to the east'ard.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He got away, did he?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, but they think they'll get him. He wore a kind of mask, but the
      brakeman recognised him positively. We got his ante-mortem statement. The
      brakeman said the fellow had a grudge against the road. He was a
      discharged employee, and lives near Bonneville.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dyke, by the Lord!&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's the name,&rdquo; said the young doctor.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the train arrived at Bonneville, forty minutes behind time, it landed
      Annixter and Hilma in the midst of the very thing they most wished to
      avoid&mdash;an enormous crowd. The news that the Overland had been held up
      thirty miles south of Fresno, a brakeman killed and the safe looted, and
      that Dyke alone was responsible for the night's work, had been wired on
      ahead from Fowler, the train conductor throwing the despatch to the
      station agent from the flying train.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before the train had come to a standstill under the arched roof of the
      Bonneville depot, it was all but taken by assault. Annixter, with Hilma on
      his arm, had almost to fight his way out of the car. The depot was black
      with people. S. Behrman was there, Delaney, Cyrus Ruggles, the town
      marshal, the mayor. Genslinger, his hat on the back of his head, ranged
      the train from cab to rear-lights, note-book in hand, interviewing,
      questioning, collecting facts for his extra. As Annixter descended finally
      to the platform, the editor, alert as a black-and-tan terrier, his thin,
      osseous hands quivering with eagerness, his brown, dry face working with
      excitement, caught his elbow.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Can I have your version of the affair, Mr. Annixter?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter turned on him abruptly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; he exclaimed fiercely. &ldquo;You and your gang drove Dyke from his job
      because he wouldn't work for starvation wages. Then you raised freight
      rates on him and robbed him of all he had. You ruined him and drove him to
      fill himself up with Caraher's whiskey. He's only taken back what you
      plundered him of, and now you're going to hound him over the State, hunt
      him down like a wild animal, and bring him to the gallows at San Quentin.
      That's my version of the affair, Mister Genslinger, but it's worth your
      subsidy from the P. and S. W. to print it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a murmur of approval from the crowd that stood around, and
      Genslinger, with an angry shrug of one shoulder, took himself away.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length, Annixter brought Hilma through the crowd to where young Vacca
      was waiting with the team. However, they could not at once start for the
      ranch, Annixter wishing to ask some questions at the freight office about
      a final consignment of chairs. It was nearly eleven o'clock before they
      could start home. But to gain the Upper Road to Quien Sabe, it was
      necessary to traverse all of Main Street, running through the heart of
      Bonneville.
    </p>
    <p>
      The entire town seemed to be upon the sidewalks. By now the rain was over
      and the sun shining. The story of the hold-up&mdash;the work of a man whom
      every one knew and liked&mdash;was in every mouth. How had Dyke come to do
      it? Who would have believed it of him? Think of his poor mother and the
      little tad. Well, after all, he was not so much to blame; the railroad
      people had brought it on themselves. But he had shot a man to death. Ah,
      that was a serious business. Good-natured, big, broad-shouldered, jovial
      Dyke, the man they knew, with whom they had shaken hands only yesterday,
      yes, and drank with him. He had shot a man, killed him, had stood there in
      the dark and in the rain while they were asleep in their beds, and had
      killed a man. Now where was he? Instinctively eyes were turned eastward,
      over the tops of the houses, or down vistas of side streets to where the
      foot-hills of the mountains rose dim and vast over the edge of the valley.
      He was in amongst them; somewhere, in all that pile of blue crests and
      purple canyons he was hidden away. Now for weeks of searching, false
      alarms, clews, trailings, watchings, all the thrill and heart-bursting
      excitement of a man-hunt. Would he get away? Hardly a man on the sidewalks
      of the town that day who did not hope for it.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Annixter's team trotted through the central portion of the town, young
      Vacca pointed to a denser and larger crowd around the rear entrance of the
      City Hall. Fully twenty saddle horses were tied to the iron rail
      underneath the scant, half-grown trees near by, and as Annixter and Hilma
      drove by, the crowd parted and a dozen men with revolvers on their hips
      pushed their way to the curbstone, and, mounting their horses, rode away
      at a gallop.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's the posse,&rdquo; said young Vacca.
    </p>
    <p>
      Outside the town limits the ground was level. There was nothing to
      obstruct the view, and to the north, in the direction of Osterman's ranch,
      Vacca made out another party of horsemen, galloping eastward, and beyond
      these still another.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There're the other posses,&rdquo; he announced. &ldquo;That further one is Archie
      Moore's. He's the sheriff. He came down from Visalia on a special engine
      this morning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When the team turned into the driveway to the ranch house, Hilma uttered a
      little cry, clasping her hands joyfully. The house was one glitter of new
      white paint, the driveway had been freshly gravelled, the flower-beds
      replenished. Mrs. Vacca and her daughter, who had been busy putting on the
      finishing touches, came to the door to welcome them.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's this case here?&rdquo; asked Annixter, when, after helping his wife from
      the carry-all, his eye fell upon a wooden box of some three by five feet
      that stood on the porch and bore the red Wells-Fargo label.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It came here last night, addressed to you, sir,&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Vacca.
      &ldquo;We were sure it wasn't any of your furniture, so we didn't open it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, maybe it's a wedding present,&rdquo; exclaimed Hilma, her eyes sparkling.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, maybe it is,&rdquo; returned her husband. &ldquo;Here, m' son, help me in with
      this.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter and young Vacca bore the case into the sitting-room of the house,
      and Annixter, hammer in hand, attacked it vigorously. Vacca discreetly
      withdrew on signal from his mother, closing the door after him. Annixter
      and his wife were left alone.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, hurry, hurry,&rdquo; cried Hilma, dancing around him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I want to see what it is. Who do you suppose could have sent it to us?
      And so heavy, too. What do you think it can be?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter put the claw of the hammer underneath the edge of the board top
      and wrenched with all his might. The boards had been clamped together by a
      transverse bar and the whole top of the box came away in one piece. A
      layer of excelsior was disclosed, and on it a letter addressed by
      typewriter to Annixter. It bore the trade-mark of a business firm of Los
      Angeles. Annixter glanced at this and promptly caught it up before Hilma
      could see, with an exclamation of intelligence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I know what this is,&rdquo; he observed, carelessly trying to restrain her
      busy hands. &ldquo;It isn't anything. Just some machinery. Let it go.&rdquo; But
      already she had pulled away the excelsior. Underneath, in temporary racks,
      were two dozen Winchester repeating rifles.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why&mdash;what&mdash;what&mdash;&rdquo; murmured Hilma blankly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I told you not to mind,&rdquo; said Annixter. &ldquo;It isn't anything. Let's
      look through the rooms.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you said you knew what it was,&rdquo; she protested, bewildered. &ldquo;You
      wanted to make believe it was machinery. Are you keeping anything from me?
      Tell me what it all means. Oh, why are you getting&mdash;these?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She caught his arm, looking with intense eagerness into his face. She half
      understood already. Annixter saw that.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, lamely, &ldquo;YOU know&mdash;it may not come to anything at
      all, but you know&mdash;well, this League of ours&mdash;suppose the
      Railroad tries to jump Quien Sabe or Los Muertos or any of the other
      ranches&mdash;we made up our minds&mdash;the Leaguers have&mdash;that we
      wouldn't let it. That's all.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And I thought,&rdquo; cried Hilma, drawing back fearfully from the case of
      rifles, &ldquo;and I thought it was a wedding present.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And that was their home-coming, the end of their bridal trip. Through the
      terror of the night, echoing with pistol shots, through that scene of
      robbery and murder, into this atmosphere of alarms, a man-hunt organising,
      armed horsemen silhouetted against the horizons, cases of rifles where
      wedding presents should have been, Annixter brought his young wife to be
      mistress of a home he might at any moment be called upon to defend with
      his life.
    </p>
    <p>
      The days passed. Soon a week had gone by. Magnus Derrick and Osterman
      returned from the city without any definite idea as to the Corporation's
      plans. Lyman had been reticent. He knew nothing as to the progress of the
      land cases in Washington. There was no news. The Executive Committee of
      the League held a perfunctory meeting at Los Muertos at which nothing but
      routine business was transacted. A scheme put forward by Osterman for a
      conference with the railroad managers fell through because of the refusal
      of the company to treat with the ranchers upon any other basis than that
      of the new grading. It was impossible to learn whether or not the company
      considered Los Muertos, Quien Sabe, and the ranches around Bonneville
      covered by the test cases then on appeal.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meanwhile there was no decrease in the excitement that Dyke's hold-up had
      set loose over all the county. Day after day it was the one topic of
      conversation, at street corners, at cross-roads, over dinner tables, in
      office, bank, and store. S. Behrman placarded the town with a notice of
      $500.00 reward for the ex-engineer's capture, dead or alive, and the
      express company supplemented this by another offer of an equal amount. The
      country was thick with parties of horsemen, armed with rifles and
      revolvers, recruited from Visalia, Goshen, and the few railroad
      sympathisers around Bonneville and Guadlajara. One after another of these
      returned, empty-handed, covered with dust and mud, their horses exhausted,
      to be met and passed by fresh posses starting out to continue the pursuit.
      The sheriff of Santa Clara County sent down his bloodhounds from San Jose&mdash;small,
      harmless-looking dogs, with a terrific bay&mdash;to help in the chase.
      Reporters from the San Francisco papers appeared, interviewing every one,
      sometimes even accompanying the searching bands. Horse hoofs clattered
      over the roads at night; bells were rung, the &ldquo;Mercury&rdquo; issued extra after
      extra; the bloodhounds bayed, gun butts clashed on the asphalt pavements
      of Bonneville; accidental discharges of revolvers brought the whole town
      into the street; farm hands called to each other across the fences of
      ranch-divisions&mdash;in a word, the country-side was in an uproar.
    </p>
    <p>
      And all to no effect. The hoof-marks of Dyke's horse had been traced in
      the mud of the road to within a quarter of a mile of the foot-hills and
      there irretrievably lost. Three days after the hold-up, a sheep-herder was
      found who had seen the highwayman on a ridge in the higher mountains, to
      the northeast of Taurusa. And that was absolutely all. Rumours were thick,
      promising clews were discovered, new trails taken up, but nothing
      transpired to bring the pursuers and pursued any closer together. Then,
      after ten days of strain, public interest began to flag. It was believed
      that Dyke had succeeded in getting away. If this was true, he had gone to
      the southward, after gaining the mountains, and it would be his intention
      to work out of the range somewhere near the southern part of the San
      Joaquin, near Bakersfield. Thus, the sheriffs, marshals, and deputies
      decided. They had hunted too many criminals in these mountains before not
      to know the usual courses taken. In time, Dyke MUST come out of the
      mountains to get water and provisions. But this time passed, and from not
      one of the watched points came any word of his appearance. At last the
      posses began to disband. Little by little the pursuit was given up.
    </p>
    <p>
      Only S. Behrman persisted. He had made up his mind to bring Dyke in. He
      succeeded in arousing the same degree of determination in Delaney&mdash;by
      now, a trusted aide of the Railroad&mdash;and of his own cousin, a real
      estate broker, named Christian, who knew the mountains and had once been
      marshal of Visalia in the old stock-raising days. These two went into the
      Sierras, accompanied by two hired deputies, and carrying with them a
      month's provisions and two of the bloodhounds loaned by the Santa Clara
      sheriff.
    </p>
    <p>
      On a certain Sunday, a few days after the departure of Christian and
      Delaney, Annixter, who had been reading &ldquo;David Copperfield&rdquo; in his hammock
      on the porch of the ranch house, put down the book and went to find Hilma,
      who was helping Louisa Vacca set the table for dinner. He found her in the
      dining-room, her hands full of the gold-bordered china plates, only used
      on special occasions and which Louisa was forbidden to touch.
    </p>
    <p>
      His wife was more than ordinarily pretty that day. She wore a dress of
      flowered organdie over pink sateen with pink ribbons about her waist and
      neck, and on her slim feet the low shoes she always affected, with their
      smart, bright buckles. Her thick, brown, sweet-smelling hair was heaped
      high upon her head and set off with a bow of black velvet, and underneath
      the shadow of its coils, her wide-open eyes, rimmed with the thin, black
      line of her lashes, shone continually, reflecting the sunlight. Marriage
      had only accentuated the beautiful maturity of Hilma's figure&mdash;now no
      longer precocious&mdash;defining the single, deep swell from her throat to
      her waist, the strong, fine amplitude of her hips, the sweet feminine
      undulation of her neck and shoulders. Her cheeks were pink with health,
      and her large round arms carried the piled-up dishes with never a tremour.
      Annixter, observant enough where his wife was concerned noted how the
      reflection of the white china set a glow of pale light underneath her
      chin.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hilma,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I've been wondering lately about things. We're so
      blamed happy ourselves it won't do for us to forget about other people who
      are down, will it? Might change our luck. And I'm just likely to forget
      that way, too. It's my nature.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His wife looked up at him joyfully. Here was the new Annixter, certainly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In all this hullabaloo about Dyke,&rdquo; he went on &ldquo;there's some one nobody
      ain't thought about at all. That's MRS. Dyke&mdash;and the little tad. I
      wouldn't be surprised if they were in a hole over there. What do you say
      we drive over to the hop ranch after dinner and see if she wants
      anything?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma put down the plates and came around the table and kissed him without
      a word.
    </p>
    <p>
      As soon as their dinner was over, Annixter had the carry-all hitched up,
      and, dispensing with young Vacca, drove over to the hop ranch with Hilma.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hilma could not keep back the tears as they passed through the lamentable
      desolation of the withered, brown vines, symbols of perished hopes and
      abandoned effort, and Annixter swore between his teeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      Though the wheels of the carry-all grated loudly on the roadway in front
      of the house, nobody came to the door nor looked from the windows. The
      place seemed tenantless, infinitely lonely, infinitely sad. Annixter tied
      the team, and with Hilma approached the wide-open door, scuffling and
      tramping on the porch to attract attention. Nobody stirred. A Sunday
      stillness pervaded the place. Outside, the withered hop-leaves rustled
      like dry paper in the breeze. The quiet was ominous. They peered into the
      front room from the doorway, Hilma holding her husband's hand. Mrs. Dyke
      was there. She sat at the table in the middle of the room, her head, with
      its white hair, down upon her arm. A clutter of unwashed dishes were
      strewed over the red and white tablecloth. The unkempt room, once a marvel
      of neatness, had not been cleaned for days. Newspapers, Genslinger's
      extras and copies of San Francisco and Los Angeles dailies were scattered
      all over the room. On the table itself were crumpled yellow telegrams, a
      dozen of them, a score of them, blowing about in the draught from the
      door. And in the midst of all this disarray, surrounded by the published
      accounts of her son's crime, the telegraphed answers to her pitiful
      appeals for tidings fluttering about her head, the highwayman's mother,
      worn out, abandoned and forgotten, slept through the stillness of the
      Sunday afternoon.
    </p>
    <p>
      Neither Hilma nor Annixter ever forgot their interview with Mrs. Dyke that
      day. Suddenly waking, she had caught sight of Annixter, and at once
      exclaimed eagerly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is there any news?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      For a long time afterwards nothing could be got from her. She was numb to
      all other issues than the one question of Dyke's capture. She did not
      answer their questions nor reply to their offers of assistance. Hilma and
      Annixter conferred together without lowering their voices, at her very
      elbow, while she looked vacantly at the floor, drawing one hand over the
      other in a persistent, maniacal gesture. From time to time she would start
      suddenly from her chair, her eyes wide, and as if all at once realising
      Annixter's presence, would cry out:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is there any news?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where is Sidney, Mrs. Dyke?&rdquo; asked Hilma for the fourth time. &ldquo;Is she
      well? Is she taken care of?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here's the last telegram,&rdquo; said Mrs. Dyke, in a loud, monotonous voice.
      &ldquo;See, it says there is no news. He didn't do it,&rdquo; she moaned, rocking
      herself back and forth, drawing one hand over the other, &ldquo;he didn't do it,
      he didn't do it, he didn't do it. I don't know where he is.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When at last she came to herself, it was with a flood of tears. Hilma put
      her arms around the poor, old woman, as she bowed herself again upon the
      table, sobbing and weeping.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, my son, my son,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;my own boy, my only son! If I could have
      died for you to have prevented this. I remember him when he was little.
      Such a splendid little fellow, so brave, so loving, with never an unkind
      thought, never a mean action. So it was all his life. We were never apart.
      It was always 'dear little son,' and 'dear mammy' between us&mdash;never
      once was he unkind, and he loved me and was the gentlest son to me. And he
      was a GOOD man. He is now, he is now. They don't understand him. They are
      not even sure that he did this. He never meant it. They don't know my son.
      Why, he wouldn't have hurt a kitten. Everybody loved him. He was driven to
      it. They hounded him down, they wouldn't let him alone. He was not right
      in his mind. They hounded him to it,&rdquo; she cried fiercely, &ldquo;they hounded
      him to it. They drove him and goaded him till he couldn't stand it any
      longer, and now they mean to kill him for turning on them. They are
      hunting him with dogs; night after night I have stood on the porch and
      heard the dogs baying far off. They are tracking my boy with dogs like a
      wild animal. May God never forgive them.&rdquo; She rose to her feet, terrible,
      her white hair unbound. &ldquo;May God punish them as they deserve, may they
      never prosper&mdash;on my knees I shall pray for it every night&mdash;may
      their money be a curse to them, may their sons, their first-born, only
      sons, be taken from them in their youth.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Hilma interrupted, begging her to be silent, to be quiet. The tears
      came again then and the choking sobs. Hilma took her in her arms.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, my little boy, my little boy,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;My only son, all that I
      had, to have come to this! He was not right in his mind or he would have
      known it would break my heart. Oh, my son, my son, if I could have died
      for you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sidney came in, clinging to her dress, weeping, imploring her not to cry,
      protesting that they never could catch her papa, that he would come back
      soon. Hilma took them both, the little child and the broken-down old
      woman, in the great embrace of her strong arms, and they all three sobbed
      together.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter stood on the porch outside, his back turned, looking straight
      before him into the wilderness of dead vines, his teeth shut hard, his
      lower lip thrust out.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hope S. Behrman is satisfied with all this,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;I hope he is
      satisfied now, damn his soul!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      All at once an idea occurred to him. He turned about and reentered the
      room.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mrs Dyke,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;I want you and Sidney to come over and live at
      Quien Sabe. I know&mdash;you can't make me believe that the reporters and
      officers and officious busy-faces that pretend to offer help just so as
      they can satisfy their curiosity aren't nagging you to death. I want you
      to let me take care of you and the little tad till all this trouble of
      yours is over with. There's plenty of place for you. You can have the
      house my wife's people used to live in. You've got to look these things in
      the face. What are you going to do to get along? You must be very short of
      money. S. Behrman will foreclose on you and take the whole place in a
      little while, now. I want you to let me help you, let Hilma and me be good
      friends to you. It would be a privilege.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Dyke tried bravely to assume her pride, insisting that she could
      manage, but her spirit was broken. The whole affair ended unexpectedly,
      with Annixter and Hilma bringing Dyke's mother and little girl back to
      Quien Sabe in the carry-all.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Dyke would not take with her a stick of furniture nor a single
      ornament. It would only serve to remind her of a vanished happiness. She
      packed a few clothes of her own and Sidney's in a little trunk, Hilma
      helping her, and Annixter stowed the trunk under the carry-all's back
      seat. Mrs. Dyke turned the key in the door of the house and Annixter
      helped her to her seat beside his wife. They drove through the sear, brown
      hop vines. At the angle of the road Mrs. Dyke turned around and looked
      back at the ruin of the hop ranch, the roof of the house just showing
      above the trees. She never saw it again.
    </p>
    <p>
      As soon as Annixter and Hilma were alone, after their return to Quien Sabe&mdash;Mrs.
      Dyke and Sidney having been installed in the Trees' old house&mdash;Hilma
      threw her arms around her husband's neck.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fine,&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;oh, it was fine of you, dear to think of them and
      to be so good to them. My husband is such a GOOD man. So unselfish. You
      wouldn't have thought of being kind to Mrs. Dyke and Sidney a little while
      ago. You wouldn't have thought of them at all. But you did now, and it's
      just because you love me true, isn't it? Isn't it? And because it's made
      you a better man. I'm so proud and glad to think it's so. It is so, isn't
      it? Just because you love me true.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You bet it is, Hilma,&rdquo; he told her.
    </p>
    <p>
      As Hilma and Annixter were sitting down to the supper which they found
      waiting for them, Louisa Vacca came to the door of the dining-room to say
      that Harran Derrick had telephoned over from Los Muertos for Annixter, and
      had left word for him to ring up Los Muertos as soon as he came in.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He said it was important,&rdquo; added Louisa Vacca.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Maybe they have news from Washington,&rdquo; suggested Hilma.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter would not wait to have supper, but telephoned to Los Muertos at
      once. Magnus answered the call. There was a special meeting of the
      Executive Committee of the League summoned for the next day, he told
      Annixter. It was for the purpose of considering the new grain tariff
      prepared by the Railroad Commissioners. Lyman had written that the
      schedule of this tariff had just been issued, that he had not been able to
      construct it precisely according to the wheat-growers' wishes, and that
      he, himself, would come down to Los Muertos and explain its apparent
      discrepancies. Magnus said Lyman would be present at the session.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, curious for details, forbore, nevertheless, to question. The
      connection from Los Muertos to Quien Sabe was made through Bonneville, and
      in those troublesome times no one could be trusted. It could not be known
      who would overhear conversations carried on over the lines. He assured
      Magnus that he would be on hand. The time for the Committee meeting had
      been set for seven o'clock in the evening, in order to accommodate Lyman,
      who wrote that he would be down on the evening train, but would be
      compelled, by pressure of business, to return to the city early the next
      morning.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the time appointed, the men composing the Committee gathered about the
      table in the dining-room of the Los Muertos ranch house. It was almost a
      reproduction of the scene of the famous evening when Osterman had proposed
      the plan of the Ranchers' Railroad Commission. Magnus Derrick sat at the
      head of the table, in his buttoned frock coat. Whiskey bottles and siphons
      of soda-water were within easy reach. Presley, who by now was considered
      the confidential friend of every member of the Committee, lounged as
      before on the sofa, smoking cigarettes, the cat Nathalie on his knee.
      Besides Magnus and Annixter, Osterman was present, and old Broderson and
      Harran; Garnet from the Ruby Rancho and Gethings of the San Pablo, who
      were also members of the Executive Committee, were on hand, preoccupied,
      bearded men, smoking black cigars, and, last of all, Dabney, the silent
      old man, of whom little was known but his name, and who had been made a
      member of the Committee, nobody could tell why.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My son Lyman should be here, gentlemen, within at least ten minutes. I
      have sent my team to meet him at Bonneville,&rdquo; explained Magnus, as he
      called the meeting to order. &ldquo;The Secretary will call the roll.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Osterman called the roll, and, to fill in the time, read over the minutes
      of the previous meeting. The treasurer was making his report as to the
      funds at the disposal of the League when Lyman arrived.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus and Harran went forward to meet him, and the Committee rather
      awkwardly rose and remained standing while the three exchanged greetings,
      the members, some of whom had never seen their commissioner, eyeing him
      out of the corners of their eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lyman was dressed with his usual correctness. His cravat was of the latest
      fashion, his clothes of careful design and unimpeachable fit. His shoes,
      of patent leather, reflected the lamplight, and he carried a drab overcoat
      over his arm. Before being introduced to the Committee, he excused himself
      a moment and ran to see his mother, who waited for him in the adjoining
      sitting-room. But in a few moments he returned, asking pardon for the
      delay.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was all affability; his protruding eyes, that gave such an unusual,
      foreign appearance to his very dark face, radiated geniality. He was
      evidently anxious to please, to produce a good impression upon the grave,
      clumsy farmers before whom he stood. But at the same time, Presley,
      watching him from his place on the sofa, could imagine that he was rather
      nervous. He was too nimble in his cordiality, and the little gestures he
      made in bringing his cuffs into view and in touching the ends of his
      tight, black mustache with the ball of his thumb were repeated with
      unnecessary frequency.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Broderson, my son, Lyman, my eldest son. Mr. Annixter, my son,
      Lyman.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Governor introduced him to the ranchers, proud of Lyman's good looks,
      his correct dress, his ease of manner. Lyman shook hands all around,
      keeping up a flow of small talk, finding a new phrase for each member,
      complimenting Osterman, whom he already knew, upon his talent for
      organisation, recalling a mutual acquaintance to the mind of old
      Broderson. At length, however, he sat down at the end of the table,
      opposite his brother. There was a silence.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus rose to recapitulate the reasons for the extra session of the
      Committee, stating again that the Board of Railway Commissioners which
      they&mdash;the ranchers&mdash;had succeeded in seating had at length
      issued the new schedule of reduced rates, and that Mr. Derrick had been
      obliging enough to offer to come down to Los Muertos in person to acquaint
      the wheat-growers of the San Joaquin with the new rates for the carriage
      of their grain.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Lyman very politely protested, addressing his father punctiliously as
      &ldquo;Mr. Chairman,&rdquo; and the other ranchers as &ldquo;Gentlemen of the Executive
      Committee of the League.&rdquo; He had no wish, he said, to disarrange the
      regular proceedings of the Committee. Would it not be preferable to defer
      the reading of his report till &ldquo;new business&rdquo; was called for? In the
      meanwhile, let the Committee proceed with its usual work. He understood
      the necessarily delicate nature of this work, and would be pleased to
      withdraw till the proper time arrived for him to speak.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good deal of backing and filling about the reading of a column of
      figures,&rdquo; muttered Annixter to the man at his elbow.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lyman &ldquo;awaited the Committee's decision.&rdquo; He sat down, touching the ends
      of his mustache.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, play ball,&rdquo; growled Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      Gethings rose to say that as the meeting had been called solely for the
      purpose of hearing and considering the new grain tariff, he was of the
      opinion that routine business could be dispensed with and the schedule
      read at once. It was so ordered.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lyman rose and made a long speech. Voluble as Osterman himself, he,
      nevertheless, had at his command a vast number of ready-made phrases, the
      staples of a political speaker, the stock in trade of the commercial
      lawyer, which rolled off his tongue with the most persuasive fluency. By
      degrees, in the course of his speech, he began to insinuate the idea that
      the wheat-growers had never expected to settle their difficulties with the
      Railroad by the work of a single commission; that they had counted upon a
      long, continued campaign of many years, railway commission succeeding
      railway commission, before the desired low rates should be secured; that
      the present Board of Commissioners was only the beginning and that too
      great results were not expected from them. All this he contrived to
      mention casually, in the talk, as if it were a foregone conclusion, a
      matter understood by all.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the speech continued, the eyes of the ranchers around the table were
      fixed with growing attention upon this well-dressed, city-bred young man,
      who spoke so fluently and who told them of their own intentions. A feeling
      of perplexity began to spread, and the first taint of distrust invaded
      their minds.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But the good work has been most auspiciously inaugurated,&rdquo; continued
      Lyman. &ldquo;Reforms so sweeping as the one contemplated cannot be accomplished
      in a single night. Great things grow slowly, benefits to be permanent must
      accrue gradually. Yet, in spite of all this, your commissioners have done
      much. Already the phalanx of the enemy is pierced, already his armour is
      dinted. Pledged as were your commissioners to an average ten per cent.
      reduction in rates for the carriage of grain by the Pacific and
      Southwestern Railroad, we have rigidly adhered to the demands of our
      constituency, we have obeyed the People. The main problem has not yet been
      completely solved; that is for later, when we shall have gathered
      sufficient strength to attack the enemy in his very stronghold; BUT AN
      AVERAGE TEN PER CENT. CUT HAS BEEN MADE ALL OVER THE STATE. We have made a
      great advance, have taken a great step forward, and if the work is carried
      ahead, upon the lines laid down by the present commissioners and their
      constituents, there is every reason to believe that within a very few
      years equitable and stable rates for the shipment of grain from the San
      Joaquin Valley to Stockton, Port Costa, and tidewater will be permanently
      imposed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, hold on,&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter, out of order and ignoring the
      Governor's reproof, &ldquo;hasn't your commission reduced grain rates in the San
      Joaquin?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We have reduced grain rates by ten per cent. all over the State,&rdquo;
       rejoined Lyman. &ldquo;Here are copies of the new schedule.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He drew them from his valise and passed them around the table.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; he observed, &ldquo;the rate between Mayfield and Oakland, for
      instance, has been reduced by twenty-five cents a ton.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;but&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo; said old Broderson, &ldquo;it is rather
      unusual, isn't it, for wheat in that district to be sent to Oakland?&rdquo;
       &ldquo;Why, look here,&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter, looking up from the schedule, &ldquo;where
      is there any reduction in rates in the San Joaquin&mdash;from Bonneville
      and Guadalajara, for instance? I don't see as you've made any reduction at
      all. Is this right? Did you give me the right schedule?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Of course, ALL the points in the State could not be covered at once,&rdquo;
       returned Lyman. &ldquo;We never expected, you know, that we could cut rates in
      the San Joaquin the very first move; that is for later. But you will see
      we made very material reductions on shipments from the upper Sacramento
      Valley; also the rate from Ione to Marysville has been reduced eighty
      cents a ton.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, rot,&rdquo; cried Annixter, &ldquo;no one ever ships wheat that way.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The Salinas rate,&rdquo; continued Lyman, &ldquo;has been lowered seventy-five cents;
      the St. Helena rate fifty cents, and please notice the very drastic cut
      from Red Bluff, north, along the Oregon route, to the Oregon State Line.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where not a carload of wheat is shipped in a year,&rdquo; commented Gethings of
      the San Pablo.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you will find yourself mistaken there, Mr. Gethings,&rdquo; returned Lyman
      courteously. &ldquo;And for the matter of that, a low rate would stimulate
      wheat-production in that district.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The order of the meeting was broken up, neglected; Magnus did not even
      pretend to preside. In the growing excitement over the inexplicable
      schedule, routine was not thought of. Every one spoke at will.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, Lyman,&rdquo; demanded Magnus, looking across the table to his son, &ldquo;is
      this schedule correct? You have not cut rates in the San Joaquin at all.
      We&mdash;these gentlemen here and myself, we are no better off than we
      were before we secured your election as commissioner.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We were pledged to make an average ten per cent. cut, sir&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
       &ldquo;It IS an average ten per cent. cut,&rdquo; cried Osterman. &ldquo;Oh, yes, that's
      plain. It's an average ten per cent. cut all right, but you've made it by
      cutting grain rates between points where practically no grain is shipped.
      We, the wheat-growers in the San Joaquin, where all the wheat is grown,
      are right where we were before. The Railroad won't lose a nickel. By
      Jingo, boys,&rdquo; he glanced around the table, &ldquo;I'd like to know what this
      means.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The Railroad, if you come to that,&rdquo; returned Lyman, &ldquo;has already lodged a
      protest against the new rate.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter uttered a derisive shout.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A protest! That's good, that is. When the P. and S. W. objects to rates
      it don't 'protest,' m' son. The first you hear from Mr. Shelgrim is an
      injunction from the courts preventing the order for new rates from taking
      effect. By the Lord,&rdquo; he cried angrily, leaping to his feet, &ldquo;I would like
      to know what all this means, too. Why didn't you reduce our grain rates?
      What did we elect you for?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, what did we elect you for?&rdquo; demanded Osterman and Gethings, also
      getting to their feet.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Order, order, gentlemen,&rdquo; cried Magnus, remembering the duties of his
      office and rapping his knuckles on the table. &ldquo;This meeting has been
      allowed to degenerate too far already.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You elected us,&rdquo; declared Lyman doggedly, &ldquo;to make an average ten per
      cent. cut on grain rates. We have done it. Only because you don't benefit
      at once, you object. It makes a difference whose ox is gored, it seems.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lyman!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was Magnus who spoke. He had drawn himself to his full six feet. His
      eyes were flashing direct into his son's. His voice rang with severity.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lyman, what does this mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other spread out his hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As you see, sir. We have done our best. I warned you not to expect too
      much. I told you that this question of transportation was difficult. You
      would not wish to put rates so low that the action would amount to
      confiscation of property.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why did you not lower rates in the valley of the San Joaquin?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That was not a PROMINENT issue in the affair,&rdquo; responded Lyman, carefully
      emphasising his words. &ldquo;I understand, of course, it was to be approached
      IN TIME. The main point was AN AVERAGE TEN PER CENT. REDUCTION. Rates WILL
      be lowered in the San Joaquin. The ranchers around Bonneville will be able
      to ship to Port Costa at equitable rates, but so radical a measure as that
      cannot be put through in a turn of the hand. We must study&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You KNEW the San Joaquin rate was an issue,&rdquo; shouted Annixter, shaking
      his finger across the table. &ldquo;What do we men who backed you care about
      rates up in Del Norte and Siskiyou Counties? Not a whoop in hell. It was
      the San Joaquin rate we were fighting for, and we elected you to reduce
      that. You didn't do it and you don't intend to, and, by the Lord Harry, I
      want to know why.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You'll know, sir&mdash;&rdquo; began Lyman.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I'll tell you why,&rdquo; vociferated Osterman. &ldquo;I'll tell you why. It's
      because we have been sold out. It's because the P. and S. W. have had
      their spoon in this boiling. It's because our commissioners have betrayed
      us. It's because we're a set of damn fool farmers and have been cinched
      again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Lyman paled under his dark skin at the direct attack. He evidently had not
      expected this so soon. For the fraction of one instant he lost his poise.
      He strove to speak, but caught his breath, stammering.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What have you to say, then?&rdquo; cried Harran, who, until now, had not
      spoken.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have this to say,&rdquo; answered Lyman, making head as best he might, &ldquo;that
      this is no proper spirit in which to discuss business. The Commission has
      fulfilled its obligations. It has adjusted rates to the best of its
      ability. We have been at work for two months on the preparation of this
      schedule&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's a lie,&rdquo; shouted Annixter, his face scarlet; &ldquo;that's a lie. That
      schedule was drawn in the offices of the Pacific and Southwestern and you
      know it. It's a scheme of rates made for the Railroad and by the Railroad
      and you were bought over to put your name to it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a concerted outburst at the words. All the men in the room were
      on their feet, gesticulating and vociferating.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gentlemen, gentlemen,&rdquo; cried Magnus, &ldquo;are we schoolboys, are we ruffians
      of the street?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We're a set of fool farmers and we've been betrayed,&rdquo; cried Osterman.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, what have you to say? What have you to say?&rdquo; persisted Harran,
      leaning across the table toward his brother. &ldquo;For God's sake, Lyman,
      you've got SOME explanation.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You've misunderstood,&rdquo; protested Lyman, white and trembling. &ldquo;You've
      misunderstood. You've expected too much. Next year,&mdash;next year,&mdash;soon
      now, the Commission will take up the&mdash;the Commission will consider
      the San Joaquin rate. We've done our best, that is all.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Have you, sir?&rdquo; demanded Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Governor's head was in a whirl; a sensation, almost of faintness, had
      seized upon him. Was it possible? Was it possible?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Have you done your best?&rdquo; For a second he compelled Lyman's eye. The
      glances of father and son met, and, in spite of his best efforts, Lyman's
      eyes wavered. He began to protest once more, explaining the matter over
      again from the beginning. But Magnus did not listen. In that brief lapse
      of time he was convinced that the terrible thing had happened, that the
      unbelievable had come to pass. It was in the air. Between father and son,
      in some subtle fashion, the truth that was a lie stood suddenly revealed.
      But even then Magnus would not receive it. Lyman do this! His son, his
      eldest son, descend to this! Once more and for the last time he turned to
      him and in his voice there was that ring that compelled silence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lyman,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I adjure you&mdash;I&mdash;I demand of you as you are
      my son and an honourable man, explain yourself. What is there behind all
      this? It is no longer as Chairman of the Committee I speak to you, you a
      member of the Railroad Commission. It is your father who speaks, and I
      address you as my son. Do you understand the gravity of this crisis; do
      you realise the responsibility of your position; do you not see the
      importance of this moment? Explain yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There is nothing to explain.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You have not reduced rates in the San Joaquin? You have not reduced rates
      between Bonneville and tidewater?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I repeat, sir, what I said before. An average ten per cent. cut&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lyman, answer me, yes or no. Have you reduced the Bonneville rate?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It could not be done so soon. Give us time. We&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes or no! By God, sir, do you dare equivocate with me? Yes or no; have
      you reduced the Bonneville rate?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And answer ME,&rdquo; shouted Harran, leaning far across the table, &ldquo;answer ME.
      Were you paid by the Railroad to leave the San Joaquin rate untouched?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Lyman, whiter than ever, turned furious upon his brother.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't you dare put that question to me again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, I won't,&rdquo; cried Harran, &ldquo;because I'll TELL you to your villain's face
      that you WERE paid to do it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      On the instant the clamour burst forth afresh. Still on their feet, the
      ranchers had, little by little, worked around the table, Magnus alone
      keeping his place. The others were in a group before Lyman, crowding him,
      as it were, to the wall, shouting into his face with menacing gestures.
      The truth that was a lie, the certainty of a trust betrayed, a pledge
      ruthlessly broken, was plain to every one of them.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By the Lord! men have been shot for less than this,&rdquo; cried Osterman.
      &ldquo;You've sold us out, you, and if you ever bring that dago face of yours on
      a level with mine again, I'll slap it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Keep your hands off,&rdquo; exclaimed Lyman quickly, the aggressiveness of the
      cornered rat flaming up within him. &ldquo;No violence. Don't you go too far.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How much were you paid? How much were you paid?&rdquo; vociferated Harran.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes, what was your price?&rdquo; cried the others. They were beside
      themselves with anger; their words came harsh from between their set
      teeth; their gestures were made with their fists clenched.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You know the Commission acted in good faith,&rdquo; retorted Lyman. &ldquo;You know
      that all was fair and above board.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Liar,&rdquo; shouted Annixter; &ldquo;liar, bribe-eater. You were bought and paid
      for,&rdquo; and with the words his arm seemed almost of itself to leap out from
      his shoulder. Lyman received the blow squarely in the face and the force
      of it sent him staggering backwards toward the wall. He tripped over his
      valise and fell half way, his back supported against the closed door of
      the room. Magnus sprang forward. His son had been struck, and the
      instincts of a father rose up in instant protest; rose for a moment, then
      forever died away in his heart. He checked the words that flashed to his
      mind. He lowered his upraised arm. No, he had but one son. The poor,
      staggering creature with the fine clothes, white face, and blood-streaked
      lips was no longer his. A blow could not dishonour him more than he had
      dishonoured himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Gethings, the older man, intervened, pulling Annixter back, crying:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stop, this won't do. Not before his father.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am no father to this man, gentlemen,&rdquo; exclaimed Magnus. &ldquo;From now on, I
      have but one son. You, sir,&rdquo; he turned to Lyman, &ldquo;you, sir, leave my
      house.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Lyman, his handkerchief to his lips, his smart cravat in disarray, caught
      up his hat and coat. He was shaking with fury, his protruding eyes were
      blood-shot. He swung open the door.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ruffians,&rdquo; he shouted from the threshold, &ldquo;ruffians, bullies. Do your own
      dirty business yourselves after this. I'm done with you. How is it, all of
      a sudden you talk about honour? How is it that all at once you're so clean
      and straight? You weren't so particular at Sacramento just before the
      nominations. How was the Board elected? I'm a bribe-eater, am I? Is it any
      worse than GIVING a bribe? Ask Magnus Derrick what he thinks about that.
      Ask him how much he paid the Democratic bosses at Sacramento to swing the
      convention.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He went out, slamming the door.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley followed. The whole affair made him sick at heart, filled him with
      infinite disgust, infinite weariness. He wished to get away from it all.
      He left the dining-room and the excited, clamouring men behind him and
      stepped out on the porch of the ranch house, closing the door behind him.
      Lyman was nowhere in sight. Presley was alone. It was late, and after the
      lamp-heated air of the dining-room, the coolness of the night was
      delicious, and its vast silence, after the noise and fury of the committee
      meeting, descended from the stars like a benediction. Presley stepped to
      the edge of the porch, looking off to southward.
    </p>
    <p>
      And there before him, mile after mile, illimitable, covering the earth
      from horizon to horizon, lay the Wheat. The growth, now many days old, was
      already high from the ground. There it lay, a vast, silent ocean,
      shimmering a pallid green under the moon and under the stars; a mighty
      force, the strength of nations, the life of the world. There in the night,
      under the dome of the sky, it was growing steadily. To Presley's mind, the
      scene in the room he had just left dwindled to paltry insignificance
      before this sight. Ah, yes, the Wheat&mdash;it was over this that the
      Railroad, the ranchers, the traitor false to his trust, all the members of
      an obscure conspiracy, were wrangling. As if human agency could affect
      this colossal power! What were these heated, tiny squabbles, this
      feverish, small bustle of mankind, this minute swarming of the human
      insect, to the great, majestic, silent ocean of the Wheat itself!
      Indifferent, gigantic, resistless, it moved in its appointed grooves. Men,
      Liliputians, gnats in the sunshine, buzzed impudently in their tiny
      battles, were born, lived through their little day, died, and were
      forgotten; while the Wheat, wrapped in Nirvanic calm, grew steadily under
      the night, alone with the stars and with God.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER V.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Jack-rabbits were a pest that year and Presley occasionally found
      amusement in hunting them with Harran's half-dozen greyhounds, following
      the chase on horseback. One day, between two and three months after Lyman
      s visit to Los Muertos, as he was returning toward the ranch house from a
      distant and lonely quarter of Los Muertos, he came unexpectedly upon a
      strange sight.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some twenty men, Annixter's and Osterman's tenants, and small ranchers
      from east of Guadalajara&mdash;all members of the League&mdash;were going
      through the manual of arms under Harran Derrick's supervision. They were
      all equipped with new Winchester rifles. Harran carried one of these
      himself and with it he illustrated the various commands he gave. As soon
      as one of the men under his supervision became more than usually
      proficient, he was told off to instruct a file of the more backward. After
      the manual of arms, Harran gave the command to take distance as
      skirmishers, and when the line had opened out so that some half-dozen feet
      intervened between each man, an advance was made across the field, the men
      stooping low and snapping the hammers of their rifles at an imaginary
      enemy.
    </p>
    <p>
      The League had its agents in San Francisco, who watched the movements of
      the Railroad as closely as was possible, and some time before this,
      Annixter had received word that the Marshal and his deputies were coming
      down to Bonneville to put the dummy buyers of his ranch in possession. The
      report proved to be but the first of many false alarms, but it had
      stimulated the League to unusual activity, and some three or four hundred
      men were furnished with arms and from time to time were drilled in secret.
    </p>
    <p>
      Among themselves, the ranchers said that if the Railroad managers did not
      believe they were terribly in earnest in the stand they had taken, they
      were making a fatal mistake.
    </p>
    <p>
      Harran reasserted this statement to Presley on the way home to the ranch
      house that same day. Harran had caught up with him by the time he reached
      the Lower Road, and the two jogged homeward through the miles of standing
      wheat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They may jump the ranch, Pres,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if they try hard enough, but
      they will never do it while I am alive. By the way,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;you know
      we served notices yesterday upon S. Behrman and Cy. Ruggles to quit the
      country. Of course, they won't do it, but they won't be able to say they
      didn't have warning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      About an hour later, the two reached the ranch house, but as Harran rode
      up the driveway, he uttered an exclamation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;something is up. That's Genslinger's buckboard.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In fact, the editor's team was tied underneath the shade of a giant
      eucalyptus tree near by. Harran, uneasy under this unexpected visit of the
      enemy's friend, dismounted without stabling his horse, and went at once to
      the dining-room, where visitors were invariably received. But the
      dining-room was empty, and his mother told him that Magnus and the editor
      were in the &ldquo;office.&rdquo; Magnus had said they were not to be disturbed.
    </p>
    <p>
      Earlier in the afternoon, the editor had driven up to the porch and had
      asked Mrs. Derrick, whom he found reading a book of poems on the porch, if
      he could see Magnus. At the time, the Governor had gone with Phelps to
      inspect the condition of the young wheat on Hooven's holding, but within
      half an hour he returned, and Genslinger had asked him for a &ldquo;few moments'
      talk in private.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The two went into the &ldquo;office,&rdquo; Magnus locking the door behind him. &ldquo;Very
      complete you are here, Governor,&rdquo; observed the editor in his alert, jerky
      manner, his black, bead-like eyes twinkling around the room from behind
      his glasses. &ldquo;Telephone, safe, ticker, account-books&mdash;well, that's
      progress, isn't it? Only way to manage a big ranch these days. But the day
      of the big ranch is over. As the land appreciates in value, the temptation
      to sell off small holdings will be too strong. And then the small holding
      can be cultivated to better advantage. I shall have an editorial on that
      some day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The cost of maintaining a number of small holdings,&rdquo; said Magnus,
      indifferently, &ldquo;is, of course, greater than if they were all under one
      management.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That may be, that may be,&rdquo; rejoined the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a long pause. Genslinger leaned back in his chair and rubbed a
      knee. Magnus, standing erect in front of the safe, waited for him to
      speak.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is an unfortunate business, Governor,&rdquo; began the editor, &ldquo;this
      misunderstanding between the ranchers and the Railroad. I wish it could be
      adjusted. HERE are two industries that MUST be in harmony with one
      another, or we all go to pot.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I should prefer not to be interviewed on the subject, Mr. Genslinger,&rdquo;
       said Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, no, oh, no. Lord love you, Governor, I don't want to interview you.
      We all know how you stand.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Again there was a long silence. Magnus wondered what this little man,
      usually so garrulous, could want of him. At length, Genslinger began
      again. He did not look at Magnus, except at long intervals.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;About the present Railroad Commission,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;That was an
      interesting campaign you conducted in Sacramento and San Francisco.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus held his peace, his hands shut tight. Did Genslinger know of
      Lyman's disgrace? Was it for this he had come? Would the story of it be
      the leading article in to-morrow's Mercury?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;An interesting campaign,&rdquo; repeated Genslinger, slowly; &ldquo;a very
      interesting campaign. I watched it with every degree of interest. I saw
      its every phase, Mr. Derrick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The campaign was not without its interest,&rdquo; admitted Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Genslinger, still more deliberately, &ldquo;and some phases of it
      were&mdash;more interesting than others, as, for instance, let us say the
      way in which you&mdash;personally&mdash;secured the votes of certain
      chairmen of delegations&mdash;NEED I particularise further? Yes, those men&mdash;the
      way you got their votes. Now, THAT I should say, Mr. Derrick, was the most
      interesting move in the whole game&mdash;to you. Hm, curious,&rdquo; he
      murmured, musingly. &ldquo;Let's see. You deposited two one-thousand dollar
      bills and four five-hundred dollar bills in a box&mdash;three hundred and
      eight was the number&mdash;in a box in the Safety Deposit Vaults in San
      Francisco, and then&mdash;let's see, you gave a key to this box to each of
      the gentlemen in question, and after the election the box was empty. Now,
      I call that interesting&mdash;curious, because it's a new, safe, and
      highly ingenious method of bribery. How did you happen to think of it,
      Governor?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you know what you are doing, sir?&rdquo; Magnus burst forth. &ldquo;Do you know
      what you are insinuating, here, in my own house?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, Governor,&rdquo; returned the editor, blandly, &ldquo;I'm not INSINUATING
      anything. I'm talking about what I KNOW.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's a lie.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Genslinger rubbed his chin reflectively.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;you can have a chance to prove it before the Grand
      Jury, if you want to.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My character is known all over the State,&rdquo; blustered Magnus. &ldquo;My politics
      are pure politics. My&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No one needs a better reputation for pure politics than the man who sets
      out to be a briber,&rdquo; interrupted Genslinger, &ldquo;and I might as well tell
      you, Governor, that you can't shout me down. I can put my hand on the two
      chairmen you bought before it's dark to-day. I've had their depositions in
      my safe for the last six weeks. We could make the arrests to-morrow, if we
      wanted. Governor, you sure did a risky thing when you went into that
      Sacramento fight, an awful risky thing. Some men can afford to have
      bribery charges preferred against them, and it don't hurt one little bit,
      but YOU&mdash;Lord, it would BUST you, Governor, bust you dead. I know all
      about the whole shananigan business from A to Z, and if you don't believe
      it&mdash;here,&rdquo; he drew a long strip of paper from his pocket, &ldquo;here's a
      galley proof of the story.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus took it in his hands. There, under his eyes, scare-headed,
      double-leaded, the more important clauses printed in bold type, was the
      detailed account of the &ldquo;deal&rdquo; Magnus had made with the two delegates. It
      was pitiless, remorseless, bald. Every statement was substantiated, every
      statistic verified with Genslinger's meticulous love for exactness.
      Besides all that, it had the ring of truth. It was exposure, ruin,
      absolute annihilation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's about correct, isn't it?&rdquo; commented Genslinger, as Derrick
      finished reading. Magnus did not reply. &ldquo;I think it is correct enough,&rdquo;
       the editor continued. &ldquo;But I thought it would only be fair to you to let
      you see it before it was published.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The one thought uppermost in Derrick's mind, his one impulse of the moment
      was, at whatever cost, to preserve his dignity, not to allow this man to
      exult in the sight of one quiver of weakness, one trace of defeat, one
      suggestion of humiliation. By an effort that put all his iron rigidity to
      the test, he forced himself to look straight into Genslinger's eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I congratulate you,&rdquo; he observed, handing back the proof, &ldquo;upon your
      journalistic enterprise. Your paper will sell to-morrow.&rdquo; &ldquo;Oh, I don't
      know as I want to publish this story,&rdquo; remarked the editor, indifferently,
      putting away the galley. &ldquo;I'm just like that. The fun for me is running a
      good story to earth, but once I've got it, I lose interest. And, then, I
      wouldn't like to see you&mdash;holding the position you do, President of
      the League and a leading man of the county&mdash;I wouldn't like to see a
      story like this smash you over. It's worth more to you to keep it out of
      print than for me to put it in. I've got nothing much to gain but a few
      extra editions, but you&mdash;Lord, you would lose everything. Your
      committee was in the deal right enough. But your League, all the San
      Joaquin Valley, everybody in the State believes the commissioners were
      fairly elected.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your story,&rdquo; suddenly exclaimed Magnus, struck with an idea, &ldquo;will be
      thoroughly discredited just so soon as the new grain tariff is published.
      I have means of knowing that the San Joaquin rate&mdash;the issue upon
      which the board was elected&mdash;is not to be touched. Is it likely the
      ranchers would secure the election of a board that plays them false?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, we know all about that,&rdquo; answered Genslinger, smiling. &ldquo;You thought
      you were electing Lyman easily. You thought you had got the Railroad to
      walk right into your trap. You didn't understand how you could pull off
      your deal so easily. Why, Governor, LYMAN WAS PLEDGED TO THE RAILROAD TWO
      YEARS AGO. He was THE ONE PARTICULAR man the corporation wanted for
      commissioner. And your people elected him&mdash;saved the Railroad all the
      trouble of campaigning for him. And you can't make any counter charge of
      bribery there. No, sir, the corporation don't use such amateurish methods
      as that. Confidentially and between us two, all that the Railroad has done
      for Lyman, in order to attach him to their interests, is to promise to
      back him politically in the next campaign for Governor. It's too bad,&rdquo; he
      continued, dropping his voice, and changing his position. &ldquo;It really is
      too bad to see good men trying to bunt a stone wall over with their bare
      heads. You couldn't have won at any stage of the game. I wish I could have
      talked to you and your friends before you went into that Sacramento fight.
      I could have told you then how little chance you had. When will you people
      realise that you can't buck against the Railroad? Why, Magnus, it's like
      me going out in a paper boat and shooting peas at a battleship.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is that all you wished to see me about, Mr. Genslinger?&rdquo; remarked Magnus,
      bestirring himself. &ldquo;I am rather occupied to-day.&rdquo; &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; returned the
      other, &ldquo;you know what the publication of this article would mean for you.&rdquo;
       He paused again, took off his glasses, breathed on them, polished the
      lenses with his handkerchief and readjusted them on his nose. &ldquo;I've been
      thinking, Governor,&rdquo; he began again, with renewed alertness, and quite
      irrelevantly, &ldquo;of enlarging the scope of the 'Mercury.' You see, I'm
      midway between the two big centres of the State, San Francisco and Los
      Angeles, and I want to extend the 'Mercury's' sphere of influence as far
      up and down the valley as I can. I want to illustrate the paper. You see,
      if I had a photo-engraving plant of my own, I could do a good deal of
      outside jobbing as well, and the investment would pay ten per cent. But it
      takes money to make money. I wouldn't want to put in any dinky, one-horse
      affair. I want a good plant. I've been figuring out the business. Besides
      the plant, there would be the expense of a high grade paper. Can't print
      half-tones on anything but coated paper, and that COSTS. Well, what with
      this and with that and running expenses till the thing began to pay, it
      would cost me about ten thousand dollars, and I was wondering if, perhaps,
      you couldn't see your way clear to accommodating me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ten thousand?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. Say five thousand down, and the balance within sixty days.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus, for the moment blind to what Genslinger had in mind, turned on him
      in astonishment.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, man, what security could you give me for such an amount?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, to tell the truth,&rdquo; answered the editor, &ldquo;I hadn't thought much
      about securities. In fact, I believed you would see how greatly it was to
      your advantage to talk business with me. You see, I'm not going to print
      this article about you, Governor, and I'm not going to let it get out so
      as any one else can print it, and it seems to me that one good turn
      deserves another. You understand?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus understood. An overwhelming desire suddenly took possession of him
      to grip this blackmailer by the throat, to strangle him where he stood;
      or, if not, at least to turn upon him with that old-time terrible anger,
      before which whole conventions had once cowered. But in the same moment
      the Governor realised this was not to be. Only its righteousness had made
      his wrath terrible; only the justice of his anger had made him feared. Now
      the foundation was gone from under his feet; he had knocked it away
      himself. Three times feeble was he whose quarrel was unjust. Before this
      country editor, this paid speaker of the Railroad, he stood, convicted.
      The man had him at his mercy. The detected briber could not resent an
      insult. Genslinger rose, smoothing his hat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;of course, you want time to think it over, and you can't
      raise money like that on short notice. I'll wait till Friday noon of this
      week. We begin to set Saturday's paper at about four, Friday afternoon,
      and the forms are locked about two in the morning. I hope,&rdquo; he added,
      turning back at the door of the room, &ldquo;that you won't find anything
      disagreeable in your Saturday morning 'Mercury,' Mr. Derrick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He went out, closing the door behind him, and in a moment, Magnus heard
      the wheels of his buckboard grating on the driveway.
    </p>
    <p>
      The following morning brought a letter to Magnus from Gethings, of the San
      Pueblo ranch, which was situated very close to Visalia. The letter was to
      the effect that all around Visalia, upon the ranches affected by the
      regrade of the Railroad, men were arming and drilling, and that the
      strength of the League in that quarter was undoubted. &ldquo;But to refer,&rdquo;
       continued the letter, &ldquo;to a most painful recollection. You will, no doubt,
      remember that, at the close of our last committee meeting, specific
      charges were made as to fraud in the nomination and election of one of our
      commissioners, emanating, most unfortunately, from the commissioner
      himself. These charges, my dear Mr. Derrick, were directed at yourself.
      How the secrets of the committee have been noised about, I cannot
      understand. You may be, of course, assured of my own unquestioning
      confidence and loyalty. However, I regret exceedingly to state not only
      that the rumour of the charges referred to above is spreading in this
      district, but that also they are made use of by the enemies of the League.
      It is to be deplored that some of the Leaguers themselves&mdash;you know,
      we number in our ranks many small farmers, ignorant Portuguese and
      foreigners&mdash;have listened to these stories and have permitted a
      feeling of uneasiness to develop among them. Even though it were admitted
      that fraudulent means had been employed in the elections, which, of
      course, I personally do not admit, I do not think it would make very much
      difference in the confidence which the vast majority of the Leaguers
      repose in their chiefs. Yet we have so insisted upon the probity of our
      position as opposed to Railroad chicanery, that I believe it advisable to
      quell this distant suspicion at once; to publish a denial of these
      rumoured charges would only be to give them too much importance. However,
      can you not write me a letter, stating exactly how the campaign was
      conducted, and the commission nominated and elected? I could show this to
      some of the more disaffected, and it would serve to allay all suspicion on
      the instant. I think it would be well to write as though the initiative
      came, not from me, but from yourself, ignoring this present letter. I
      offer this only as a suggestion, and will confidently endorse any decision
      you may arrive at.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The letter closed with renewed protestations of confidence.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus was alone when he read this. He put it carefully away in the filing
      cabinet in his office, and wiped the sweat from his forehead and face. He
      stood for one moment, his hands rigid at his sides, his fists clinched.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is piling up,&rdquo; he muttered, looking blankly at the opposite wall.
      &ldquo;My God, this is piling up. What am I to do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ah, the bitterness of unavailing regret, the anguish of compromise with
      conscience, the remorse of a bad deed done in a moment of excitement. Ah,
      the humiliation of detection, the degradation of being caught, caught like
      a schoolboy pilfering his fellows' desks, and, worse than all, worse than
      all, the consciousness of lost self-respect, the knowledge of a prestige
      vanishing, a dignity impaired, knowledge that the grip which held a
      multitude in check was trembling, that control was wavering, that command
      was being weakened. Then the little tricks to deceive the crowd, the
      little subterfuges, the little pretences that kept up appearances, the
      lies, the bluster, the pose, the strut, the gasconade, where once was iron
      authority; the turning of the head so as not to see that which could not
      be prevented; the suspicion of suspicion, the haunting fear of the Man on
      the Street, the uneasiness of the direct glance, the questioning as to
      motives&mdash;why had this been said, what was meant by that word, that
      gesture, that glance?
    </p>
    <p>
      Wednesday passed, and Thursday. Magnus kept to himself, seeing no
      visitors, avoiding even his family. How to break through the mesh of the
      net, how to regain the old position, how to prevent discovery? If there
      were only some way, some vast, superhuman effort by which he could rise in
      his old strength once more, crushing Lyman with one hand, Genslinger with
      the other, and for one more moment, the last, to stand supreme again,
      indomitable, the leader; then go to his death, triumphant at the end, his
      memory untarnished, his fame undimmed. But the plague-spot was in himself,
      knitted forever into the fabric of his being. Though Genslinger should be
      silenced, though Lyman should be crushed, though even the League should
      overcome the Railroad, though he should be the acknowledged leader of a
      resplendent victory, yet the plague-spot would remain. There was no
      success for him now. However conspicuous the outward achievement, he, he
      himself, Magnus Derrick, had failed, miserably and irredeemably.
    </p>
    <p>
      Petty, material complications intruded, sordid considerations. Even if
      Genslinger was to be paid, where was the money to come from? His legal
      battles with the Railroad, extending now over a period of many years, had
      cost him dear; his plan of sowing all of Los Muertos to wheat, discharging
      the tenants, had proved expensive, the campaign resulting in Lyman's
      election had drawn heavily upon his account. All along he had been relying
      upon a &ldquo;bonanza crop&rdquo; to reimburse him. It was not believable that the
      Railroad would &ldquo;jump&rdquo; Los Muertos, but if this should happen, he would be
      left without resources. Ten thousand dollars! Could he raise the amount?
      Possibly. But to pay it out to a blackmailer! To be held up thus in
      road-agent fashion, without a single means of redress! Would it not
      cripple him financially? Genslinger could do his worst. He, Magnus, would
      brave it out. Was not his character above suspicion?
    </p>
    <p>
      Was it? This letter of Gethings's. Already the murmur of uneasiness made
      itself heard. Was this not the thin edge of the wedge? How the publication
      of Genslinger's story would drive it home! How the spark of suspicion
      would flare into the blaze of open accusation! There would be
      investigations. Investigation! There was terror in the word. He could not
      stand investigation. Magnus groaned aloud, covering his head with his
      clasped hands. Briber, corrupter of government, ballot-box stuffer,
      descending to the level of back-room politicians, of bar-room heelers, he,
      Magnus Derrick, statesman of the old school, Roman in his iron integrity,
      abandoning a career rather than enter the &ldquo;new politics,&rdquo; had, in one
      moment of weakness, hazarding all, even honour, on a single stake, taking
      great chances to achieve great results, swept away the work of a lifetime.
    </p>
    <p>
      Gambler that he was, he had at last chanced his highest stake, his
      personal honour, in the greatest game of his life, and had lost.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was Presley's morbidly keen observation that first noticed the evidence
      of a new trouble in the Governor's face and manner. Presley was sure that
      Lyman's defection had not so upset him. The morning after the committee
      meeting, Magnus had called Harran and Annie Derrick into the office, and,
      after telling his wife of Lyman's betrayal, had forbidden either of them
      to mention his name again. His attitude towards his prodigal son was that
      of stern, unrelenting resentment. But now, Presley could not fail to
      detect traces of a more deep-seated travail. Something was in the wind,
      the times were troublous. What next was about to happen? What fresh
      calamity impended?
    </p>
    <p>
      One morning, toward the very end of the week, Presley woke early in his
      small, white-painted iron bed. He hastened to get up and dress. There was
      much to be done that day. Until late the night before, he had been at work
      on a collection of some of his verses, gathered from the magazines in
      which they had first appeared. Presley had received a liberal offer for
      the publication of these verses in book form. &ldquo;The Toilers&rdquo; was to be
      included in this book, and, indeed, was to give it its name&mdash;&ldquo;The
      Toilers and Other Poems.&rdquo; Thus it was that, until the previous midnight,
      he had been preparing the collection for publication, revising,
      annotating, arranging. The book was to be sent off that morning.
    </p>
    <p>
      But also Presley had received a typewritten note from Annixter, inviting
      him to Quien Sabe that same day. Annixter explained that it was Hilma's
      birthday, and that he had planned a picnic on the high ground of his
      ranch, at the headwaters of Broderson Creek. They were to go in the
      carry-all, Hilma, Presley, Mrs. Dyke, Sidney, and himself, and were to
      make a day of it. They would leave Quien Sabe at ten in the morning.
      Presley had at once resolved to go. He was immensely fond of Annixter&mdash;more
      so than ever since his marriage with Hilma and the astonishing
      transformation of his character. Hilma, as well, was delightful as Mrs.
      Annixter; and Mrs. Dyke and the little tad had always been his friends. He
      would have a good time.
    </p>
    <p>
      But nobody was to go into Bonneville that morning with the mail, and if he
      wished to send his manuscript, he would have to take it in himself. He had
      resolved to do this, getting an early start, and going on horseback to
      Quien Sabe, by way of Bonneville.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was barely six o'clock when Presley sat down to his coffee and eggs in
      the dining-room of Los Muertos. The day promised to be hot, and for the
      first time, Presley had put on a new khaki riding suit, very
      English-looking, though in place of the regulation top-boots, he wore his
      laced knee-boots, with a great spur on the left heel. Harran joined him at
      breakfast, in his working clothes of blue canvas. He was bound for the
      irrigating ditch to see how the work was getting on there.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How is the wheat looking?&rdquo; asked Presley.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Bully,&rdquo; answered the other, stirring his coffee. &ldquo;The Governor has had
      his usual luck. Practically, every acre of the ranch was sown to wheat,
      and everywhere the stand is good. I was over on Two, day before yesterday,
      and if nothing happens, I believe it will go thirty sacks to the acre
      there. Cutter reports that there are spots on Four where we will get
      forty-two or three. Hooven, too, brought up some wonderful fine ears for
      me to look at. The grains were just beginning to show. Some of the ears
      carried twenty grains. That means nearly forty bushels of wheat to every
      acre. I call it a bonanza year.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Have you got any mail?&rdquo; said Presley, rising. &ldquo;I'm going into town.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran shook his head, and took himself away, and Presley went down to the
      stable-corral to get his pony.
    </p>
    <p>
      As he rode out of the stable-yard and passed by the ranch house, on the
      driveway, he was surprised to see Magnus on the lowest step of the porch.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good morning, Governor,&rdquo; called Presley. &ldquo;Aren't you up pretty early?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good morning, Pres, my boy.&rdquo; The Governor came forward and, putting his
      hand on the pony's withers, walked along by his side.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Going to town, Pres?&rdquo; he asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir. Can I do anything for you, Governor?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus drew a sealed envelope from his pocket.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I wish you would drop in at the office of the Mercury for me,&rdquo; he said,
      &ldquo;and see Mr. Genslinger personally, and give him this envelope. It is a
      package of papers, but they involve a considerable sum of money, and you
      must be careful of them. A few years ago, when our enmity was not so
      strong, Mr. Genslinger and I had some business dealings with each other. I
      thought it as well just now, considering that we are so openly opposed, to
      terminate the whole affair, and break off relations. We came to a
      settlement a few days ago. These are the final papers. They must be given
      to him in person, Presley. You understand.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley cantered on, turning into the county road and holding northward by
      the mammoth watering tank and Broderson's popular windbreak. As he passed
      Caraher's, he saw the saloon-keeper in the doorway of his place, and waved
      him a salutation which the other returned.
    </p>
    <p>
      By degrees, Presley had come to consider Caraher in a more favourable
      light. He found, to his immense astonishment, that Caraher knew something
      of Mill and Bakounin, not, however, from their books, but from extracts
      and quotations from their writings, reprinted in the anarchistic journals
      to which he subscribed. More than once, the two had held long
      conversations, and from Caraher's own lips, Presley heard the terrible
      story of the death of his wife, who had been accidentally killed by
      Pinkertons during a &ldquo;demonstration&rdquo; of strikers. It invested the
      saloon-keeper, in Presley's imagination, with all the dignity of the
      tragedy. He could not blame Caraher for being a &ldquo;red.&rdquo; He even wondered
      how it was the saloon-keeper had not put his theories into practice, and
      adjusted his ancient wrong with his &ldquo;six inches of plugged gas-pipe.&rdquo;
       Presley began to conceive of the man as a &ldquo;character.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You wait, Mr. Presley,&rdquo; the saloon-keeper had once said, when Presley had
      protested against his radical ideas. &ldquo;You don't know the Railroad yet.
      Watch it and its doings long enough, and you'll come over to my way of
      thinking, too.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was about half-past seven when Presley reached Bonneville. The business
      part of the town was as yet hardly astir; he despatched his manuscript,
      and then hurried to the office of the &ldquo;Mercury.&rdquo; Genslinger, as he feared,
      had not yet put in appearance, but the janitor of the building gave
      Presley the address of the editor's residence, and it was there he found
      him in the act of sitting down to breakfast. Presley was hardly courteous
      to the little man, and abruptly refused his offer of a drink. He delivered
      Magnus's envelope to him and departed.
    </p>
    <p>
      It had occurred to him that it would not do to present himself at Quien
      Sabe on Hilma's birthday, empty-handed, and, on leaving Genslinger's
      house, he turned his pony's head toward the business part of the town
      again pulling up in front of the jeweller's, just as the clerk was taking
      down the shutters.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the jeweller's, he purchased a little brooch for Hilma and at the cigar
      stand in the lobby of the Yosemite House, a box of superfine cigars,
      which, when it was too late, he realised that the master of Quien Sabe
      would never smoke, holding, as he did, with defiant inconsistency, to
      miserable weeds, black, bitter, and flagrantly doctored, which he bought,
      three for a nickel, at Guadalajara.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley arrived at Quien Sabe nearly half an hour behind the appointed
      time; but, as he had expected, the party were in no way ready to start.
      The carry-all, its horses covered with white fly-nets, stood under a tree
      near the house, young Vacca dozing on the seat. Hilma and Sidney, the
      latter exuberant with a gayety that all but brought the tears to Presley's
      eyes, were making sandwiches on the back porch. Mrs. Dyke was nowhere to
      be seen, and Annixter was shaving himself in his bedroom.
    </p>
    <p>
      This latter put a half-lathered face out of the window as Presley cantered
      through the gate, and waved his razor with a beckoning motion.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come on in, Pres,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Nobody's ready yet. You're hours ahead of
      time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley came into the bedroom, his huge spur clinking on the straw
      matting. Annixter was without coat, vest or collar, his blue silk
      suspenders hung in loops over either hip, his hair was disordered, the
      crown lock stiffer than ever.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Glad to see you, old boy,&rdquo; he announced, as Presley came in. &ldquo;No, don't
      shake hands, I'm all lather. Here, find a chair, will you? I won't be
      long.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I thought you said ten o'clock,&rdquo; observed Presley, sitting down on the
      edge of the bed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I did, but&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, then again, in a way, you didn't, hey?&rdquo; his friend interrupted.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter grunted good-humouredly, and turned to strop his razor. Presley
      looked with suspicious disfavour at his suspenders.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why is it,&rdquo; he observed, &ldquo;that as soon as a man is about to get married,
      he buys himself pale blue suspenders, silk ones? Think of it. You, Buck
      Annixter, with sky-blue, silk suspenders. It ought to be a strap and a
      nail.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Old fool,&rdquo; observed Annixter, whose repartee was the heaving of brick
      bats. &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; he continued, holding the razor from his face, and jerking
      his head over his shoulder, while he looked at Presley's reflection in his
      mirror; &ldquo;say, look around. Isn't this a nifty little room? We refitted the
      whole house, you know. Notice she's all painted?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have been looking around,&rdquo; answered Presley, sweeping the room with a
      series of glances. He forebore criticism. Annixter was so boyishly proud
      of the effect that it would have been unkind to have undeceived him.
      Presley looked at the marvellous, department-store bed of brass, with its
      brave, gay canopy; the mill-made wash-stand, with its pitcher and bowl of
      blinding red and green china, the straw-framed lithographs of symbolic
      female figures against the multi-coloured, new wall-paper; the inadequate
      spindle chairs of white and gold; the sphere of tissue paper hanging from
      the gas fixture, and the plumes of pampas grass tacked to the wall at
      artistic angles, and overhanging two astonishing oil paintings, in
      dazzling golden frames.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, how about those paintings, Pres?&rdquo; inquired Annixter a little
      uneasily. &ldquo;I don't know whether they're good or not. They were painted by
      a three-fingered Chinaman in Monterey, and I got the lot for thirty
      dollars, frames thrown in. Why, I think the frames alone are worth thirty
      dollars.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, so do I,&rdquo; declared Presley. He hastened to change the subject.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Buck,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I hear you've brought Mrs. Dyke and Sidney to live with
      you. You know, I think that's rather white of you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, rot, Pres,&rdquo; muttered Annixter, turning abruptly to his shaving.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And you can't fool me, either, old man,&rdquo; Presley continued. &ldquo;You're
      giving this picnic as much for Mrs. Dyke and the little tad as you are for
      your wife, just to cheer them up a bit.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, pshaw, you make me sick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that's the right thing to do, Buck, and I'm as glad for your sake
      as I am for theirs. There was a time when you would have let them all go
      to grass, and never so much as thought of them. I don't want to seem to be
      officious, but you've changed for the better, old man, and I guess I know
      why. She&mdash;&rdquo; Presley caught his friend's eye, and added gravely,
      &ldquo;She's a good woman, Buck.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter turned around abruptly, his face flushing under its lather.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pres,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;she's made a man of me. I was a machine before, and
      if another man, or woman, or child got in my way, I rode 'em down, and I
      never DREAMED of anybody else but myself. But as soon as I woke up to the
      fact that I really loved her, why, it was glory hallelujah all in a
      minute, and, in a way, I kind of loved everybody then, and wanted to be
      everybody's friend. And I began to see that a fellow can't live FOR
      himself any more than he can live BY himself. He's got to think of others.
      If he's got brains, he's got to think for the poor ducks that haven't 'em,
      and not give 'em a boot in the backsides because they happen to be stupid;
      and if he's got money, he's got to help those that are busted, and if he's
      got a house, he's got to think of those that ain't got anywhere to go.
      I've got a whole lot of ideas since I began to love Hilma, and just as
      soon as I can, I'm going to get in and HELP people, and I'm going to keep
      to that idea the rest of my natural life. That ain't much of a religion,
      but it's the best I've got, and Henry Ward Beecher couldn't do any more
      than that. And it's all come about because of Hilma, and because we cared
      for each other.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley jumped up, and caught Annixter about the shoulders with one arm,
      gripping his hand hard. This absurd figure, with dangling silk suspenders,
      lathered chin, and tearful eyes, seemed to be suddenly invested with true
      nobility. Beside this blundering struggle to do right, to help his
      fellows, Presley's own vague schemes, glittering systems of
      reconstruction, collapsed to ruin, and he himself, with all his
      refinement, with all his poetry, culture, and education, stood, a bungler
      at the world's workbench.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You're all RIGHT, old man,&rdquo; he exclaimed, unable to think of anything
      adequate. &ldquo;You're all right. That's the way to talk, and here, by the way,
      I brought you a box of cigars.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter stared as Presley laid the box on the edge of the washstand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Old fool,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;what in hell did you do that for?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, just for fun.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose they're rotten stinkodoras, or you wouldn't give 'em away.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This cringing gratitude&mdash;&rdquo; Presley began.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shut up,&rdquo; shouted Annixter, and the incident was closed.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter resumed his shaving, and Presley lit a cigarette.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Any news from Washington?&rdquo; he queried.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nothing that's any good,&rdquo; grunted Annixter. &ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; he added, raising
      his head, &ldquo;there's somebody in a hurry for sure.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The noise of a horse galloping so fast that the hoof-beats sounded in one
      uninterrupted rattle, abruptly made itself heard. The noise was coming
      from the direction of the road that led from the Mission to Quien Sabe.
      With incredible swiftness, the hoof-beats drew nearer. There was that in
      their sound which brought Presley to his feet. Annixter threw open the
      window.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Runaway,&rdquo; exclaimed Presley.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, with thoughts of the Railroad, and the &ldquo;Jumping&rdquo; of the ranch,
      flung his hand to his hip pocket.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is it, Vacca?&rdquo; he cried.
    </p>
    <p>
      Young Vacca, turning in his seat in the carryall, was looking up the road.
      All at once, he jumped from his place, and dashed towards the window.
      &ldquo;Dyke,&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Dyke, it's Dyke.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      While the words were yet in his mouth, the sound of the hoof-beats rose to
      a roar, and a great, bell-toned voice shouted:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Annixter, Annixter, Annixter!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was Dyke's voice, and the next instant he shot into view in the open
      square in front of the house.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, my God!&rdquo; cried Presley.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ex-engineer threw the horse on its haunches, springing from the
      saddle; and, as he did so, the beast collapsed, shuddering, to the ground.
      Annixter sprang from the window, and ran forward, Presley following.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was Dyke, hatless, his pistol in his hand, a gaunt terrible figure
      the beard immeasurably long, the cheeks fallen in, the eyes sunken. His
      clothes ripped and torn by weeks of flight and hiding in the chaparral,
      were ragged beyond words, the boots were shreds of leather, bloody to the
      ankle with furious spurring.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Annixter,&rdquo; he shouted, and again, rolling his sunken eyes, &ldquo;Annixter,
      Annixter!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here, here,&rdquo; cried Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      The other turned, levelling his pistol.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Give me a horse, give me a horse, quick, do you hear? Give me a horse, or
      I'll shoot.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Steady, steady. That won't do. You know me, Dyke. We're friends here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other lowered his weapon.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know, I know,&rdquo; he panted. &ldquo;I'd forgotten. I'm unstrung, Mr. Annixter,
      and I'm running for my life. They're not ten minutes behind me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come on, come on,&rdquo; shouted Annixter, dashing stablewards, his suspenders
      flying.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here's a horse.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mine?&rdquo; exclaimed Presley. &ldquo;He wouldn't carry you a mile.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter was already far ahead, trumpeting orders.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The buckskin,&rdquo; he yelled. &ldquo;Get her out, Billy. Where's the stable-man?
      Get out that buckskin. Get out that saddle.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then followed minutes of furious haste, Presley, Annixter, Billy the
      stable-man, and Dyke himself, darting hither and thither about the yellow
      mare, buckling, strapping, cinching, their lips pale, their fingers
      trembling with excitement.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Want anything to eat?&rdquo; Annixter's head was under the saddle flap as he
      tore at the cinch. &ldquo;Want anything to eat? Want any money? Want a gun?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Water,&rdquo; returned Dyke. &ldquo;They've watched every spring. I'm killed with
      thirst.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's the hydrant. Quick now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I got as far as the Kern River, but they turned me back,&rdquo; he said between
      breaths as he drank.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't stop to talk.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My mother, and the little tad&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm taking care of them. They're stopping with me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Here?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You won't see 'em; by the Lord, you won't. You'll get away. Where's that
      back cinch strap, BILLY? God damn it, are you going to let him be shot
      before he can get away? Now, Dyke, up you go. She'll kill herself running
      before they can catch you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;God bless you, Annixter. Where's the little tad? Is she well, Annixter,
      and the mother? Tell them&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes, yes. All clear, Pres? Let her have her own gait, Dyke. You're
      on the best horse in the county now. Let go her head, Billy. Now, Dyke,&mdash;shake
      hands? You bet I will. That's all right. Yes, God bless you. Let her go.
      You're OFF.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Answering the goad of the spur, and already quivering with the excitement
      of the men who surrounded her, the buckskin cleared the stable-corral in
      two leaps; then, gathering her legs under her, her head low, her neck
      stretched out, swung into the road from out the driveway disappearing in a
      blur of dust.
    </p>
    <p>
      With the agility of a monkey, young Vacca swung himself into the framework
      of the artesian well, clambering aloft to its very top. He swept the
      country with a glance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; demanded Annixter from the ground. The others cocked their heads
      to listen.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see him; I see him!&rdquo; shouted Vacca. &ldquo;He's going like the devil. He's
      headed for Guadalajara.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look back, up the road, toward the Mission. Anything there?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The answer came down in a shout of apprehension.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's a party of men. Three or four&mdash;on horse-back. There's dogs
      with 'em. They're coming this way. Oh, I can hear the dogs. And, say, oh,
      say, there's another party coming down the Lower Road, going towards
      Guadalajara, too. They got guns. I can see the shine of the barrels. And,
      oh, Lord, say, there's three more men on horses coming down on the jump
      from the hills on the Los Muertos stock range. They're making towards
      Guadalajara. And I can hear the courthouse bell in Bonneville ringing.
      Say, the whole county is up.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As young Vacca slid down to the ground, two small black-and-tan hounds,
      with flapping ears and lolling tongues, loped into view on the road in
      front of the house. They were grey with dust, their noses were to the
      ground. At the gate where Dyke had turned into the ranch house grounds,
      they halted in confusion a moment. One started to follow the highwayman's
      trail towards the stable corral, but the other, quartering over the road
      with lightning swiftness, suddenly picked up the new scent leading on
      towards Guadalajara. He tossed his head in the air, and Presley abruptly
      shut his hands over his ears.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ah, that terrible cry! deep-toned, reverberating like the bourdon of a
      great bell. It was the trackers exulting on the trail of the pursued, the
      prolonged, raucous howl, eager, ominous, vibrating with the alarm of the
      tocsin, sullen with the heavy muffling note of death. But close upon the
      bay of the hounds, came the gallop of horses. Five men, their eyes upon
      the hounds, their rifles across their pommels, their horses reeking and
      black with sweat, swept by in a storm of dust, glinting hoofs, and
      streaming manes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That was Delaney's gang,&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter. &ldquo;I saw him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The other was that chap Christian,&rdquo; said Vacca, &ldquo;S. Behrman's cousin. He
      had two deputies with him; and the chap in the white slouch hat was the
      sheriff from Visalia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By the Lord, they aren't far behind,&rdquo; declared Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the men turned towards the house again they saw Hilma and Mrs. Dyke in
      the doorway of the little house where the latter lived. They were looking
      out, bewildered, ignorant of what had happened. But on the porch of the
      Ranch house itself, alone, forgotten in the excitement, Sidney&mdash;the
      little tad&mdash;stood, with pale face and serious, wide-open eyes. She
      had seen everything, and had understood. She said nothing. Her head
      inclined towards the roadway, she listened to the faint and distant baying
      of the dogs.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke thundered across the railway tracks by the depot at Guadalajara not
      five minutes ahead of his pursuers. Luck seemed to have deserted him. The
      station, usually so quiet, was now occupied by the crew of a freight train
      that lay on the down track; while on the up line, near at hand and headed
      in the same direction, was a detached locomotive, whose engineer and
      fireman recognized him, he was sure, as the buckskin leaped across the
      rails.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had had no time to formulate a plan since that morning, when, tortured
      with thirst, he had ventured near the spring at the headwaters of
      Broderson Creek, on Quien Sabe, and had all but fallen into the hands of
      the posse that had been watching for that very move. It was useless now to
      regret that he had tried to foil pursuit by turning back on his tracks to
      regain the mountains east of Bonneville. Now Delaney was almost on him. To
      distance that posse, was the only thing to be thought of now. It was no
      longer a question of hiding till pursuit should flag; they had driven him
      out from the shelter of the mountains, down into this populous
      countryside, where an enemy might be met with at every turn of the road.
      Now it was life or death. He would either escape or be killed. He knew
      very well that he would never allow himself to be taken alive. But he had
      no mind to be killed&mdash;to turn and fight&mdash;till escape was
      blocked. His one thought was to leave pursuit behind.
    </p>
    <p>
      Weeks of flight had sharpened Dyke's every sense. As he turned into the
      Upper Road beyond Guadalajara, he saw the three men galloping down from
      Derrick's stock range, making for the road ahead of him. They would cut
      him off there. He swung the buckskin about. He must take the Lower Road
      across Los Muertos from Guadalajara, and he must reach it before Delaney's
      dogs and posse. Back he galloped, the buckskin measuring her length with
      every leap. Once more the station came in sight. Rising in his stirrups,
      he looked across the fields in the direction of the Lower Road. There was
      a cloud of dust there. From a wagon? No, horses on the run, and their
      riders were armed! He could catch the flash of gun barrels. They were all
      closing in on him, converging on Guadalajara by every available road. The
      Upper Road west of Guadalajara led straight to Bonneville. That way was
      impossible. Was he in a trap? Had the time for fighting come at last?
    </p>
    <p>
      But as Dyke neared the depot at Guadalajara, his eye fell upon the
      detached locomotive that lay quietly steaming on the up line, and with a
      thrill of exultation, he remembered that he was an engineer born and bred.
      Delaney's dogs were already to be heard, and the roll of hoofs on the
      Lower Road was dinning in his ears, as he leaped from the buckskin before
      the depot. The train crew scattered like frightened sheep before him, but
      Dyke ignored them. His pistol was in his hand as, once more on foot, he
      sprang toward the lone engine.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Out of the cab,&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Both of you. Quick, or I'll kill you both.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The two men tumbled from the iron apron of the tender as Dyke swung
      himself up, dropping his pistol on the floor of the cab and reaching with
      the old instinct for the familiar levers. The great compound hissed and
      trembled as the steam was released, and the huge drivers stirred, turning
      slowly on the tracks. But there was a shout. Delaney's posse, dogs and
      men, swung into view at the turn of the road, their figures leaning over
      as they took the curve at full speed. Dyke threw everything wide open and
      caught up his revolver. From behind came the challenge of a Winchester.
      The party on the Lower Road were even closer than Delaney. They had seen
      his manoeuvre, and the first shot of the fight shivered the cab windows
      above the engineer's head.
    </p>
    <p>
      But spinning futilely at first, the drivers of the engine at last caught
      the rails. The engine moved, advanced, travelled past the depot and the
      freight train, and gathering speed, rolled out on the track beyond. Smoke,
      black and boiling, shot skyward from the stack; not a joint that did not
      shudder with the mighty strain of the steam; but the great iron brute&mdash;one
      of Baldwin's newest and best&mdash;came to call, obedient and docile as
      soon as ever the great pulsing heart of it felt a master hand upon its
      levers. It gathered its speed, bracing its steel muscles, its thews of
      iron, and roared out upon the open track, filling the air with the rasp of
      its tempest-breath, blotting the sunshine with the belch of its hot, thick
      smoke. Already it was lessening in the distance, when Delaney, Christian,
      and the sheriff of Visalia dashed up to the station.
    </p>
    <p>
      The posse had seen everything.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stuck. Curse the luck!&rdquo; vociferated the cow-Puncher.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the sheriff was already out of the saddle and into the telegraph
      office.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's a derailing switch between here and Pixley, isn't there?&rdquo; he
      cried.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wire ahead to open it. We'll derail him there. Come on;&rdquo; he turned to
      Delaney and the others. They sprang into the cab of the locomotive that
      was attached to the freight train.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Name of the State of California,&rdquo; shouted the sheriff to the bewildered
      engineer. &ldquo;Cut off from your train.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The sheriff was a man to be obeyed without hesitating. Time was not
      allowed the crew of the freight train for debating as to the right or the
      wrong of requisitioning the engine, and before anyone thought of the
      safety or danger of the affair, the freight engine was already flying out
      upon the down line, hot in pursuit of Dyke, now far ahead upon the up
      track.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I remember perfectly well there's a derailing switch between here and
      Pixley,&rdquo; shouted the sheriff above the roar of the locomotive. &ldquo;They use
      it in case they have to derail runaway engines. It runs right off into the
      country. We'll pile him up there. Ready with your guns, boys.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If we should meet another train coming up on this track&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
       protested the frightened engineer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Then we'd jump or be smashed. Hi! look! There he is.&rdquo; As the freight
      engine rounded a curve, Dyke's engine came into view, shooting on some
      quarter of a mile ahead of them, wreathed in whirling smoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The switch ain't much further on,&rdquo; clamoured the engineer. &ldquo;You can see
      Pixley now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke, his hand on the grip of the valve that controlled the steam, his
      head out of the cab window, thundered on. He was back in his old place
      again; once more he was the engineer; once more he felt the engine quiver
      under him; the familiar noises were in his ears; the familiar buffeting of
      the wind surged, roaring at his face; the familiar odours of hot steam and
      smoke reeked in his nostrils, and on either side of him, parallel
      panoramas, the two halves of the landscape sliced, as it were, in two by
      the clashing wheels of his engine, streamed by in green and brown blurs.
    </p>
    <p>
      He found himself settling to the old position on the cab seat, leaning on
      his elbow from the window, one hand on the controller. All at once, the
      instinct of the pursuit that of late had become so strong within him,
      prompted him to shoot a glance behind. He saw the other engine on the down
      line, plunging after him, rocking from side to side with the fury of its
      gallop. Not yet had he shaken the trackers from his heels; not yet was he
      out of the reach of danger. He set his teeth and, throwing open the
      fire-door, stoked vigorously for a few moments. The indicator of the steam
      gauge rose; his speed increased; a glance at the telegraph poles told him
      he was doing his fifty miles an hour. The freight engine behind him was
      never built for that pace. Barring the terrible risk of accident, his
      chances were good.
    </p>
    <p>
      But suddenly&mdash;the engineer dominating the highway-man&mdash;he shut
      off his steam and threw back his brake to the extreme notch. Directly
      ahead of him rose a semaphore, placed at a point where evidently a
      derailing switch branched from the line. The semaphore's arm was dropped
      over the track, setting the danger signal that showed the switch was open.
    </p>
    <p>
      In an instant, Dyke saw the trick. They had meant to smash him here; had
      been clever enough, quick-witted enough to open the switch, but had
      forgotten the automatic semaphore that worked simultaneously with the
      movement of the rails. To go forward was certain destruction. Dyke
      reversed. There was nothing for it but to go back. With a wrench and a
      spasm of all its metal fibres, the great compound braced itself, sliding
      with rigid wheels along the rails. Then, as Dyke applied the reverse, it
      drew back from the greater danger, returning towards the less. Inevitably
      now the two engines, one on the up, the other on the down line, must meet
      and pass each other.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke released the levers, reaching for his revolver. The engineer once
      more became the highwayman, in peril of his life. Now, beyond all doubt,
      the time for fighting was at hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      The party in the heavy freight engine, that lumbered after in pursuit,
      their eyes fixed on the smudge of smoke on ahead that marked the path of
      the fugitive, suddenly raised a shout.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He's stopped. He's broke down. Watch, now, and see if he jumps off.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Broke NOTHING. HE'S COMING BACK. Ready, now, he's got to pass us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The engineer applied the brakes, but the heavy freight locomotive, far
      less mobile than Dyke's flyer, was slow to obey. The smudge on the rails
      ahead grew swiftly larger.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He's coming. He's coming&mdash;look out, there's a shot. He's shooting
      already.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A bright, white sliver of wood leaped into the air from the sooty window
      sill of the cab.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fire on him! Fire on him!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      While the engines were yet two hundred yards apart, the duel began, shot
      answering shot, the sharp staccato reports punctuating the thunder of
      wheels and the clamour of steam.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then the ground trembled and rocked; a roar as of heavy ordnance developed
      with the abruptness of an explosion. The two engines passed each other,
      the men firing the while, emptying their revolvers, shattering wood,
      shivering glass, the bullets clanging against the metal work as they
      struck and struck and struck. The men leaned from the cabs towards each
      other, frantic with excitement, shouting curses, the engines rocking, the
      steam roaring; confusion whirling in the scene like the whirl of a witch's
      dance, the white clouds of steam, the black eddies from the smokestack,
      the blue wreaths from the hot mouths of revolvers, swirling together in a
      blinding maze of vapour, spinning around them, dazing them, dizzying them,
      while the head rang with hideous clamour and the body twitched and
      trembled with the leap and jar of the tumult of machinery.
    </p>
    <p>
      Roaring, clamouring, reeking with the smell of powder and hot oil,
      spitting death, resistless, huge, furious, an abrupt vision of chaos,
      faces, rage-distorted, peering through smoke, hands gripping outward from
      sudden darkness, prehensile, malevolent; terrible as thunder, swift as
      lightning, the two engines met and passed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He's hit,&rdquo; cried Delaney. &ldquo;I know I hit him. He can't go far now. After
      him again. He won't dare go through Bonneville.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was true. Dyke had stood between cab and tender throughout all the
      duel, exposed, reckless, thinking only of attack and not of defence, and a
      bullet from one of the pistols had grazed his hip. How serious was the
      wound he did not know, but he had no thought of giving up. He tore back
      through the depot at Guadalajara in a storm of bullets, and, clinging to
      the broken window ledge of his cab, was carried towards Bonneville, on
      over the Long Trestle and Broderson Creek and through the open country
      between the two ranches of Los Muertos and Quien Sabe.
    </p>
    <p>
      But to go on to Bonneville meant certain death. Before, as well as behind
      him, the roads were now blocked. Once more he thought of the mountains. He
      resolved to abandon the engine and make another final attempt to get into
      the shelter of the hills in the northernmost corner of Quien Sabe. He set
      his teeth. He would not give in. There was one more fight left in him yet.
      Now to try the final hope.
    </p>
    <p>
      He slowed the engine down, and, reloading his revolver, jumped from the
      platform to the road. He looked about him, listening. All around him
      widened an ocean of wheat. There was no one in sight.
    </p>
    <p>
      The released engine, alone, unattended, drew slowly away from him, jolting
      ponderously over the rail joints. As he watched it go, a certain
      indefinite sense of abandonment, even in that moment, came over Dyke. His
      last friend, that also had been his first, was leaving him. He remembered
      that day, long ago, when he had opened the throttle of his first machine.
      To-day, it was leaving him alone, his last friend turning against him.
      Slowly it was going back towards Bonneville, to the shops of the Railroad,
      the camp of the enemy, that enemy that had ruined him and wrecked him. For
      the last time in his life, he had been the engineer. Now, once more, he
      became the highwayman, the outlaw against whom all hands were raised, the
      fugitive skulking in the mountains, listening for the cry of dogs.
    </p>
    <p>
      But he would not give in. They had not broken him yet. Never, while he
      could fight, would he allow S. Behrman the triumph of his capture.
    </p>
    <p>
      He found his wound was not bad. He plunged into the wheat on Quien Sabe,
      making northward for a division house that rose with its surrounding trees
      out of the wheat like an island. He reached it, the blood squelching in
      his shoes. But the sight of two men, Portuguese farm-hands, staring at him
      from an angle of the barn, abruptly roused him to action. He sprang
      forward with peremptory commands, demanding a horse.
    </p>
    <p>
      At Guadalajara, Delaney and the sheriff descended from the freight engine.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Horses now,&rdquo; declared the sheriff. &ldquo;He won't go into Bonneville, that's
      certain. He'll leave the engine between here and there, and strike off
      into the country. We'll follow after him now in the saddle. Soon as he
      leaves his engine, HE'S on foot. We've as good as got him now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Their horses, including even the buckskin mare that Dyke had ridden, were
      still at the station. The party swung themselves up, Delaney exclaiming,
      &ldquo;Here's MY mount,&rdquo; as he bestrode the buckskin.
    </p>
    <p>
      At Guadalajara, the two bloodhounds were picked up again. Urging the jaded
      horses to a gallop, the party set off along the Upper Road, keeping a
      sharp lookout to right and left for traces of Dyke's abandonment of the
      engine.
    </p>
    <p>
      Three miles beyond the Long Trestle, they found S. Behrman holding his
      saddle horse by the bridle, and looking attentively at a trail that had
      been broken through the standing wheat on Quien Sabe. The party drew rein.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The engine passed me on the tracks further up, and empty,&rdquo; said S.
      Behrman. &ldquo;Boys, I think he left her here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But before anyone could answer, the bloodhounds gave tongue again, as they
      picked up the scent.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's him,&rdquo; cried S. Behrman. &ldquo;Get on, boys.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They dashed forward, following the hounds. S. Behrman laboriously climbed
      to his saddle, panting, perspiring, mopping the roll of fat over his coat
      collar, and turned in after them, trotting along far in the rear, his
      great stomach and tremulous jowl shaking with the horse's gait.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What a day,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;What a day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke's trail was fresh, and was followed as easily as if made on
      new-fallen snow. In a short time, the posse swept into the open space
      around the division house. The two Portuguese were still there, wide-eyed,
      terribly excited.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes, yes, Dyke had been there not half an hour since, had held them up,
      taken a horse and galloped to the northeast, towards the foothills at the
      headwaters of Broderson Creek.
    </p>
    <p>
      On again, at full gallop, through the young wheat, trampling it under the
      flying hoofs; the hounds hot on the scent, baying continually; the men, on
      fresh mounts, secured at the division house, bending forward in their
      saddles, spurring relentlessly. S. Behrman jolted along far in the rear.
    </p>
    <p>
      And even then, harried through an open country, where there was no place
      to hide, it was a matter of amazement how long a chase the highwayman led
      them. Fences were passed; fences whose barbed wire had been slashed apart
      by the fugitive's knife. The ground rose under foot; the hills were at
      hand; still the pursuit held on. The sun, long past the meridian, began to
      turn earthward. Would night come on before they were up with him?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look! Look! There he is! Quick, there he goes!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      High on the bare slope of the nearest hill, all the posse, looking in the
      direction of Delaney's gesture, saw the figure of a horseman emerge from
      an arroyo, filled with chaparral, and struggle at a labouring gallop
      straight up the slope. Suddenly, every member of the party shouted aloud.
      The horse had fallen, pitching the rider from the saddle. The man rose to
      his feet, caught at the bridle, missed it and the horse dashed on alone.
      The man, pausing for a second looked around, saw the chase drawing nearer,
      then, turning back, disappeared in the chaparral. Delaney raised a great
      whoop.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We've got you now.&rdquo; Into the slopes and valleys of the hills dashed the
      band of horsemen, the trail now so fresh that it could be easily discerned
      by all. On and on it led them, a furious, wild scramble straight up the
      slopes. The minutes went by. The dry bed of a rivulet was passed; then
      another fence; then a tangle of manzanita; a meadow of wild oats, full of
      agitated cattle; then an arroyo, thick with chaparral and scrub oaks, and
      then, without warning, the pistol shots ripped out and ran from rider to
      rider with the rapidity of a gatling discharge, and one of the deputies
      bent forward in the saddle, both hands to his face, the blood jetting from
      between his fingers.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke was there, at bay at last, his back against a bank of rock, the roots
      of a fallen tree serving him as a rampart, his revolver smoking in his
      hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You're under arrest, Dyke,&rdquo; cried the sheriff. &ldquo;It's not the least use to
      fight. The whole country is up.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke fired again, the shot splintering the foreleg of the horse the
      sheriff rode.
    </p>
    <p>
      The posse, four men all told&mdash;the wounded deputy having crawled out
      of the fight after Dyke's first shot&mdash;fell back after the preliminary
      fusillade, dismounted, and took shelter behind rocks and trees. On that
      rugged ground, fighting from the saddle was impracticable. Dyke, in the
      meanwhile, held his fire, for he knew that, once his pistol was empty, he
      would never be allowed time to reload.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dyke,&rdquo; called the sheriff again, &ldquo;for the last time, I summon you to
      surrender.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Dyke did not reply. The sheriff, Delaney, and the man named Christian
      conferred together in a low voice. Then Delaney and Christian left the
      others, making a wide detour up the sides of the arroyo, to gain a
      position to the left and somewhat to the rear of Dyke.
    </p>
    <p>
      But it was at this moment that S. Behrman arrived. It could not be said
      whether it was courage or carelessness that brought the Railroad's agent
      within reach of Dyke's revolver. Possibly he was really a brave man;
      possibly occupied with keeping an uncertain seat upon the back of his
      labouring, scrambling horse, he had not noticed that he was so close upon
      that scene of battle. He certainly did not observe the posse lying upon
      the ground behind sheltering rocks and trees, and before anyone could call
      a warning, he had ridden out into the open, within thirty paces of Dyke's
      intrenchment.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dyke saw. There was the arch-enemy; the man of all men whom he most hated;
      the man who had ruined him, who had exasperated him and driven him to
      crime, and who had instigated tireless pursuit through all those past
      terrible weeks. Suddenly, inviting death, he leaped up and forward; he had
      forgotten all else, all other considerations, at the sight of this man. He
      would die, gladly, so only that S. Behrman died before him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I've got YOU, anyway,&rdquo; he shouted, as he ran forward.
    </p>
    <p>
      The muzzle of the weapon was not ten feet from S. Behrman's huge stomach
      as Dyke drew the trigger. Had the cartridge exploded, death, certain and
      swift, would have followed, but at this, of all moments, the revolver
      missed fire.
    </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman, with an unexpected agility, leaped from the saddle, and,
      keeping his horse between him and Dyke, ran, dodging and ducking, from
      tree to tree. His first shot a failure, Dyke fired again and again at his
      enemy, emptying his revolver, reckless of consequences. His every shot
      went wild, and before he could draw his knife, the whole posse was upon
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Without concerted plans, obeying no signal but the promptings of the
      impulse that snatched, unerring, at opportunity&mdash;the men, Delaney and
      Christian from one side, the sheriff and the deputy from the other, rushed
      in. They did not fire. It was Dyke alive they wanted. One of them had a
      riata snatched from a saddle-pommel, and with this they tried to bind him.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fight was four to one&mdash;four men with law on their side, to one
      wounded freebooter, half-starved, exhausted by days and nights of pursuit,
      worn down with loss of sleep, thirst, privation, and the grinding,
      nerve-racking consciousness of an ever-present peril.
    </p>
    <p>
      They swarmed upon him from all sides, gripping at his legs, at his arms,
      his throat, his head, striking, clutching, kicking, falling to the ground,
      rolling over and over, now under, now above, now staggering forward, now
      toppling back. Still Dyke fought. Through that scrambling, struggling
      group, through that maze of twisting bodies, twining arms, straining legs,
      S. Behrman saw him from moment to moment, his face flaming, his eyes
      bloodshot, his hair matted with sweat. Now he was down, pinned under, two
      men across his legs, and now half-way up again, struggling to one knee.
      Then upright again, with half his enemies hanging on his back. His
      colossal strength seemed doubled; when his arms were held, he fought
      bull-like with his head. A score of times, it seemed as if they were about
      to secure him finally and irrevocably, and then he would free an arm, a
      leg, a shoulder, and the group that, for the fraction of an instant, had
      settled, locked and rigid, on its prey, would break up again as he flung a
      man from him, reeling and bloody, and he himself twisting, squirming,
      dodging, his great fists working like pistons, backed away, dragging and
      carrying the others with him.
    </p>
    <p>
      More than once, he loosened almost every grip, and for an instant stood
      nearly free, panting, rolling his eyes, his clothes torn from his body,
      bleeding, dripping with sweat, a terrible figure, nearly free. The
      sheriff, under his breath, uttered an exclamation:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By God, he'll get away yet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman watched the fight complacently.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That all may show obstinacy,&rdquo; he commented, &ldquo;but it don't show common
      sense.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Yet, however Dyke might throw off the clutches and fettering embraces that
      encircled him, however he might disintegrate and scatter the band of foes
      that heaped themselves upon him, however he might gain one instant of
      comparative liberty, some one of his assailants always hung, doggedly,
      blindly to an arm, a leg, or a foot, and the others, drawing a second's
      breath, closed in again, implacable, unconquerable, ferocious, like hounds
      upon a wolf.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length, two of the men managed to bring Dyke's wrists close enough
      together to allow the sheriff to snap the handcuffs on. Even then, Dyke,
      clasping his hands, and using the handcuffs themselves as a weapon,
      knocked down Delaney by the crushing impact of the steel bracelets upon
      the cow-puncher's forehead. But he could no longer protect himself from
      attacks from behind, and the riata was finally passed around his body,
      pinioning his arms to his sides. After this it was useless to resist.
    </p>
    <p>
      The wounded deputy sat with his back to a rock, holding his broken jaw in
      both hands. The sheriff's horse, with its splintered foreleg, would have
      to be shot. Delaney's head was cut from temple to cheekbone. The right
      wrist of the sheriff was all but dislocated. The other deputy was so
      exhausted he had to be helped to his horse. But Dyke was taken.
    </p>
    <p>
      He himself had suddenly lapsed into semi-unconsciousness, unable to walk.
      They sat him on the buckskin, S. Behrman supporting him, the sheriff, on
      foot, leading the horse by the bridle. The little procession formed, and
      descended from the hills, turning in the direction of Bonneville. A
      special train, one car and an engine, would be made up there, and the
      highwayman would sleep in the Visalia jail that night.
    </p>
    <p>
      Delaney and S. Behrman found themselves in the rear of the cavalcade as it
      moved off. The cow-puncher turned to his chief:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, captain,&rdquo; he said, still panting, as he bound up his forehead;
      &ldquo;well&mdash;we GOT him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VI
    </h2>
    <p>
      Osterman cut his wheat that summer before any of the other ranchers, and
      as soon as his harvest was over organized a jack-rabbit drive. Like
      Annixter's barn-dance, it was to be an event in which all the country-side
      should take part. The drive was to begin on the most western division of
      the Osterman ranch, whence it would proceed towards the southeast,
      crossing into the northern part of Quien Sabe&mdash;on which Annixter had
      sown no wheat&mdash;and ending in the hills at the headwaters of Broderson
      Creek, where a barbecue was to be held.
    </p>
    <p>
      Early on the morning of the day of the drive, as Harran and Presley were
      saddling their horses before the stables on Los Muertos, the foreman,
      Phelps, remarked:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I was into town last night, and I hear that Christian has been after
      Ruggles early and late to have him put him in possession here on Los
      Muertos, and Delaney is doing the same for Quien Sabe.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was this man Christian, the real estate broker, and cousin of S.
      Behrman, one of the main actors in the drama of Dyke's capture, who had
      come forward as a purchaser of Los Muertos when the Railroad had regraded
      its holdings on the ranches around Bonneville.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He claims, of course,&rdquo; Phelps went on, &ldquo;that when he bought Los Muertos
      of the Railroad he was guaranteed possession, and he wants the place in
      time for the harvest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's almost as thin,&rdquo; muttered Harran as he thrust the bit into his
      horse's mouth, &ldquo;as Delaney buying Annixter's Home ranch. That slice of
      Quien Sabe, according to the Railroad's grading, is worth about ten
      thousand dollars; yes, even fifteen, and I don't believe Delaney is worth
      the price of a good horse. Why, those people don't even try to preserve
      appearances. Where would Christian find the money to buy Los Muertos?
      There's no one man in all Bonneville rich enough to do it. Damned rascals!
      as if we didn't see that Christian and Delaney are S. Behrman's right and
      left hands. Well, he'll get 'em cut off,&rdquo; he cried with sudden fierceness,
      &ldquo;if he comes too near the machine.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How is it, Harran,&rdquo; asked Presley as the two young men rode out of the
      stable yard, &ldquo;how is it the Railroad gang can do anything before the
      Supreme Court hands down a decision?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you know how they talk,&rdquo; growled Harran. &ldquo;They have claimed that
      the cases taken up to the Supreme Court were not test cases as WE claim
      they ARE, and that because neither Annixter nor the Governor appealed,
      they've lost their cases by default. It's the rottenest kind of sharp
      practice, but it won't do any good. The League is too strong. They won't
      dare move on us yet awhile. Why, Pres, the moment they'd try to jump any
      of these ranches around here, they would have six hundred rifles cracking
      at them as quick as how-do-you-do. Why, it would take a regiment of U. S.
      soldiers to put any one of us off our land. No, sir; they know the League
      means business this time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As Presley and Harran trotted on along the county road they continually
      passed or overtook other horsemen, or buggies, carry-alls, buck-boards or
      even farm wagons, going in the same direction. These were full of the
      farming people from all the country round about Bonneville, on their way
      to the rabbit drive&mdash;the same people seen at the barn-dance&mdash;in
      their Sunday finest, the girls in muslin frocks and garden hats, the men
      with linen dusters over their black clothes; the older women in prints and
      dotted calicoes. Many of these latter had already taken off their bonnets&mdash;the
      day was very hot&mdash;and pinning them in newspapers, stowed them under
      the seats. They tucked their handkerchiefs into the collars of their
      dresses, or knotted them about their fat necks, to keep out the dust. From
      the axle trees of the vehicles swung carefully covered buckets of
      galvanised iron, in which the lunch was packed. The younger children, the
      boys with great frilled collars, the girls with ill-fitting shoes cramping
      their feet, leaned from the sides of buggy and carry-all, eating bananas
      and &ldquo;macaroons,&rdquo; staring about with ox-like stolidity. Tied to the axles,
      the dogs followed the horses' hoofs with lolling tongues coated with dust.
    </p>
    <p>
      The California summer lay blanket-wise and smothering over all the land.
      The hills, bone-dry, were browned and parched. The grasses and wild-oats,
      sear and yellow, snapped like glass filaments under foot. The roads, the
      bordering fences, even the lower leaves and branches of the trees, were
      thick and grey with dust. All colour had been burned from the landscape,
      except in the irrigated patches, that in the waste of brown and dull
      yellow glowed like oases.
    </p>
    <p>
      The wheat, now close to its maturity, had turned from pale yellow to
      golden yellow, and from that to brown. Like a gigantic carpet, it spread
      itself over all the land. There was nothing else to be seen but the
      limitless sea of wheat as far as the eye could reach, dry, rustling, crisp
      and harsh in the rare breaths of hot wind out of the southeast. As Harran
      and Presley went along the county road, the number of vehicles and riders
      increased. They overtook and passed Hooven and his family in the former's
      farm wagon, a saddled horse tied to the back board. The little Dutchman,
      wearing the old frock coat of Magnus Derrick, and a new broad-brimmed
      straw hat, sat on the front seat with Mrs. Hooven. The little girl Hilda,
      and the older daughter Minna, were behind them on a board laid across the
      sides of the wagon. Presley and Harran stopped to shake hands. &ldquo;Say,&rdquo;
       cried Hooven, exhibiting an old, but extremely well kept, rifle, &ldquo;say, bei
      Gott, me, I tek some schatz at dose rebbit, you bedt. Ven he hef shtop to
      run und sit oop soh, bei der hind laigs on, I oop mit der guhn und&mdash;bing!
      I cetch um.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The marshals won't allow you to shoot, Bismarck,&rdquo; observed Presley,
      looking at Minna.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hooven doubled up with merriment.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ho! dot's hell of some fine joak. Me, I'M ONE OAF DOSE MAIRSCHELL
      MINE-SELLUF,&rdquo; he roared with delight, beating his knee. To his notion, the
      joke was irresistible. All day long, he could be heard repeating it. &ldquo;Und
      Mist'r Praicelie, he say, 'Dose mairschell woand led you schoot,
      Bismarck,' und ME, ach Gott, ME, aindt I mine-selluf one oaf dose
      mairschell?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As the two friends rode on, Presley had in his mind the image of Minna
      Hooven, very pretty in a clean gown of pink gingham, a cheap straw sailor
      hat from a Bonneville store on her blue black hair. He remembered her very
      pale face, very red lips and eyes of greenish blue,&mdash;a pretty girl
      certainly, always trailing a group of men behind her. Her love affairs
      were the talk of all Los Muertos.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hope that Hooven girl won't go to the bad,&rdquo; Presley said to Harran.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, she's all right,&rdquo; the other answered. &ldquo;There's nothing vicious about
      Minna, and I guess she'll marry that foreman on the ditch gang, right
      enough.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, as a matter of course, she's a good girl,&rdquo; Presley hastened to
      reply, &ldquo;only she's too pretty for a poor girl, and too sure of her
      prettiness besides. That's the kind,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;who would find it
      pretty easy to go wrong if they lived in a city.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Around Caraher's was a veritable throng. Saddle horses and buggies by the
      score were clustered underneath the shed or hitched to the railings in
      front of the watering trough. Three of Broderson's Portuguese tenants and
      a couple of workmen from the railroad shops in Bonneville were on the
      porch, already very drunk.
    </p>
    <p>
      Continually, young men, singly or in groups, came from the door-way,
      wiping their lips with sidelong gestures of the hand. The whole place
      exhaled the febrile bustle of the saloon on a holiday morning.
    </p>
    <p>
      The procession of teams streamed on through Bonneville, reenforced at
      every street corner. Along the Upper Road from Quien Sabe and Guadalajara
      came fresh auxiliaries, Spanish-Mexicans from the town itself,&mdash;swarthy
      young men on capering horses, dark-eyed girls and matrons, in red and
      black and yellow, more Portuguese in brand-new overalls, smoking long thin
      cigars. Even Father Sarria appeared.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look,&rdquo; said Presley, &ldquo;there goes Annixter and Hilma. He's got his
      buckskin back.&rdquo; The master of Quien Sabe, in top laced boots and campaign
      hat, a cigar in his teeth, followed along beside the carry-all. Hilma and
      Mrs. Derrick were on the back seat, young Vacca driving. Harran and
      Presley bowed, taking off their hats.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, hello, Pres,&rdquo; cried Annixter, over the heads of the intervening
      crowd, standing up in his stirrups and waving a hand, &ldquo;Great day! What a
      mob, hey? Say when this thing is over and everybody starts to walk into
      the barbecue, come and have lunch with us. I'll look for you, you and
      Harran. Hello, Harran, where's the Governor?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He didn't come to-day,&rdquo; Harran shouted back, as the crowd carried him
      further away from Annixter. &ldquo;Left him and old Broderson at Los Muertos.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The throng emerged into the open country again, spreading out upon the
      Osterman ranch. From all directions could be seen horses and buggies
      driving across the stubble, converging upon the rendezvous. Osterman's
      Ranch house was left to the eastward; the army of the guests hurrying
      forward&mdash;for it began to be late&mdash;to where around a flag pole,
      flying a red flag, a vast crowd of buggies and horses was already forming.
      The marshals began to appear. Hooven, descending from the farm wagon,
      pinned his white badge to his hat brim and mounted his horse. Osterman, in
      marvellous riding clothes of English pattern, galloped up and down upon
      his best thoroughbred, cracking jokes with everybody, chaffing, joshing,
      his great mouth distended in a perpetual grin of amiability.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stop here, stop here,&rdquo; he vociferated, dashing along in front of Presley
      and Harran, waving his crop. The procession came to a halt, the horses'
      heads pointing eastward. The line began to be formed. The marshals
      perspiring, shouting, fretting, galloping about, urging this one forward,
      ordering this one back, ranged the thousands of conveyances and cavaliers
      in a long line, shaped like a wide open crescent. Its wings, under the
      command of lieutenants, were slightly advanced. Far out before its centre
      Osterman took his place, delighted beyond expression at his
      conspicuousness, posing for the gallery, making his horse dance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wail, aindt dey gowun to gommence den bretty soohn,&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs.
      Hooven, who had taken her husband's place on the forward seat of the
      wagon.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I never was so warm,&rdquo; murmured Minna, fanning herself with her hat. All
      seemed in readiness. For miles over the flat expanse of stubble, curved
      the interminable lines of horses and vehicles. At a guess, nearly five
      thousand people were present. The drive was one of the largest ever held.
      But no start was made; immobilized, the vast crescent stuck motionless
      under the blazing sun. Here and there could be heard voices uplifted in
      jocular remonstrance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I say, get a move on, somebody.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;ALL aboard.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, I'll take root here pretty soon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Some took malicious pleasure in starting false alarms.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, HERE we go.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Off, at last.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We're off.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Invariably these jokes fooled some one in the line. An old man, or some
      old woman, nervous, hard of hearing, always gathered up the reins and
      started off, only to be hustled and ordered back into the line by the
      nearest marshal. This manoeuvre never failed to produce its effect of
      hilarity upon those near at hand. Everybody laughed at the blunderer, the
      joker jeering audibly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hey, come back here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, he's easy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't be in a hurry, Grandpa.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, you want to drive all the rabbits yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Later on, a certain group of these fellows started a huge &ldquo;josh.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, that's what we're waiting for, the 'do-funny.'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The do-funny?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure, you can't drive rabbits without the 'do-funny.'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's the do-funny?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, say, she don't know what the do-funny is. We can't start without it,
      sure. Pete went back to get it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, you're joking me, there's no such thing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, aren't we WAITING for it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, look, look,&rdquo; cried some women in a covered rig. &ldquo;See, they are
      starting already 'way over there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In fact, it did appear as if the far extremity of the line was in motion.
      Dust rose in the air above it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They ARE starting. Why don't we start?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, they've stopped. False alarm.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They've not, either. Why don't we move?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But as one or two began to move off, the nearest marshal shouted
      wrathfully:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Get back there, get back there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, they've started over there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Get back, I tell you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where's the 'do-funny?'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, we're going to miss it all. They've all started over there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A lieutenant came galloping along in front of the line, shouting:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here, what's the matter here? Why don't you start?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a great shout. Everybody simultaneously uttered a prolonged
      &ldquo;Oh-h.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We're off.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here we go for sure this time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Remember to keep the alignment,&rdquo; roared the lieutenant. &ldquo;Don't go too
      fast.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And the marshals, rushing here and there on their sweating horses to
      points where the line bulged forward, shouted, waving their arms: &ldquo;Not too
      fast, not too fast....Keep back here....Here, keep closer together here.
      Do you want to let all the rabbits run back between you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A great confused sound rose into the air,&mdash;the creaking of axles, the
      jolt of iron tires over the dry clods, the click of brittle stubble under
      the horses' hoofs, the barking of dogs, the shouts of conversation and
      laughter.
    </p>
    <p>
      The entire line, horses, buggies, wagons, gigs, dogs, men and boys on
      foot, and armed with clubs, moved slowly across the fields, sending up a
      cloud of white dust, that hung above the scene like smoke. A brisk gaiety
      was in the air. Everyone was in the best of humor, calling from team to
      team, laughing, skylarking, joshing. Garnett, of the Ruby Rancho, and
      Gethings, of the San Pablo, both on horseback, found themselves side by
      side. Ignoring the drive and the spirit of the occasion, they kept up a
      prolonged and serious conversation on an expected rise in the price of
      wheat. Dabney, also on horseback, followed them, listening attentively to
      every word, but hazarding no remark.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Derrick and Hilma sat in the back seat of the carry-all, behind young
      Vacca. Mrs. Derrick, a little disturbed by such a great concourse of
      people, frightened at the idea of the killing of so many rabbits, drew
      back in her place, her young-girl eyes troubled and filled with a vague
      distress. Hilma, very much excited, leaned from the carry-all, anxious to
      see everything, watching for rabbits, asking innumerable questions of
      Annixter, who rode at her side.
    </p>
    <p>
      The change that had been progressing in Hilma, ever since the night of the
      famous barn-dance, now seemed to be approaching its climax; first the
      girl, then the woman, last of all the Mother. Conscious dignity, a new
      element in her character, developed. The shrinking, the timidity of the
      girl just awakening to the consciousness of sex, passed away from her. The
      confusion, the troublous complexity of the woman, a mystery even to
      herself, disappeared. Motherhood dawned, the old simplicity of her maiden
      days came back to her. It was no longer a simplicity of ignorance, but of
      supreme knowledge, the simplicity of the perfect, the simplicity of
      greatness. She looked the world fearlessly in the eyes. At last, the
      confusion of her ideas, like frightened birds, re-settling, adjusted
      itself, and she emerged from the trouble calm, serene, entering into her
      divine right, like a queen into the rule of a realm of perpetual peace.
    </p>
    <p>
      And with this, with the knowledge that the crown hung poised above her
      head, there came upon Hilma a gentleness infinitely beautiful, infinitely
      pathetic; a sweetness that touched all who came near her with the softness
      of a caress. She moved surrounded by an invisible atmosphere of Love. Love
      was in her wide-opened brown eyes, Love&mdash;the dim reflection of that
      descending crown poised over her head&mdash;radiated in a faint lustre
      from her dark, thick hair. Around her beautiful neck, sloping to her
      shoulders with full, graceful curves, Love lay encircled like a necklace&mdash;Love
      that was beyond words, sweet, breathed from her parted lips. From her
      white, large arms downward to her pink finger-tips&mdash;Love, an
      invisible electric fluid, disengaged itself, subtle, alluring. In the
      velvety huskiness of her voice, Love vibrated like a note of unknown
      music.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, her uncouth, rugged husband, living in this influence of a wife,
      who was also a mother, at all hours touched to the quick by this sense of
      nobility, of gentleness and of love, the instincts of a father already
      clutching and tugging at his heart, was trembling on the verge of a mighty
      transformation. The hardness and inhumanity of the man was fast breaking
      up. One night, returning late to the Ranch house, after a compulsory visit
      to the city, he had come upon Hilma asleep. He had never forgotten that
      night. A realization of his boundless happiness in this love he gave and
      received, the thought that Hilma TRUSTED him, a knowledge of his own
      unworthiness, a vast and humble thankfulness that his God had chosen him
      of all men for this great joy, had brought him to his knees for the first
      time in all his troubled, restless life of combat and aggression. He
      prayed, he knew not what,&mdash;vague words, wordless thoughts, resolving
      fiercely to do right, to make some return for God's gift thus placed
      within his hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      Where once Annixter had thought only of himself, he now thought only of
      Hilma. The time when this thought of another should broaden and widen into
      thought of OTHERS, was yet to come; but already it had expanded to include
      the unborn child&mdash;already, as in the case of Mrs. Dyke, it had
      broadened to enfold another child and another mother bound to him by no
      ties other than those of humanity and pity. In time, starting from this
      point it would reach out more and more till it should take in all men and
      all women, and the intolerant selfish man, while retaining all of his
      native strength, should become tolerant and generous, kind and forgiving.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the moment, however, the two natures struggled within him. A fight was
      to be fought, one more, the last, the fiercest, the attack of the enemy
      who menaced his very home and hearth, was to be resisted. Then, peace
      attained, arrested development would once more proceed.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hilma looked from the carry-all, scanning the open plain in front of the
      advancing line of the drive.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where are the rabbits?&rdquo; she asked of Annixter. &ldquo;I don't see any at all.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They are way ahead of us yet,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Here, take the glasses.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He passed her his field glasses, and she adjusted them.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;I see. I can see five or six, but oh, so far off.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The beggars run 'way ahead, at first.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I should say so. See them run,&mdash;little specks. Every now and then
      they sit up, their ears straight up, in the air.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here, look, Hilma, there goes one close by.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      From out of the ground apparently, some twenty yards distant, a great jack
      sprang into view, bounding away with tremendous leaps, his black-tipped
      ears erect. He disappeared, his grey body losing itself against the grey
      of the ground.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, a big fellow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hi, yonder's another.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes, oh, look at him run.&rdquo; From off the surface of the ground, at
      first apparently empty of all life, and seemingly unable to afford hiding
      place for so much as a field-mouse, jack-rabbits started up at every
      moment as the line went forward. At first, they appeared singly and at
      long intervals; then in twos and threes, as the drive continued to
      advance. They leaped across the plain, and stopped in the distance,
      sitting up with straight ears, then ran on again, were joined by others;
      sank down flush to the soil&mdash;their ears flattened; started up again,
      ran to the side, turned back once more, darted away with incredible
      swiftness, and were lost to view only to be replaced by a score of others.
    </p>
    <p>
      Gradually, the number of jacks to be seen over the expanse of stubble in
      front of the line of teams increased. Their antics were infinite. No two
      acted precisely alike. Some lay stubbornly close in a little depression
      between two clods, till the horses' hoofs were all but upon them, then
      sprang out from their hiding-place at the last second. Others ran forward
      but a few yards at a time, refusing to take flight, scenting a greater
      danger before them than behind. Still others, forced up at the last
      moment, doubled with lightning alacrity in their tracks, turning back to
      scuttle between the teams, taking desperate chances. As often as this
      occurred, it was the signal for a great uproar.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't let him get through; don t let him get through.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look out for him, there he goes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Horns were blown, bells rung, tin pans clamorously beaten. Either the jack
      escaped, or confused by the noise, darted back again, fleeing away as if
      his life depended on the issue of the instant. Once even, a bewildered
      rabbit jumped fair into Mrs. Derrick's lap as she sat in the carry-all,
      and was out again like a flash.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Poor frightened thing,&rdquo; she exclaimed; and for a long time afterward, she
      retained upon her knees the sensation of the four little paws quivering
      with excitement, and the feel of the trembling furry body, with its wildly
      beating heart, pressed against her own.
    </p>
    <p>
      By noon the number of rabbits discernible by Annixter's field glasses on
      ahead was far into the thousands. What seemed to be ground resolved
      itself, when seen through the glasses, into a maze of small, moving
      bodies, leaping, ducking, doubling, running back and forth&mdash;a
      wilderness of agitated ears, white tails and twinkling legs. The outside
      wings of the curved line of vehicles began to draw in a little; Osterman's
      ranch was left behind, the drive continued on over Quien Sabe.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the day advanced, the rabbits, singularly enough, became less wild.
      When flushed, they no longer ran so far nor so fast, limping off instead a
      few feet at a time, and crouching down, their ears close upon their backs.
      Thus it was, that by degrees the teams began to close up on the main herd.
      At every instant the numbers increased. It was no longer thousands, it was
      tens of thousands. The earth was alive with rabbits.
    </p>
    <p>
      Denser and denser grew the throng. In all directions nothing was to be
      seen but the loose mass of the moving jacks. The horns of the crescent of
      teams began to contract. Far off the corral came into sight. The
      disintegrated mass of rabbits commenced, as it were, to solidify, to
      coagulate. At first, each jack was some three feet distant from his
      nearest neighbor, but this space diminished to two feet, then to one, then
      to but a few inches. The rabbits began leaping over one another.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then the strange scene defined itself. It was no longer a herd covering
      the earth. It was a sea, whipped into confusion, tossing incessantly,
      leaping, falling, agitated by unseen forces. At times the unexpected
      tameness of the rabbits all at once vanished. Throughout certain portions
      of the herd eddies of terror abruptly burst forth. A panic spread; then
      there would ensue a blind, wild rushing together of thousands of crowded
      bodies, and a furious scrambling over backs, till the scuffing thud of
      innumerable feet over the earth rose to a reverberating murmur as of
      distant thunder, here and there pierced by the strange, wild cry of the
      rabbit in distress.
    </p>
    <p>
      The line of vehicles was halted. To go forward now meant to trample the
      rabbits under foot. The drive came to a standstill while the herd entered
      the corral. This took time, for the rabbits were by now too crowded to
      run. However, like an opened sluice-gate, the extending flanks of the
      entrance of the corral slowly engulfed the herd. The mass, packed tight as
      ever, by degrees diminished, precisely as a pool of water when a dam is
      opened. The last stragglers went in with a rush, and the gate was dropped.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come, just have a lock in here,&rdquo; called Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hilma, descending from the carry-all and joined by Presley and Harran,
      approached and looked over the high board fence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, did you ever see anything like that?&rdquo; she exclaimed.
    </p>
    <p>
      The corral, a really large enclosure, had proved all too small for the
      number of rabbits collected by the drive. Inside it was a living, moving,
      leaping, breathing, twisting mass. The rabbits were packed two, three, and
      four feet deep. They were in constant movement; those beneath struggling
      to the top, those on top sinking and disappearing below their fellows. All
      wildness, all fear of man, seemed to have entirely disappeared. Men and
      boys reaching over the sides of the corral, picked up a jack in each hand,
      holding them by the ears, while two reporters from San Francisco papers
      took photographs of the scene. The noise made by the tens of thousands of
      moving bodies was as the noise of wind in a forest, while from the hot and
      sweating mass there rose a strange odor, penetrating, ammoniacal,
      savouring of wild life.
    </p>
    <p>
      On signal, the killing began. Dogs that had been brought there for that
      purpose when let into the corral refused, as had been half expected, to do
      the work. They snuffed curiously at the pile, then backed off, disturbed,
      perplexed. But the men and boys&mdash;Portuguese for the most part&mdash;were
      more eager. Annixter drew Hilma away, and, indeed, most of the people set
      about the barbecue at once.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the corral, however, the killing went forward. Armed with a club in
      each hand, the young fellows from Guadalajara and Bonneville, and the farm
      boys from the ranches, leaped over the rails of the corral. They walked
      unsteadily upon the myriad of crowding bodies underfoot, or, as space was
      cleared, sank almost waist deep into the mass that leaped and squirmed
      about them. Blindly, furiously, they struck and struck. The Anglo-Saxon
      spectators round about drew back in disgust, but the hot, degenerated
      blood of Portuguese, Mexican, and mixed Spaniard boiled up in excitement
      at this wholesale slaughter.
    </p>
    <p>
      But only a few of the participants of the drive cared to look on. All the
      guests betook themselves some quarter of a mile farther on into the hills.
    </p>
    <p>
      The picnic and barbecue were to be held around the spring where Broderson
      Creek took its rise. Already two entire beeves were roasting there; teams
      were hitched, saddles removed, and men, women, and children, a great
      throng, spread out under the shade of the live oaks. A vast confused
      clamour rose in the air, a babel of talk, a clatter of tin plates, of
      knives and forks. Bottles were uncorked, napkins and oil-cloths spread
      over the ground. The men lit pipes and cigars, the women seized the
      occasion to nurse their babies.
    </p>
    <p>
      Osterman, ubiquitous as ever, resplendent in his boots and English riding
      breeches, moved about between the groups, keeping up an endless flow of
      talk, cracking jokes, winking, nudging, gesturing, putting his tongue in
      his cheek, never at a loss for a reply, playing the goat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That josher, Osterman, always at his monkey-shines, but a good fellow for
      all that; brainy too. Nothing stuck up about him either, like Magnus
      Derrick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Everything all right, Buck?&rdquo; inquired Osterman, coming up to where
      Annixter, Hilma and Mrs. Derrick were sitting down to their lunch.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes, everything right. But we've no cork-screw.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No screw-cork&mdash;no scare-crow? Here you are,&rdquo; and he drew from his
      pocket a silver-plated jack-knife with a cork-screw attachment. Harran and
      Presley came up, bearing between them a great smoking, roasted portion of
      beef just off the fire. Hilma hastened to put forward a huge china
      platter.
    </p>
    <p>
      Osterman had a joke to crack with the two boys, a joke that was rather
      broad, but as he turned about, the words almost on his lips, his glance
      fell upon Hilma herself, whom he had not seen for more than two months.
    </p>
    <p>
      She had handed Presley the platter, and was now sitting with her back
      against the tree, between two boles of the roots. The position was a
      little elevated and the supporting roots on either side of her were like
      the arms of a great chair&mdash;a chair of state. She sat thus, as on a
      throne, raised above the rest, the radiance of the unseen crown of
      motherhood glowing from her forehead, the beauty of the perfect woman
      surrounding her like a glory.
    </p>
    <p>
      And the josh died away on Osterman's lips, and unconsciously and swiftly
      he bared his head. Something was passing there in the air about him that
      he did not understand, something, however, that imposed reverence and
      profound respect. For the first time in his life, embarrassment seized
      upon him, upon this joker, this wearer of clothes, this teller of funny
      stories, with his large, red ears, bald head and comic actor's face. He
      stammered confusedly and took himself away, for the moment abstracted,
      serious, lost in thought.
    </p>
    <p>
      By now everyone was eating. It was the feeding of the People, elemental,
      gross, a great appeasing of appetite, an enormous quenching of thirst.
      Quarters of beef, roasts, ribs, shoulders, haunches were consumed, loaves
      of bread by the thousands disappeared, whole barrels of wine went down the
      dry and dusty throats of the multitude. Conversation lagged while the
      People ate, while hunger was appeased. Everybody had their fill. One ate
      for the sake of eating, resolved that there should be nothing left,
      considering it a matter of pride to exhibit a clean plate.
    </p>
    <p>
      After dinner, preparations were made for games. On a flat plateau at the
      top of one of the hills the contestants were to strive. There was to be a
      footrace of young girls under seventeen, a fat men's race, the younger
      fellows were to put the shot, to compete in the running broad jump, and
      the standing high jump, in the hop, skip, and step and in wrestling.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley was delighted with it all. It was Homeric, this feasting, this
      vast consuming of meat and bread and wine, followed now by games of
      strength. An epic simplicity and directness, an honest Anglo-Saxon mirth
      and innocence, commended it. Crude it was; coarse it was, but no taint of
      viciousness was here. These people were good people, kindly, benignant
      even, always readier to give than to receive, always more willing to help
      than to be helped. They were good stock. Of such was the backbone of the
      nation&mdash;sturdy Americans everyone of them. Where else in the world
      round were such strong, honest men, such strong, beautiful women?
    </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, Harran, and Presley climbed to the level plateau where the games
      were to be held, to lay out the courses, and mark the distances. It was
      the very place where once Presley had loved to lounge entire afternoons,
      reading his books of poems, smoking and dozing. From this high point one
      dominated the entire valley to the south and west. The view was superb.
      The three men paused for a moment on the crest of the hill to consider it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Young Vacca came running and panting up the hill after them, calling for
      Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, well, what is it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Osterman's looking for you, sir, you and Mr. Harran. Vanamee, that
      cow-boy over at Derrick's, has just come from the Governor with a message.
      I guess it's important.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, what's up now?&rdquo; muttered Annixter, as they turned back.
    </p>
    <p>
      They found Osterman saddling his horse in furious haste. Near-by him was
      Vanamee holding by the bridle an animal that was one lather of sweat. A
      few of the picnickers were turning their heads curiously in that
      direction. Evidently something of moment was in the wind.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's all up?&rdquo; demanded Annixter, as he and Harran, followed by Presley,
      drew near.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's hell to pay,&rdquo; exclaimed Osterman under his breath. &ldquo;Read that.
      Vanamee just brought it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He handed Annixter a sheet of note paper, and turned again to the cinching
      of his saddle.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We've got to be quick,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;They've stolen a march on us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter read the note, Harran and Presley looking over his shoulder.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, it's them, is it,&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      Harran set his teeth. &ldquo;Now for it,&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;They've been to your
      place already, Mr. Annixter,&rdquo; said Vanamee. &ldquo;I passed by it on my way up.
      They have put Delaney in possession, and have set all your furniture out
      in the road.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter turned about, his lips white. Already Presley and Harran had run
      to their horses.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Vacca,&rdquo; cried Annixter, &ldquo;where's Vacca? Put the saddle on the buckskin,
      QUICK. Osterman, get as many of the League as are here together at THIS
      spot, understand. I'll be back in a minute. I must tell Hilma this.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hooven ran up as Annixter disappeared. His little eyes were blazing, he
      was dragging his horse with him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, dose fellers come, hey? Me, I'm alretty, see I hev der guhn.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They've jumped the ranch, little girl,&rdquo; said Annixter, putting one arm
      around Hilma. &ldquo;They're in our house now. I'm off. Go to Derrick's and wait
      for me there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She put her arms around his neck.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You're going?&rdquo; she demanded.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I must. Don't be frightened. It will be all right. Go to Derrick's and&mdash;good-bye.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She said never a word. She looked once long into his eyes, then kissed him
      on the mouth.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meanwhile, the news had spread. The multitude rose to its feet. Women and
      men, with pale faces, looked at each other speechless, or broke forth into
      inarticulate exclamations. A strange, unfamiliar murmur took the place of
      the tumultuous gaiety of the previous moments. A sense of dread, of
      confusion, of impending terror weighed heavily in the air. What was now to
      happen?
    </p>
    <p>
      When Annixter got back to Osterman, he found a number of the Leaguers
      already assembled. They were all mounted. Hooven was there and Harran, and
      besides these, Garnett of the Ruby ranch and Gethings of the San Pablo,
      Phelps the foreman of Los Muertos, and, last of all, Dabney, silent as
      ever, speaking to no one. Presley came riding up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Best keep out of this, Pres,&rdquo; cried Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Are we ready?&rdquo; exclaimed Gethings.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ready, ready, we're all here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;ALL. Is this all of us?&rdquo; cried Annixter. &ldquo;Where are the six hundred men
      who were going to rise when this happened?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They had wavered, these other Leaguers. Now, when the actual crisis
      impended, they were smitten with confusion. Ah, no, they were not going to
      stand up and be shot at just to save Derrick's land. They were not armed.
      What did Annixter and Osterman take them for? No, sir; the Railroad had
      stolen a march on them. After all his big talk Derrick had allowed them to
      be taken by surprise. The only thing to do was to call a meeting of the
      Executive Committee. That was the only thing. As for going down there with
      no weapons in their hands, NO, sir. That was asking a little TOO much.
      &ldquo;Come on, then, boys,&rdquo; shouted Osterman, turning his back on the others.
      &ldquo;The Governor says to meet him at Hooven's. We'll make for the Long
      Trestle and strike the trail to Hooven's there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They set off. It was a terrible ride. Twice during the scrambling descent
      from the hills, Presley's pony fell beneath him. Annixter, on his
      buckskin, and Osterman, on his thoroughbred, good horsemen both, led the
      others, setting a terrific pace. The hills were left behind. Broderson
      Creek was crossed and on the levels of Quien Sabe, straight through the
      standing wheat, the nine horses, flogged and spurred, stretched out to
      their utmost. Their passage through the wheat sounded like the rip and
      tear of a gigantic web of cloth. The landscape on either hand resolved
      itself into a long blur. Tears came to the eyes, flying pebbles, clods of
      earth, grains of wheat flung up in the flight, stung the face like shot.
      Osterman's thoroughbred took the second crossing of Broderson's Creek in a
      single leap. Down under the Long Trestle tore the cavalcade in a shower of
      mud and gravel; up again on the further bank, the horses blowing like
      steam engines; on into the trail to Hooven's, single file now, Presley's
      pony lagging, Hooven's horse bleeding at the eyes, the buckskin, game as a
      fighting cock, catching her second wind, far in the lead now, distancing
      even the English thoroughbred that Osterman rode.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last Hooven's unpainted house, beneath the enormous live oak tree, came
      in sight. Across the Lower Road, breaking through fences and into the yard
      around the house, thundered the Leaguers. Magnus was waiting for them.
    </p>
    <p>
      The riders dismounted, hardly less exhausted than their horses.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, where's all the men?&rdquo; Annixter demanded of Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Broderson is here and Cutter,&rdquo; replied the Governor, &ldquo;no one else. I
      thought YOU would bring more men with you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There are only nine of us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And the six hundred Leaguers who were going to rise when this happened!&rdquo;
       exclaimed Garnett, bitterly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Rot the League,&rdquo; cried Annixter. &ldquo;It's gone to pot&mdash;went to pieces
      at the first touch.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We have been taken by surprise, gentlemen, after all,&rdquo; said Magnus.
      &ldquo;Totally off our guard. But there are eleven of us. It is enough.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, what's the game? Has the marshal come? How many men are with him?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The United States marshal from San Francisco,&rdquo; explained Magnus, &ldquo;came
      down early this morning and stopped at Guadalajara. We learned it all
      through our friends in Bonneville about an hour ago. They telephoned me
      and Mr. Broderson. S. Behrman met him and provided about a dozen deputies.
      Delaney, Ruggles, and Christian joined them at Guadalajara. They left
      Guadalajara, going towards Mr. Annixter's ranch house on Quien Sabe. They
      are serving the writs in ejectment and putting the dummy buyers in
      possession. They are armed. S. Behrman is with them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where are they now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Cutter is watching them from the Long Trestle. They returned to
      Guadalajara. They are there now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; observed Gethings, &ldquo;From Guadalajara they can only go to two
      places. Either they will take the Upper Road and go on to Osterman's next,
      or they will take the Lower Road to Mr. Derrick's.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That is as I supposed,&rdquo; said Magnus. &ldquo;That is why I wanted you to come
      here. From Hooven's, here, we can watch both roads simultaneously.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is anybody on the lookout on the Upper Road?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Cutter. He is on the Long Trestle.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; observed Hooven, the instincts of the old-time soldier stirring
      him, &ldquo;say, dose feller pretty demn schmart, I tink. We got to put some
      picket way oudt bei der Lower Roadt alzoh, und he tek dose glassus Mist'r
      Ennixt'r got bei um. Say, look at dose irregation ditsch. Dot ditsch he
      run righd across BOTH dose road, hey? Dat's some fine entrenchment, you
      bedt. We fighd um from dose ditsch.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In fact, the dry irrigating ditch was a natural trench, admirably suited
      to the purpose, crossing both roads as Hooven pointed out and barring
      approach from Guadalajara to all the ranches save Annixter's&mdash;which
      had already been seized.
    </p>
    <p>
      Gethings departed to join Cutter on the Long Trestle, while Phelps and
      Harran, taking Annixter's field glasses with them, and mounting their
      horses, went out towards Guadalajara on the Lower Road to watch for the
      marshal's approach from that direction.
    </p>
    <p>
      After the outposts had left them, the party in Hooven's cottage looked to
      their weapons. Long since, every member of the League had been in the
      habit of carrying his revolver with him. They were all armed and, in
      addition, Hooven had his rifle. Presley alone carried no weapon.
    </p>
    <p>
      The main room of Hooven's house, in which the Leaguers were now assembled,
      was barren, poverty-stricken, but tolerably clean. An old clock ticked
      vociferously on a shelf. In one corner was a bed, with a patched, faded
      quilt. In the centre of the room, straddling over the bare floor, stood a
      pine table. Around this the men gathered, two or three occupying chairs,
      Annixter sitting sideways on the table, the rest standing.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I believe, gentlemen,&rdquo; said Magnus, &ldquo;that we can go through this day
      without bloodshed. I believe not one shot need be fired. The Railroad will
      not force the issue, will not bring about actual fighting. When the
      marshal realises that we are thoroughly in earnest, thoroughly determined,
      I am convinced that he will withdraw.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There were murmurs of assent.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; said Annixter, &ldquo;if this thing can by any means be settled
      peaceably, I say let's do it, so long as we don't give in.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The others stared. Was this Annixter who spoke&mdash;the Hotspur of the
      League, the quarrelsome, irascible fellow who loved and sought a quarrel?
      Was it Annixter, who now had been the first and only one of them all to
      suffer, whose ranch had been seized, whose household possessions had been
      flung out into the road?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;When you come right down to it,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;killing a man, no matter
      what he's done to you, is a serious business. I propose we make one more
      attempt to stave this thing off. Let's see if we can't get to talk with
      the marshal himself; at any rate, warn him of the danger of going any
      further. Boys, let's not fire the first shot. What do you say?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The others agreed unanimously and promptly; and old Broderson, tugging
      uneasily at his long beard, added:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;no violence, no UNNECESSARY violence, that is. I should
      hate to have innocent blood on my hands&mdash;that is, if it IS innocent.
      I don't know, that S. Behrman&mdash;ah, he is a&mdash;a&mdash;surely he
      had innocent blood on HIS head. That Dyke affair, terrible, terrible; but
      then Dyke WAS in the wrong&mdash;driven to it, though; the Railroad did
      drive him to it. I want to be fair and just to everybody.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's a team coming up the road from Los Muertos,&rdquo; announced Presley
      from the door.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fair and just to everybody,&rdquo; murmured old Broderson, wagging his head,
      frowning perplexedly. &ldquo;I don't want to&mdash;to&mdash;to harm anybody
      unless they harm me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is the team going towards Guadalajara?&rdquo; enquired Garnett, getting up and
      coming to the door.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, it's a Portuguese, one of the garden truck men.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We must turn him back,&rdquo; declared Osterman. &ldquo;He can't go through here. We
      don't want him to take any news on to the marshal and S. Behrman.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll turn him back,&rdquo; said Presley.
    </p>
    <p>
      He rode out towards the market cart, and the others, watching from the
      road in front of Hooven's, saw him halt it. An excited interview followed.
      They could hear the Portuguese expostulating volubly, but in the end he
      turned back.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Martial law on Los Muertos, isn't it?&rdquo; observed Osterman. &ldquo;Steady all,&rdquo;
       he exclaimed as he turned about, &ldquo;here comes Harran.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Harran rode up at a gallop. The others surrounded him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I saw them,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;They are coming this way. S. Behrman and Ruggles
      are in a two-horse buggy. All the others are on horseback. There are
      eleven of them. Christian and Delaney are with them. Those two have
      rifles. I left Hooven watching them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Better call in Gethings and Cutter right away,&rdquo; said Annixter. &ldquo;We'll
      need all our men.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll call them in,&rdquo; Presley volunteered at once. &ldquo;Can I have the
      buckskin? My pony is about done up.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He departed at a brisk gallop, but on the way met Gethings and Cutter
      returning. They, too, from their elevated position, had observed the
      marshal's party leaving Guadalajara by the Lower Road. Presley told them
      of the decision of the Leaguers not to fire until fired upon.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Gethings. &ldquo;But if it comes to a gun-fight, that means
      it's all up with at least one of us. Delaney never misses his man.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When they reached Hooven's again, they found that the Leaguers had already
      taken their position in the ditch. The plank bridge across it had been
      torn up. Magnus, two long revolvers lying on the embankment in front of
      him, was in the middle, Harran at his side. On either side, some five feet
      intervening between each man, stood the other Leaguers, their revolvers
      ready. Dabney, the silent old man, had taken off his coat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Take your places between Mr. Osterman and Mr. Broderson,&rdquo; said Magnus, as
      the three men rode up. &ldquo;Presley,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;I forbid you to take any part
      in this affair.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, keep him out of it,&rdquo; cried Annixter from his position at the extreme
      end of the line. &ldquo;Go back to Hooven's house, Pres, and look after the
      horses,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;This is no business of yours. And keep the road behind
      us clear. Don't let ANY ONE come near, not ANY ONE, understand?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley withdrew, leading the buckskin and the horses that Gethings and
      Cutter had ridden. He fastened them under the great live oak and then came
      out and stood in the road in front of the house to watch what was going
      on.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the ditch, shoulder deep, the Leaguers, ready, watchful, waited in
      silence, their eyes fixed on the white shimmer of the road leading to
      Guadalajara.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where's Hooven?&rdquo; enquired Cutter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; Osterman replied. &ldquo;He was out watching the Lower Road with
      Harran Derrick. Oh, Harran,&rdquo; he called, &ldquo;isn't Hooven coming in?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know what he is waiting for,&rdquo; answered Harran. &ldquo;He was to have
      come in just after me. He thought maybe the marshal's party might make a
      feint in this direction, then go around by the Upper Road, after all. He
      wanted to watch them a little longer. But he ought to be here now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Think he'll take a shot at them on his own account?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, no, he wouldn't do that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Maybe they took him prisoner.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that's to be thought of, too.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly there was a cry. Around the bend of the road in front of them
      came a cloud of dust. From it emerged a horse's head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, hello, there's something.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Remember, we are not to fire first.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps that's Hooven; I can't see. Is it? There only seems to be one
      horse.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Too much dust for one horse.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Annixter, who had taken his field glasses from Harran, adjusted them to
      his eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's not them,&rdquo; he announced presently, &ldquo;nor Hooven either. That's a
      cart.&rdquo; Then after another moment, he added, &ldquo;The butcher's cart from
      Guadalajara.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The tension was relaxed. The men drew long breaths, settling back in their
      places.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do we let him go on, Governor?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The bridge is down. He can't go by and we must not let him go back. We
      shall have to detain him and question him. I wonder the marshal let him
      pass.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The cart approached at a lively trot.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Anybody else in that cart, Mr. Annixter?&rdquo; asked Magnus. &ldquo;Look carefully.
      It may be a ruse. It is strange the marshal should have let him pass.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Leaguers roused themselves again. Osterman laid his hand on his
      revolver.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; called Annixter, in another instant, &ldquo;no, there's only one man in
      it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The cart came up, and Cutter and Phelps, clambering from the ditch,
      stopped it as it arrived in front of the party.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hey&mdash;what&mdash;what?&rdquo; exclaimed the young butcher, pulling up. &ldquo;Is
      that bridge broke?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But at the idea of being held, the boy protested at top voice, badly
      frightened, bewildered, not knowing what was to happen next.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no, I got my meat to deliver. Say, you let me go. Say, I ain't got
      nothing to do with you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He tugged at the reins, trying to turn the cart about. Cutter, with his
      jack-knife, parted the reins just back of the bit.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You'll stay where you are, m' son, for a while. We're not going to hurt
      you. But you are not going back to town till we say so. Did you pass
      anybody on the road out of town?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In reply to the Leaguers' questions, the young butcher at last told them
      he had passed a two-horse buggy and a lot of men on horseback just beyond
      the railroad tracks. They were headed for Los Muertos.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's them, all right,&rdquo; muttered Annixter. &ldquo;They're coming by this road,
      sure.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The butcher's horse and cart were led to one side of the road, and the
      horse tied to the fence with one of the severed lines. The butcher,
      himself, was passed over to Presley, who locked him in Hooven's barn.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, what the devil,&rdquo; demanded Osterman, &ldquo;has become of Bismarck?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In fact, the butcher had seen nothing of Hooven. The minutes were passing,
      and still he failed to appear.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's he up to, anyways?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Bet you what you like, they caught him. Just like that crazy Dutchman to
      get excited and go too near. You can always depend on Hooven to lose his
      head.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Five minutes passed, then ten. The road towards Guadalajara lay empty,
      baking and white under the sun.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, the marshal and S. Behrman don't seem to be in any hurry, either.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shall I go forward and reconnoitre, Governor?&rdquo; asked Harran.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Dabney, who stood next to Annixter, touched him on the shoulder and,
      without speaking, pointed down the road. Annixter looked, then suddenly
      cried out:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here comes Hooven.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The German galloped into sight, around the turn of the road, his rifle
      laid across his saddle. He came on rapidly, pulled up, and dismounted at
      the ditch.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dey're commen,&rdquo; he cried, trembling with excitement. &ldquo;I watch um long
      dime bei der side oaf der roadt in der busches. Dey shtop bei der gate
      oder side der relroadt trecks and talk long dime mit one n'udder. Den dey
      gome on. Dey're gowun sure do zum monkey-doodle pizeness. Me, I see
      Gritschun put der kertridges in his guhn. I tink dey gowun to gome MY
      blace first. Dey gowun to try put me off, tek my home, bei Gott.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right, get down in here and keep quiet, Hooven. Don't fire unless&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here they are.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A half-dozen voices uttered the cry at once.
    </p>
    <p>
      There could be no mistake this time. A buggy, drawn by two horses, came
      into view around the curve of the road. Three riders accompanied it, and
      behind these, seen at intervals in a cloud of dust were two&mdash;three&mdash;five&mdash;six
      others.
    </p>
    <p>
      This, then, was S. Behrman with the United States marshal and his posse.
      The event that had been so long in preparation, the event which it had
      been said would never come to pass, the last trial of strength, the last
      fight between the Trust and the People, the direct, brutal grapple of
      armed men, the law defied, the Government ignored, behold, here it was
      close at hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Osterman cocked his revolver, and in the profound silence that had fallen
      upon the scene, the click was plainly audible from end to end of the line.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Remember our agreement, gentlemen,&rdquo; cried Magnus, in a warning voice.
      &ldquo;Mr. Osterman, I must ask you to let down the hammer of your weapon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      No one answered. In absolute quiet, standing motionless in their places,
      the Leaguers watched the approach of the marshal.
    </p>
    <p>
      Five minutes passed. The riders came on steadily. They drew nearer. The
      grind of the buggy wheels in the grit and dust of the road, and the
      prolonged clatter of the horses' feet began to make itself heard. The
      Leaguers could distinguish the faces of their enemies.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the buggy were S. Behrman and Cyrus Ruggles, the latter driving. A tall
      man in a frock coat and slouched hat&mdash;the marshal, beyond question&mdash;rode
      at the left of the buggy; Delaney, carrying a Winchester, at the right.
      Christian, the real estate broker, S. Behrman's cousin, also with a rifle,
      could be made out just behind the marshal. Back of these, riding well up,
      was a group of horsemen, indistinguishable in the dust raised by the
      buggy's wheels.
    </p>
    <p>
      Steadily the distance between the Leaguers and the posse diminished.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't let them get too close, Governor,&rdquo; whispered Harran.
    </p>
    <p>
      When S. Behrman's buggy was about one hundred yards distant from the
      irrigating ditch, Magnus sprang out upon the road, leaving his revolvers
      behind him. He beckoned Garnett and Gethings to follow, and the three
      ranchers, who, with the exception of Broderson, were the oldest men
      present, advanced, without arms, to meet the marshal.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus cried aloud:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Halt where you are.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      From their places in the ditch, Annixter, Osterman, Dabney, Harran,
      Hooven, Broderson, Cutter, and Phelps, their hands laid upon their
      revolvers, watched silently, alert, keen, ready for anything.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the Governor's words, they saw Ruggles pull sharply on the reins. The
      buggy came to a standstill, the riders doing likewise. Magnus approached
      the marshal, still followed by Garnett and Gethings, and began to speak.
      His voice was audible to the men in the ditch, but his words could not be
      made out. They heard the marshal reply quietly enough and the two shook
      hands. Delaney came around from the side of the buggy, his horse standing
      before the team across the road. He leaned from the saddle, listening to
      what was being said, but made no remark. From time to time, S. Behrman and
      Ruggles, from their seats in the buggy, interposed a sentence or two into
      the conversation, but at first, so far as the Leaguers could discern,
      neither Magnus nor the marshal paid them any attention. They saw, however,
      that the latter repeatedly shook his head and once they heard him exclaim
      in a loud voice:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I only know my duty, Mr. Derrick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then Gethings turned about, and seeing Delaney close at hand, addressed an
      unheard remark to him. The cow-puncher replied curtly and the words seemed
      to anger Gethings. He made a gesture, pointing back to the ditch, showing
      the intrenched Leaguers to the posse. Delaney appeared to communicate the
      news that the Leaguers were on hand and prepared to resist, to the other
      members of the party. They all looked toward the ditch and plainly saw the
      ranchers there, standing to their arms.
    </p>
    <p>
      But meanwhile Ruggles had addressed himself more directly to Magnus, and
      between the two an angry discussion was going forward. Once even Harran
      heard his father exclaim:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The statement is a lie and no one knows it better than yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here,&rdquo; growled Annixter to Dabney, who stood next him in the ditch,
      &ldquo;those fellows are getting too close. Look at them edging up. Don't Magnus
      see that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other members of the marshal's force had come forward from their
      places behind the buggy and were spread out across the road. Some of them
      were gathered about Magnus, Garnett, and Gethings; and some were talking
      together, looking and pointing towards the ditch. Whether acting upon
      signal or not, the Leaguers in the ditch could not tell, but it was
      certain that one or two of the posse had moved considerably forward.
      Besides this, Delaney had now placed his horse between Magnus and the
      ditch, and two others riding up from the rear had followed his example.
      The posse surrounded the three ranchers, and by now, everybody was talking
      at once.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; Harran called to Annixter, &ldquo;this won't do. I don't like the
      looks of this thing. They all seem to be edging up, and before we know it
      they may take the Governor and the other men prisoners.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They ought to come back,&rdquo; declared Annixter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Somebody ought to tell them that those fellows are creeping up.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      By now, the angry argument between the Governor and Ruggles had become
      more heated than ever. Their voices were raised; now and then they made
      furious gestures.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They ought to come back,&rdquo; cried Osterman. &ldquo;We couldn't shoot now if
      anything should happen, for fear of hitting them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, it sounds as though something were going to happen pretty soon.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They could hear Gethings and Delaney wrangling furiously; another deputy
      joined in.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm going to call the Governor back,&rdquo; exclaimed Annixter, suddenly
      clambering out of the ditch. &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; cried Osterman, &ldquo;keep in the ditch.
      They can't drive us out if we keep here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hooven and Harran, who had instinctively followed Annixter, hesitated at
      Osterman's words and the three halted irresolutely on the road before the
      ditch, their weapons in their hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Governor,&rdquo; shouted Harran, &ldquo;come on back. You can't do anything.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Still the wrangle continued, and one of the deputies, advancing a little
      from out the group, cried out:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Keep back there! Keep back there, you!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Go to hell, will you?&rdquo; shouted Harran on the instant. &ldquo;You're on my
      land.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, come back here, Harran,&rdquo; called Osterman. &ldquo;That ain't going to do any
      good.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There&mdash;listen,&rdquo; suddenly exclaimed Harran. &ldquo;The Governor is calling
      us. Come on; I'm going.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Osterman got out of the ditch and came forward, catching Harran by the arm
      and pulling him back.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He didn't call. Don't get excited. You'll ruin everything. Get back into
      the ditch again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Cutter, Phelps, and the old man Dabney, misunderstanding what was
      happening, and seeing Osterman leave the ditch, had followed his example.
      All the Leaguers were now out of the ditch, and a little way down the
      road, Hooven, Osterman, Annixter, and Harran in front, Dabney, Phelps, and
      Cutter coming up from behind.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Keep back, you,&rdquo; cried the deputy again.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the group around S. Behrman's buggy, Gethings and Delaney were yet
      quarrelling, and the angry debate between Magnus, Garnett, and the marshal
      still continued.
    </p>
    <p>
      Till this moment, the real estate broker, Christian, had taken no part in
      the argument, but had kept himself in the rear of the buggy. Now, however,
      he pushed forward. There was but little room for him to pass, and, as he
      rode by the buggy, his horse scraped his flank against the hub of the
      wheel. The animal recoiled sharply, and, striking against Garnett, threw
      him to the ground. Delaney's horse stood between the buggy and the
      Leaguers gathered on the road in front of the ditch; the incident,
      indistinctly seen by them, was misinterpreted.
    </p>
    <p>
      Garnett had not yet risen when Hooven raised a great shout:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;HOCH, DER KAISER! HOCH, DER VATERLAND!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      With the words, he dropped to one knee, and sighting his rifle carefully,
      fired into the group of men around the buggy.
    </p>
    <p>
      Instantly the revolvers and rifles seemed to go off of themselves. Both
      sides, deputies and Leaguers, opened fire simultaneously. At first, it was
      nothing but a confused roar of explosions; then the roar lapsed to an
      irregular, quick succession of reports, shot leaping after shot; then a
      moment's silence, and, last of all, regular as clock-ticks, three shots at
      exact intervals. Then stillness.
    </p>
    <p>
      Delaney, shot through the stomach, slid down from his horse, and, on his
      hands and knees, crawled from the road into the standing wheat. Christian
      fell backward from the saddle toward the buggy, and hung suspended in that
      position, his head and shoulders on the wheel, one stiff leg still across
      his saddle. Hooven, in attempting to rise from his kneeling position,
      received a rifle ball squarely in the throat, and rolled forward upon his
      face. Old Broderson, crying out, &ldquo;Oh, they've shot me, boys,&rdquo; staggered
      sideways, his head bent, his hands rigid at his sides, and fell into the
      ditch. Osterman, blood running from his mouth and nose, turned about and
      walked back. Presley helped him across the irrigating ditch and Osterman
      laid himself down, his head on his folded arms. Harran Derrick dropped
      where he stood, turning over on his face, and lay motionless, groaning
      terribly, a pool of blood forming under his stomach. The old man Dabney,
      silent as ever, received his death, speechless. He fell to his knees, got
      up again, fell once more, and died without a word. Annixter, instantly
      killed, fell his length to the ground, and lay without movement, just as
      he had fallen, one arm across his face.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VII
    </h2>
    <p>
      On their way to Derrick's ranch house, Hilma and Mrs. Derrick heard the
      sounds of distant firing.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; cried Hilma, laying her hand upon young Vacca's arm. &ldquo;Stop the
      horses. Listen, what was that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The carry-all came to a halt and from far away across the rustling wheat
      came the faint rattle of rifles and revolvers.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; cried Vacca, rolling his eyes, &ldquo;oh, say, they're fighting over
      there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Derrick put her hands over her face.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fighting,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;oh, oh, it's terrible. Magnus is there&mdash;and
      Harran.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where do you think it is?&rdquo; demanded Hilma. &ldquo;That's over toward Hooven's.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm going. Turn back. Drive to Hooven's, quick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Better not, Mrs. Annixter,&rdquo; protested the young man. &ldquo;Mr. Annixter said
      we were to go to Derrick's. Better keep away from Hooven's if there's
      trouble there. We wouldn't get there till it's all over, anyhow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes, let's go home,&rdquo; cried Mrs. Derrick, &ldquo;I'm afraid. Oh, Hilma, I'm
      afraid.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come with me to Hooven's then.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There, where they are fighting? Oh, I couldn't. I&mdash;I can't. It would
      be all over before we got there as Vacca says.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; repeated young Vacca.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Drive to Hooven's,&rdquo; commanded Hilma. &ldquo;If you won't, I'll walk there.&rdquo; She
      threw off the lap-robes, preparing to descend. &ldquo;And you,&rdquo; she exclaimed,
      turning to Mrs. Derrick, &ldquo;how CAN you&mdash;when Harran and your husband
      may be&mdash;may&mdash;are in danger.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Grumbling, Vacca turned the carry-all about and drove across the open
      fields till he reached the road to Guadalajara, just below the Mission.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hurry!&rdquo; cried Hilma.
    </p>
    <p>
      The horses started forward under the touch of the whip. The ranch houses
      of Quien Sabe came in sight.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you want to stop at the house?&rdquo; inquired Vacca over his shoulder.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no; oh, go faster&mdash;make the horses run.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They dashed through the houses of the Home ranch.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, oh,&rdquo; cried Hilma suddenly, &ldquo;look, look there. Look what they have
      done.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Vacca pulled the horses up, for the road in front of Annixter's house was
      blocked.
    </p>
    <p>
      A vast, confused heap of household effects was there&mdash;chairs, sofas,
      pictures, fixtures, lamps. Hilma's little home had been gutted; everything
      had been taken from it and ruthlessly flung out upon the road, everything
      that she and her husband had bought during that wonderful week after their
      marriage. Here was the white enamelled &ldquo;set&rdquo; of the bedroom furniture, the
      three chairs, wash-stand and bureau,&mdash;the bureau drawers falling out,
      spilling their contents into the dust; there were the white wool rugs of
      the sitting-room, the flower stand, with its pots all broken, its flowers
      wilting; the cracked goldfish globe, the fishes already dead; the rocking
      chair, the sewing machine, the great round table of yellow oak, the lamp
      with its deep shade of crinkly red tissue paper, the pretty tinted
      photographs that had hung on the wall&mdash;the choir boys with beautiful
      eyes, the pensive young girls in pink gowns&mdash;the pieces of wood
      carving that represented quails and ducks, and, last of all, its curtains
      of crisp, clean muslin, cruelly torn and crushed&mdash;the bed, the
      wonderful canopied bed so brave and gay, of which Hilma had been so proud,
      thrust out there into the common road, torn from its place, from the
      discreet intimacy of her bridal chamber, violated, profaned, flung out
      into the dust and garish sunshine for all men to stare at, a mockery and a
      shame.
    </p>
    <p>
      To Hilma it was as though something of herself, of her person, had been
      thus exposed and degraded; all that she held sacred pilloried, gibbeted,
      and exhibited to the world's derision. Tears of anguish sprang to her
      eyes, a red flame of outraged modesty overspread her face.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; she cried, a sob catching her throat, &ldquo;oh, how could they do it?&rdquo;
       But other fears intruded; other greater terrors impended.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; she cried to Vacca, &ldquo;go on quickly.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Vacca would go no further. He had seen what had escaped Hilma's
      attention, two men, deputies, no doubt, on the porch of the ranch house.
      They held possession there, and the evidence of the presence of the enemy
      in this raid upon Quien Sabe had daunted him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, SIR,&rdquo; he declared, getting out of the carry-all, &ldquo;I ain't going to
      take you anywhere where you're liable to get hurt. Besides, the road's
      blocked by all this stuff. You can't get the team by.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilma sprang from the carry-all.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; she said to Mrs. Derrick.
    </p>
    <p>
      The older woman, trembling, hesitating, faint with dread, obeyed, and
      Hilma, picking her way through and around the wreck of her home, set off
      by the trail towards the Long Trestle and Hooven's.
    </p>
    <p>
      When she arrived, she found the road in front of the German's house, and,
      indeed, all the surrounding yard, crowded with people. An overturned buggy
      lay on the side of the road in the distance, its horses in a tangle of
      harness, held by two or three men. She saw Caraher's buckboard under the
      live oak and near it a second buggy which she recognised as belonging to a
      doctor in Guadalajara.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, what has happened; oh, what has happened?&rdquo; moaned Mrs. Derrick.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; repeated Hilma. The young girl took her by the hand and together
      they pushed their way through the crowd of men and women and entered the
      yard.
    </p>
    <p>
      The throng gave way before the two women, parting to right and left
      without a word.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Presley,&rdquo; cried Mrs. Derrick, as she caught sight of him in the doorway
      of the house, &ldquo;oh, Presley, what has happened? Is Harran safe? Is Magnus
      safe? Where are they?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't go in, Mrs. Derrick,&rdquo; said Presley, coming forward, &ldquo;don't go in.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where is my husband?&rdquo; demanded Hilma.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley turned away and steadied himself against the jamb of the door.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hilma, leaving Mrs. Derrick, entered the house. The front room was full of
      men. She was dimly conscious of Cyrus Ruggles and S. Behrman, both deadly
      pale, talking earnestly and in whispers to Cutter and Phelps. There was a
      strange, acrid odour of an unfamiliar drug in the air. On the table before
      her was a satchel, surgical instruments, rolls of bandages, and a blue,
      oblong paper box full of cotton. But above the hushed noises of voices and
      footsteps, one terrible sound made itself heard&mdash;the prolonged,
      rasping sound of breathing, half choked, laboured, agonised.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where is my husband?&rdquo; she cried. She pushed the men aside. She saw
      Magnus, bareheaded, three or four men lying on the floor, one half naked,
      his body swathed in white bandages; the doctor in shirt sleeves, on one
      knee beside a figure of a man stretched out beside him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Garnett turned a white face to her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where is my husband?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other did not reply, but stepped aside and Hilma saw the dead body of
      her husband lying upon the bed. She did not cry out. She said no word. She
      went to the bed, and sitting upon it, took Annixter's head in her lap,
      holding it gently between her hands. Thereafter she did not move, but sat
      holding her dead husband's head in her lap, looking vaguely about from
      face to face of those in the room, while, without a sob, without a cry,
      the great tears filled her wide-opened eyes and rolled slowly down upon
      her cheeks.
    </p>
    <p>
      On hearing that his wife was outside, Magnus came quickly forward. She
      threw herself into his arms.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tell me, tell me,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;is Harran&mdash;is&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We don't know yet,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Oh, Annie&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then suddenly the Governor checked himself. He, the indomitable, could not
      break down now.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The doctor is with him,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;we are doing all we can. Try and be
      brave, Annie. There is always hope. This is a terrible day's work. God
      forgive us all.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She pressed forward, but he held her back.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, don't see him now. Go into the next room. Garnett, take care of her.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But she would not be denied. She pushed by Magnus, and, breaking through
      the group that surrounded her son, sank on her knees beside him, moaning,
      in compassion and terror.
    </p>
    <p>
      Harran lay straight and rigid upon the floor, his head propped by a
      pillow, his coat that had been taken off spread over his chest. One leg of
      his trousers was soaked through and through with blood. His eyes were
      half-closed, and with the regularity of a machine, the eyeballs twitched
      and twitched. His face was so white that it made his yellow hair look
      brown, while from his opened mouth, there issued that loud and terrible
      sound of guttering, rasping, laboured breathing that gagged and choked and
      gurgled with every inhalation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Harrie, Harrie,&rdquo; called Mrs. Derrick, catching at one of his hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      The doctor shook his head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He is unconscious, Mrs. Derrick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where was he&mdash;where is&mdash;the&mdash;the&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Through the lungs.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Will he get well? Tell me the truth.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know. Mrs. Derrick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She had all but fainted, and the old rancher, Garnett, half-carrying,
      half-leading her, took her to the one adjoining room&mdash;Minna Hooven's
      bedchamber. Dazed, numb with fear, she sat down on the edge of the bed,
      rocking herself back and forth, murmuring:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Harrie, Harrie, oh, my son, my little boy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In the outside room, Presley came and went, doing what he could to be of
      service, sick with horror, trembling from head to foot.
    </p>
    <p>
      The surviving members of both Leaguers and deputies&mdash;the warring
      factions of the Railroad and the People&mdash;mingled together now with no
      thought of hostility. Presley helped the doctor to cover Christian's body.
      S. Behrman and Ruggles held bowls of water while Osterman was attended to.
      The horror of that dreadful business had driven all other considerations
      from the mind. The sworn foes of the last hour had no thought of anything
      but to care for those whom, in their fury, they had shot down. The
      marshal, abandoning for that day the attempt to serve the writs, departed
      for San Francisco.
    </p>
    <p>
      The bodies had been brought in from the road where they fell. Annixter's
      corpse had been laid upon the bed; those of Dabney and Hooven, whose
      wounds had all been in the face and head, were covered with a tablecloth.
      Upon the floor, places were made for the others. Cutter and Ruggles rode
      into Guadalajara to bring out the doctor there, and to telephone to
      Bonneville for others.
    </p>
    <p>
      Osterman had not at any time since the shooting, lost consciousness. He
      lay upon the floor of Hooven's house, bare to the waist, bandages of
      adhesive tape reeved about his abdomen and shoulder. His eyes were
      half-closed. Presley, who looked after him, pending the arrival of a hack
      from Bonneville that was to take him home, knew that he was in agony.
    </p>
    <p>
      But this poser, this silly fellow, this cracker of jokes, whom no one had
      ever taken very seriously, at the last redeemed himself. When at length,
      the doctor had arrived, he had, for the first time, opened his eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can wait,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Take Harran first.&rdquo; And when at length, his turn
      had come, and while the sweat rolled from his forehead as the doctor began
      probing for the bullet, he had reached out his free arm and taken
      Presley's hand in his, gripping it harder and harder, as the probe entered
      the wound. His breath came short through his nostrils; his face, the face
      of a comic actor, with its high cheek bones, bald forehead, and salient
      ears, grew paler and paler, his great slit of a mouth shut tight, but he
      uttered no groan.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the worst anguish was over and he could find breath to speak, his
      first words had been:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Were any of the others badly hurt?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As Presley stood by the door of the house after bringing in a pail of
      water for the doctor, he was aware of a party of men who had struck off
      from the road on the other side of the irrigating ditch and were advancing
      cautiously into the field of wheat. He wondered what it meant and Cutter,
      coming up at that moment, Presley asked him if he knew.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's Delaney,&rdquo; said Cutter. &ldquo;It seems that when he was shot he crawled
      off into the wheat. They are looking for him there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley had forgotten all about the buster and had only a vague
      recollection of seeing him slide from his horse at the beginning of the
      fight. Anxious to know what had become of him, he hurried up and joined
      the party of searchers.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We better look out,&rdquo; said one of the young men, &ldquo;how we go fooling around
      in here. If he's alive yet he's just as liable as not to think we're after
      him and take a shot at us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I guess there ain't much fight left in him,&rdquo; another answered. &ldquo;Look at
      the wheat here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lord! He's bled like a stuck pig.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here's his hat,&rdquo; abruptly exclaimed the leader of the party. &ldquo;He can't be
      far off. Let's call him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They called repeatedly without getting any answer, then proceeded
      cautiously. All at once the men in advance stopped so suddenly that those
      following carromed against them. There was an outburst of exclamation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here he is!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good Lord! Sure, that's him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Poor fellow, poor fellow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The cow-puncher lay on his back, deep in the wheat, his knees drawn up,
      his eyes wide open, his lips brown. Rigidly gripped in one hand was his
      empty revolver.
    </p>
    <p>
      The men, farm hands from the neighbouring ranches, young fellows from
      Guadalajara, drew back in instinctive repulsion. One at length ventured
      near, peering down into the face.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is he dead?&rdquo; inquired those in the rear.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, put your hand on his heart.&rdquo; &ldquo;No! I&mdash;I don't want to.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What you afraid of?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I just don't want to touch him, that's all. It's bad luck. YOU feel
      his heart.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You can't always tell by that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How can you tell, then? Pshaw, you fellows make me sick. Here, let me get
      there. I'll do it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a long pause, as the other bent down and laid his hand on the
      cow-puncher's breast.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can't tell. Sometimes I think I feel it beat and sometimes I don't. I
      never saw a dead man before.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you can't tell by the heart.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's the good of talking so blame much. Dead or not, let's carry him
      back to the house.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Two or three ran back to the road for planks from the broken bridge. When
      they returned with these a litter was improvised, and throwing their coats
      over the body, the party carried it back to the road. The doctor was
      summoned and declared the cow-puncher to have been dead over half an hour.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What did I tell you?&rdquo; exclaimed one of the group.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I never said he wasn't dead,&rdquo; protested the other. &ldquo;I only said you
      couldn't always tell by whether his heart beat or not.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But all at once there was a commotion. The wagon containing Mrs. Hooven,
      Minna, and little Hilda drove up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Eh, den, my men,&rdquo; cried Mrs. Hooven, wildly interrogating the faces of
      the crowd. &ldquo;Whadt has happun? Sey, den, dose vellers, hev dey hurdt my
      men, eh, whadt?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She sprang from the wagon, followed by Minna with Hilda in her arms. The
      crowd bore back as they advanced, staring at them in silence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Eh, whadt has happun, whadt has happun?&rdquo; wailed Mrs. Hooven, as she
      hurried on, her two hands out before her, the fingers spread wide. &ldquo;Eh,
      Hooven, eh, my men, are you alle righdt?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She burst into the house. Hooven's body had been removed to an adjoining
      room, the bedroom of the house, and to this room Mrs. Hooven&mdash;Minna
      still at her heels&mdash;proceeded, guided by an instinct born of the
      occasion. Those in the outside room, saying no word, made way for them.
      They entered, closing the door behind them, and through all the rest of
      that terrible day, no sound nor sight of them was had by those who crowded
      into and about that house of death. Of all the main actors of the tragedy
      of the fight in the ditch, they remained the least noted, obtruded
      themselves the least upon the world's observation. They were, for the
      moment, forgotten.
    </p>
    <p>
      But by now Hooven's house was the centre of an enormous crowd. A vast
      concourse of people from Bonneville, from Guadalajara, from the ranches,
      swelled by the thousands who had that morning participated in the rabbit
      drive, surged about the place; men and women, young boys, young girls,
      farm hands, villagers, townspeople, ranchers, railroad employees,
      Mexicans, Spaniards, Portuguese. Presley, returning from the search for
      Delaney's body, had to fight his way to the house again.
    </p>
    <p>
      And from all this multitude there rose an indefinable murmur. As yet,
      there was no menace in it, no anger. It was confusion merely,
      bewilderment, the first long-drawn &ldquo;oh!&rdquo; that greets the news of some
      great tragedy. The people had taken no thought as yet. Curiosity was their
      dominant impulse. Every one wanted to see what had been done; failing
      that, to hear of it, and failing that, to be near the scene of the affair.
      The crowd of people packed the road in front of the house for nearly a
      quarter of a mile in either direction. They balanced themselves upon the
      lower strands of the barbed wire fence in their effort to see over each
      others' shoulders; they stood on the seats of their carts, buggies, and
      farm wagons, a few even upon the saddles of their riding horses. They
      crowded, pushed, struggled, surged forward and back without knowing why,
      converging incessantly upon Hooven's house.
    </p>
    <p>
      When, at length, Presley got to the gate, he found a carry-all drawn up
      before it. Between the gate and the door of the house a lane had been
      formed, and as he paused there a moment, a group of Leaguers, among whom
      were Garnett and Gethings, came slowly from the door carrying old
      Broderson in their arms. The doctor, bareheaded and in his shirt sleeves,
      squinting in the sunlight, attended them, repeating at every step:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Slow, slow, take it easy, gentlemen.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Old Broderson was unconscious. His face was not pale, no bandages could be
      seen. With infinite precautions, the men bore him to the carry-all and
      deposited him on the back seat; the rain flaps were let down on one side
      to shut off the gaze of the multitude.
    </p>
    <p>
      But at this point a moment of confusion ensued. Presley, because of half a
      dozen people who stood in his way, could not see what was going on. There
      were exclamations, hurried movements. The doctor uttered a sharp command
      and a man ran back to the house returning on the instant with the doctor's
      satchel. By this time, Presley was close to the wheels of the carry-all
      and could see the doctor inside the vehicle bending over old Broderson.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here it is, here it is,&rdquo; exclaimed the man who had been sent to the
      house.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I won't need it,&rdquo; answered the doctor, &ldquo;he's dying now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      At the words a great hush widened throughout the throng near at hand. Some
      men took off their hats.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stand back,&rdquo; protested the doctor quietly, &ldquo;stand back, good people,
      please.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The crowd bore back a little. In the silence, a woman began to sob. The
      seconds passed, then a minute. The horses of the carry-all shifted their
      feet and whisked their tails, driving off the flies. At length, the doctor
      got down from the carry-all, letting down the rain-flaps on that side as
      well.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Will somebody go home with the body?&rdquo; he asked. Gethings stepped forward
      and took his place by the driver. The carry-all drove away.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley reentered the house. During his absence it had been cleared of all
      but one or two of the Leaguers, who had taken part in the fight. Hilma
      still sat on the bed with Annixter's head in her lap. S. Behrman, Ruggles,
      and all the railroad party had gone. Osterman had been taken away in a
      hack and the tablecloth over Dabney's body replaced with a sheet. But
      still unabated, agonised, raucous, came the sounds of Harran's breathing.
      Everything possible had already been done. For the moment it was out of
      the question to attempt to move him. His mother and father were at his
      side, Magnus, with a face of stone, his look fixed on those persistently
      twitching eyes, Annie Derrick crouching at her son's side, one of his
      hands in hers, fanning his face continually with the crumpled sheet of an
      old newspaper.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley on tip-toes joined the group, looking on attentively. One of the
      surgeons who had been called from Bonneville stood close by, watching
      Harran's face, his arms folded.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How is he?&rdquo; Presley whispered.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He won't live,&rdquo; the other responded.
    </p>
    <p>
      By degrees the choke and gurgle of the breathing became more irregular and
      the lids closed over the twitching eyes. All at once the breath ceased.
      Magnus shot an inquiring glance at the surgeon.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He is dead, Mr. Derrick,&rdquo; the surgeon replied.
    </p>
    <p>
      Annie Derrick, with a cry that rang through all the house, stretched
      herself over the body of her son, her head upon his breast, and the
      Governor's great shoulders bowed never to rise again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;God help me and forgive me,&rdquo; he groaned.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley rushed from the house, beside himself with grief, with horror,
      with pity, and with mad, insensate rage. On the porch outside Caraher met
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is he&mdash;is he&mdash;&rdquo; began the saloon-keeper.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, he's dead,&rdquo; cried Presley. &ldquo;They're all dead, murdered, shot down,
      dead, dead, all of them. Whose turn is next?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's the way they killed my wife, Presley.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Caraher,&rdquo; cried Presley, &ldquo;give me your hand. I've been wrong all the
      time. The League is wrong. All the world is wrong. You are the only one of
      us all who is right. I'm with you from now on. BY GOD, I TOO, I'M A RED!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In course of time, a farm wagon from Bonneville arrived at Hooven's. The
      bodies of Annixter and Harran were placed in it, and it drove down the
      Lower Road towards the Los Muertos ranch houses.
    </p>
    <p>
      The bodies of Delaney and Christian had already been carried to
      Guadalajara and thence taken by train to Bonneville.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hilma followed the farm wagon in the Derricks' carry-all, with Magnus and
      his wife. During all that ride none of them spoke a word. It had been
      arranged that, since Quien Sabe was in the hands of the Railroad, Hilma
      should come to Los Muertos. To that place also Annixter's body was
      carried.
    </p>
    <p>
      Later on in the day, when it was almost evening, the undertaker's black
      wagon passed the Derricks' Home ranch on its way from Hooven's and turned
      into the county road towards Bonneville. The initial excitement of the
      affair of the irrigating ditch had died down; the crowd long since had
      dispersed. By the time the wagon passed Caraher's saloon, the sun had set.
      Night was coming on.
    </p>
    <p>
      And the black wagon went on through the darkness, unattended, ignored,
      solitary, carrying the dead body of Dabney, the silent old man of whom
      nothing was known but his name, who made no friends, whom nobody knew or
      spoke to, who had come from no one knew whence and who went no one knew
      whither.
    </p>
    <p>
      Towards midnight of that same day, Mrs. Dyke was awakened by the sounds of
      groaning in the room next to hers. Magnus Derrick was not so occupied by
      Harran's death that he could not think of others who were in distress, and
      when he had heard that Mrs. Dyke and Sidney, like Hilma, had been turned
      out of Quien Sabe, he had thrown open Los Muertos to them.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Though,&rdquo; he warned them, &ldquo;it is precarious hospitality at the best.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Until late, Mrs. Dyke had sat up with Hilma, comforting her as best she
      could, rocking her to and fro in her arms, crying with her, trying to
      quiet her, for once having given way to her grief, Hilma wept with a
      terrible anguish and a violence that racked her from head to foot, and at
      last, worn out, a little child again, had sobbed herself to sleep in the
      older woman's arms, and as a little child, Mrs. Dyke had put her to bed
      and had retired herself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Aroused a few hours later by the sounds of a distress that was physical,
      as well as mental, Mrs. Dyke hurried into Hilma's room, carrying the lamp
      with her. Mrs. Dyke needed no enlightenment. She woke Presley and besought
      him to telephone to Bonneville at once, summoning a doctor. That night
      Hilma in great pain suffered a miscarriage.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley did not close his eyes once during the night; he did not even
      remove his clothes. Long after the doctor had departed and that house of
      tragedy had quieted down, he still remained in his place by the open
      window of his little room, looking off across the leagues of growing
      wheat, watching the slow kindling of the dawn. Horror weighed intolerably
      upon him. Monstrous things, huge, terrible, whose names he knew only too
      well, whirled at a gallop through his imagination, or rose spectral and
      grisly before the eyes of his mind. Harran dead, Annixter dead, Broderson
      dead, Osterman, perhaps, even at that moment dying. Why, these men had
      made up his world. Annixter had been his best friend, Harran, his almost
      daily companion; Broderson and Osterman were familiar to him as brothers.
      They were all his associates, his good friends, the group was his
      environment, belonging to his daily life. And he, standing there in the
      dust of the road by the irrigating ditch, had seen them shot. He found
      himself suddenly at his table, the candle burning at his elbow, his
      journal before him, writing swiftly, the desire for expression, the
      craving for outlet to the thoughts that clamoured tumultuous at his brain,
      never more insistent, more imperious. Thus he wrote:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dabney dead, Hooven dead, Harran dead, Annixter dead, Broderson dead,
      Osterman dying, S. Behrman alive, successful; the Railroad in possession
      of Quien Sabe. I saw them shot. Not twelve hours since I stood there at
      the irrigating ditch. Ah, that terrible moment of horror and confusion!
      powder smoke&mdash;flashing pistol barrels&mdash;blood stains&mdash;rearing
      horses&mdash;men staggering to their death&mdash;Christian in a horrible
      posture, one rigid leg high in the air across his saddle&mdash;Broderson
      falling sideways into the ditch&mdash;Osterman laying himself down, his
      head on his arms, as if tired, tired out. These things, I have seen them.
      The picture of this day's work is from henceforth part of my mind, part of
      ME. They have done it, S. Behrman and the owners of the railroad have done
      it, while all the world looked on, while the people of these United States
      looked on. Oh, come now and try your theories upon us, us of the ranchos,
      us, who have suffered, us, who KNOW. Oh, talk to US now of the 'rights of
      Capital,' talk to US of the Trust, talk to US of the 'equilibrium between
      the classes.' Try your ingenious ideas upon us. WE KNOW. I cannot tell
      whether or not your theories are excellent. I do not know if your ideas
      are plausible. I do not know how practical is your scheme of society. I do
      not know if the Railroad has a right to our lands, but I DO know that
      Harran is dead, that Annixter is dead, that Broderson is dead, that Hooven
      is dead, that Osterman is dying, and that S. Behrman is alive, successful,
      triumphant; that he has ridden into possession of a principality over the
      dead bodies of five men shot down by his hired associates.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can see the outcome. The Railroad will prevail. The Trust will
      overpower us. Here in this corner of a great nation, here, on the edge of
      the continent, here, in this valley of the West, far from the great
      centres, isolated, remote, lost, the great iron hand crushes life from us,
      crushes liberty and the pursuit of happiness from us, and our little
      struggles, our moment's convulsion of death agony causes not one jar in
      the vast, clashing machinery of the nation's life; a fleck of grit in the
      wheels, perhaps, a grain of sand in the cogs&mdash;the momentary creak of
      the axle is the mother's wail of bereavement, the wife's cry of anguish&mdash;and
      the great wheel turns, spinning smooth again, even again, and the tiny
      impediment of a second, scarce noticed, is forgotten. Make the people
      believe that the faint tremour in their great engine is a menace to its
      function? What a folly to think of it. Tell them of the danger and they
      will laugh at you. Tell them, five years from now, the story of the fight
      between the League of the San Joaquin and the Railroad and it will not be
      believed. What! a pitched battle between Farmer and Railroad, a battle
      that cost the lives of seven men? Impossible, it could not have happened.
      Your story is fiction&mdash;is exaggerated.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yet it is Lexington&mdash;God help us, God enlighten us, God rouse us
      from our lethargy&mdash;it is Lexington; farmers with guns in their hands
      fighting for Liberty. Is our State of California the only one that has its
      ancient and hereditary foe? Are there no other Trusts between the oceans
      than this of the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad? Ask yourselves, you of
      the Middle West, ask yourselves, you of the North, ask yourselves, you of
      the East, ask yourselves, you of the South&mdash;ask yourselves, every
      citizen of every State from Maine to Mexico, from the Dakotas to the
      Carolinas, have you not the monster in your boundaries? If it is not a
      Trust of transportation, it is only another head of the same Hydra. Is not
      our death struggle typical? Is it not one of many, is it not symbolical of
      the great and terrible conflict that is going on everywhere in these
      United States? Ah, you people, blind, bound, tricked, betrayed, can you
      not see it? Can you not see how the monsters have plundered your treasures
      and holding them in the grip of their iron claws, dole them out to you
      only at the price of your blood, at the price of the lives of your wives
      and your little children? You give your babies to Moloch for the loaf of
      bread you have kneaded yourselves. You offer your starved wives to
      Juggernaut for the iron nail you have yourselves compounded.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He spent the night over his journal, writing down such thoughts as these
      or walking the floor from wall to wall, or, seized at times with
      unreasoning horror and blind rage, flinging himself face downward upon his
      bed, vowing with inarticulate cries that neither S. Behrman nor Shelgrim
      should ever live to consummate their triumph.
    </p>
    <p>
      Morning came and with it the daily papers and news. Presley did not even
      glance at the &ldquo;Mercury.&rdquo; Bonneville published two other daily journals
      that professed to voice the will and reflect the temper of the people and
      these he read eagerly.
    </p>
    <p>
      Osterman was yet alive and there were chances of his recovery. The League&mdash;some
      three hundred of its members had gathered at Bonneville over night and
      were patrolling the streets and, still resolved to keep the peace, were
      even guarding the railroad shops and buildings. Furthermore, the Leaguers
      had issued manifestoes, urging all citizens to preserve law and order, yet
      summoning an indignation meeting to be convened that afternoon at the City
      Opera House.
    </p>
    <p>
      It appeared from the newspapers that those who obstructed the marshal in
      the discharge of his duty could be proceeded against by the District
      Attorney on information or by bringing the matter before the Grand Jury.
      But the Grand Jury was not at that time in session, and it was known that
      there were no funds in the marshal's office to pay expenses for the
      summoning of jurors or the serving of processes. S. Behrman and Ruggles in
      interviews stated that the Railroad withdrew entirely from the fight; the
      matter now, according to them, was between the Leaguers and the United
      States Government; they washed their hands of the whole business. The
      ranchers could settle with Washington. But it seemed that Congress had
      recently forbade the use of troops for civil purposes; the whole matter of
      the League-Railroad contest was evidently for the moment to be left in
      status quo.
    </p>
    <p>
      But to Presley's mind the most important piece of news that morning was
      the report of the action of the Railroad upon hearing of the battle.
    </p>
    <p>
      Instantly Bonneville had been isolated. Not a single local train was
      running, not one of the through trains made any halt at the station. The
      mails were not moved. Further than this, by some arrangement difficult to
      understand, the telegraph operators at Bonneville and Guadalajara, acting
      under orders, refused to receive any telegrams except those emanating from
      railway officials. The story of the fight, the story creating the first
      impression, was to be told to San Francisco and the outside world by S.
      Behrman, Ruggles, and the local P. and S. W. agents.
    </p>
    <p>
      An hour before breakfast, the undertakers arrived and took charge of the
      bodies of Harran and Annixter. Presley saw neither Hilma, Magnus, nor Mrs.
      Derrick. The doctor came to look after Hilma. He breakfasted with Mrs.
      Dyke and Presley, and from him Presley learned that Hilma would recover
      both from the shock of her husband's death and from her miscarriage of the
      previous night.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She ought to have her mother with her,&rdquo; said the physician. &ldquo;She does
      nothing but call for her or beg to be allowed to go to her. I have tried
      to get a wire through to Mrs. Tree, but the company will not take it, and
      even if I could get word to her, how could she get down here? There are no
      trains.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Presley found that it was impossible for him to stay at Los Muertos
      that day. Gloom and the shadow of tragedy brooded heavy over the place. A
      great silence pervaded everything, a silence broken only by the subdued
      coming and going of the undertaker and his assistants. When Presley,
      having resolved to go into Bonneville, came out through the doorway of the
      house, he found the undertaker tying a long strip of crape to the
      bell-handle.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley saddled his pony and rode into town. By this time, after long
      hours of continued reflection upon one subject, a sombre brooding
      malevolence, a deep-seated desire of revenge, had grown big within his
      mind. The first numbness had passed off; familiarity with what had been
      done had blunted the edge of horror, and now the impulse of retaliation
      prevailed. At first, the sullen anger of defeat, the sense of outrage, had
      only smouldered, but the more he brooded, the fiercer flamed his rage.
      Sudden paroxysms of wrath gripped him by the throat; abrupt outbursts of
      fury injected his eyes with blood. He ground his teeth, his mouth filled
      with curses, his hands clenched till they grew white and bloodless. Was
      the Railroad to triumph then in the end? After all those months of
      preparation, after all those grandiloquent resolutions, after all the
      arrogant presumption of the League! The League! what a farce; what had it
      amounted to when the crisis came? Was the Trust to crush them all so
      easily? Was S. Behrman to swallow Los Muertos? S. Behrman! Presley saw him
      plainly, huge, rotund, white; saw his jowl tremulous and obese, the roll
      of fat over his collar sprinkled with sparse hairs, the great stomach with
      its brown linen vest and heavy watch chain of hollow links, clinking
      against the buttons of imitation pearl. And this man was to crush Magnus
      Derrick&mdash;had already stamped the life from such men as Harran and
      Annixter. This man, in the name of the Trust, was to grab Los Muertos as
      he had grabbed Quien Sabe, and after Los Muertos, Broderson's ranch, then
      Osterman's, then others, and still others, the whole valley, the whole
      State.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley beat his forehead with his clenched fist as he rode on.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;no, kill him, kill him, kill him with my hands.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The idea of it put him beside himself. Oh, to sink his fingers deep into
      the white, fat throat of the man, to clutch like iron into the great
      puffed jowl of him, to wrench out the life, to batter it out, strangle it
      out, to pay him back for the long years of extortion and oppression, to
      square accounts for bribed jurors, bought judges, corrupted legislatures,
      to have justice for the trick of the Ranchers' Railroad Commission, the
      charlatanism of the &ldquo;ten per cent. cut,&rdquo; the ruin of Dyke, the seizure of
      Quien Sabe, the murder of Harran, the assassination of Annixter!
    </p>
    <p>
      It was in such mood that he reached Caraher's. The saloon-keeper had just
      opened his place and was standing in his doorway, smoking his pipe.
      Presley dismounted and went in and the two had a long talk.
    </p>
    <p>
      When, three hours later, Presley came out of the saloon and rode on
      towards Bonneville, his face was very pale, his lips shut tight, resolute,
      determined. His manner was that of a man whose mind is made up. The hour
      for the mass meeting at the Opera House had been set for one o'clock, but
      long before noon the street in front of the building and, in fact, all the
      streets in its vicinity, were packed from side to side with a shifting,
      struggling, surging, and excited multitude. There were few women in the
      throng, but hardly a single male inhabitant of either Bonneville or
      Guadalajara was absent. Men had even come from Visalia and Pixley. It was
      no longer the crowd of curiosity seekers that had thronged around Hooven's
      place by the irrigating ditch; the People were no longer confused,
      bewildered. A full realisation of just what had been done the day before
      was clear now in the minds of all. Business was suspended; nearly all the
      stores were closed. Since early morning the members of the League had put
      in an appearance and rode from point to point, their rifles across their
      saddle pommels. Then, by ten o'clock, the streets had begun to fill up,
      the groups on the corners grew and merged into one another; pedestrians,
      unable to find room on the sidewalks, took to the streets. Hourly the
      crowd increased till shoulders touched and elbows, till free circulation
      became impeded, then congested, then impossible. The crowd, a solid mass,
      was wedged tight from store front to store front. And from all this
      throng, this single unit, this living, breathing organism&mdash;the People&mdash;there
      rose a droning, terrible note. It was not yet the wild, fierce clamour of
      riot and insurrection, shrill, high pitched; but it was a beginning, the
      growl of the awakened brute, feeling the iron in its flank, heaving up its
      head with bared teeth, the throat vibrating to the long, indrawn snarl of
      wrath.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus the forenoon passed, while the people, their bulk growing hourly
      vaster, kept to the streets, moving slowly backward and forward,
      oscillating in the grooves of the thoroughfares, the steady, low-pitched
      growl rising continually into the hot, still air.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then, at length, about twelve o'clock, the movement of the throng assumed
      definite direction. It set towards the Opera House. Presley, who had left
      his pony at the City livery stable, found himself caught in the current
      and carried slowly forward in its direction. His arms were pinioned to his
      sides by the press, the crush against his body was all but rib-cracking,
      he could hardly draw his breath. All around him rose and fell wave after
      wave of faces, hundreds upon hundreds, thousands upon thousands, red,
      lowering, sullen. All were set in one direction and slowly, slowly they
      advanced, crowding closer, till they almost touched one another. For
      reasons that were inexplicable, great, tumultuous heavings, like
      ground-swells of an incoming tide, surged over and through the multitude.
      At times, Presley, lifted from his feet, was swept back, back, back, with
      the crowd, till the entrance of the Opera House was half a block away;
      then, the returning billow beat back again and swung him along, gasping,
      staggering, clutching, till he was landed once more in the vortex of
      frantic action in front of the foyer. Here the waves were shorter,
      quicker, the crushing pressure on all sides of his body left him without
      strength to utter the cry that rose to his lips; then, suddenly the whole
      mass of struggling, stamping, fighting, writhing men about him seemed, as
      it were, to rise, to lift, multitudinous, swelling, gigantic. A mighty
      rush dashed Presley forward in its leap. There was a moment's whirl of
      confused sights, congested faces, opened mouths, bloodshot eyes, clutching
      hands; a moment's outburst of furious sound, shouts, cheers, oaths; a
      moment's jam wherein Presley veritably believed his ribs must snap like
      pipestems and he was carried, dazed, breathless, helpless, an atom on the
      crest of a storm-driven wave, up the steps of the Opera House, on into the
      vestibule, through the doors, and at last into the auditorium of the house
      itself.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a mad rush for places; men disdaining the aisle, stepped from
      one orchestra chair to another, striding over the backs of seats, leaving
      the print of dusty feet upon the red plush cushions. In a twinkling the
      house was filled from stage to topmost gallery. The aisles were packed
      solid, even on the edge of the stage itself men were sitting, a black
      fringe on either side of the footlights.
    </p>
    <p>
      The curtain was up, disclosing a half-set scene,&mdash;the flats, leaning
      at perilous angles,&mdash;that represented some sort of terrace, the
      pavement, alternate squares of black and white marble, while red, white,
      and yellow flowers were represented as growing from urns and vases. A
      long, double row of chairs stretched across the scene from wing to wing,
      flanking a table covered with a red cloth, on which was set a pitcher of
      water and a speaker's gavel.
    </p>
    <p>
      Promptly these chairs were filled up with members of the League, the
      audience cheering as certain well-known figures made their appearance&mdash;Garnett
      of the Ruby ranch, Gethings of the San Pablo, Keast of the ranch of the
      same name, Chattern of the Bonanza, elderly men, bearded, slow of speech,
      deliberate.
    </p>
    <p>
      Garnett opened the meeting; his speech was plain, straightforward,
      matter-of-fact. He simply told what had happened. He announced that
      certain resolutions were to be drawn up. He introduced the next speaker.
    </p>
    <p>
      This one pleaded for moderation. He was conservative. All along he had
      opposed the idea of armed resistance except as the very last resort. He
      &ldquo;deplored&rdquo; the terrible affair of yesterday. He begged the people to wait
      in patience, to attempt no more violence. He informed them that armed
      guards of the League were, at that moment, patrolling Los Muertos,
      Broderson's, and Osterman's. It was well known that the United States
      marshal confessed himself powerless to serve the writs. There would be no
      more bloodshed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We have had,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;bloodshed enough, and I want to say right
      here that I am not so sure but what yesterday's terrible affair might have
      been avoided. A gentleman whom we all esteem, who from the first has been
      our recognised leader, is, at this moment, mourning the loss of a young
      son, killed before his eyes. God knows that I sympathise, as do we all, in
      the affliction of our President. I am sorry for him. My heart goes out to
      him in this hour of distress, but, at the same time, the position of the
      League must be defined. We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the people of
      this county. The League armed for the very purpose of preserving the
      peace, not of breaking it. We believed that with six hundred armed and
      drilled men at our disposal, ready to muster at a moment's call, we could
      so overawe any attempt to expel us from our lands that such an attempt
      would not be made until the cases pending before the Supreme Court had
      been decided. If when the enemy appeared in our midst yesterday they had
      been met by six hundred rifles, it is not conceivable that the issue would
      have been forced. No fight would have ensued, and to-day we would not have
      to mourn the deaths of four of our fellow-citizens. A mistake has been
      made and we of the League must not be held responsible.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The speaker sat down amidst loud applause from the Leaguers and less
      pronounced demonstrations on the part of the audience.
    </p>
    <p>
      A second Leaguer took his place, a tall, clumsy man, half-rancher,
      half-politician.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I want to second what my colleague has just said,&rdquo; he began. &ldquo;This matter
      of resisting the marshal when he tried to put the Railroad dummies in
      possession on the ranches around here, was all talked over in the
      committee meetings of the League long ago. It never was our intention to
      fire a single shot. No such absolute authority as was assumed yesterday
      was delegated to anybody. Our esteemed President is all right, but we all
      know that he is a man who loves authority and who likes to go his own gait
      without accounting to anybody. We&mdash;the rest of us Leaguers&mdash;never
      were informed as to what was going on. We supposed, of course, that watch
      was being kept on the Railroad so as we wouldn't be taken by surprise as
      we were yesterday. And it seems no watch was kept at all, or if there was,
      it was mighty ineffective. Our idea was to forestall any movement on the
      part of the Railroad and then when we knew the marshal was coming down, to
      call a meeting of our Executive Committee and decide as to what should be
      done. We ought to have had time to call out the whole League. Instead of
      that, what happens? While we're all off chasing rabbits, the Railroad is
      allowed to steal a march on us and when it is too late, a handful of
      Leaguers is got together and a fight is precipitated and our men killed.
      I'M sorry for our President, too. No one is more so, but I want to put
      myself on record as believing he did a hasty and inconsiderate thing. If
      he had managed right, he could have had six hundred men to oppose the
      Railroad and there would not have been any gun fight or any killing. He
      DIDN'T manage right and there WAS a killing and I don't see as how the
      League ought to be held responsible. The idea of the League, the whole
      reason why it was organised, was to protect ALL the ranches of this valley
      from the Railroad, and it looks to me as if the lives of our
      fellow-citizens had been sacrificed, not in defending ALL of our ranches,
      but just in defence of one of them&mdash;Los Muertos&mdash;the one that
      Mr. Derrick owns.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The speaker had no more than regained his seat when a man was seen pushing
      his way from the back of the stage towards Garnett. He handed the rancher
      a note, at the same time whispering in his ear. Garnett read the note,
      then came forward to the edge of the stage, holding up his hand. When the
      audience had fallen silent he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have just received sad news. Our friend and fellow-citizen, Mr.
      Osterman, died this morning between eleven and twelve o'clock.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Instantly there was a roar. Every man in the building rose to his feet,
      shouting, gesticulating. The roar increased, the Opera House trembled to
      it, the gas jets in the lighted chandeliers vibrated to it. It was a
      raucous howl of execration, a bellow of rage, inarticulate, deafening.
    </p>
    <p>
      A tornado of confusion swept whirling from wall to wall and the madness of
      the moment seized irresistibly upon Presley. He forgot himself; he no
      longer was master of his emotions or his impulses. All at once he found
      himself upon the stage, facing the audience, flaming with excitement, his
      imagination on fire, his arms uplifted in fierce, wild gestures, words
      leaping to his mind in a torrent that could not be withheld.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;One more dead,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;one more. Harran dead, Annixter dead,
      Broderson dead, Dabney dead, Osterman dead, Hooven dead; shot down,
      killed, killed in the defence of their homes, killed in the defence of
      their rights, killed for the sake of liberty. How long must it go on? How
      long must we suffer? Where is the end; what is the end? How long must the
      iron-hearted monster feed on our life's blood? How long must this terror
      of steam and steel ride upon our necks? Will you never be satisfied, will
      you never relent, you, our masters, you, our lords, you, our kings, you,
      our task-masters, you, our Pharoahs. Will you never listen to that command
      'LET MY PEOPLE GO'? Oh, that cry ringing down the ages. Hear it, hear it.
      It is the voice of the Lord God speaking in his prophets. Hear it, hear it&mdash;'Let
      My people go!' Rameses heard it in his pylons at Thebes, Caesar heard it
      on the Palatine, the Bourbon Louis heard it at Versailles, Charles Stuart
      heard it at Whitehall, the white Czar heard it in the Kremlin,&mdash;'LET
      MY PEOPLE GO.' It is the cry of the nations, the great voice of the
      centuries; everywhere it is raised. The voice of God is the voice of the
      People. The people cry out 'Let us, the People, God's people, go.' You,
      our masters, you, our kings, you, our tyrants, don't you hear us? Don't
      you hear God speaking in us? Will you never let us go? How long at length
      will you abuse our patience? How long will you drive us? How long will you
      harass us? Will nothing daunt you? Does nothing check you? Do you not know
      that to ignore our cry too long is to wake the Red Terror? Rameses refused
      to listen to it and perished miserably. Caesar refused to listen and was
      stabbed in the Senate House. The Bourbon Louis refused to listen and died
      on the guillotine; Charles Stuart refused to listen and died on the block;
      the white Czar refused to listen and was blown up in his own capital. Will
      you let it come to that? Will you drive us to it? We who boast of our land
      of freedom, we who live in the country of liberty? Go on as you have begun
      and it WILL come to that. Turn a deaf ear to that cry of 'Let My people
      go' too long and another cry will be raised, that you cannot choose but
      hear, a cry that you cannot shut out. It will be the cry of the man on the
      street, the 'a la Bastille' that wakes the Red Terror and unleashes
      Revolution. Harassed, plundered, exasperated, desperate, the people will
      turn at last as they have turned so many, many times before. You, our
      lords, you, our task-masters, you, our kings; you have caught your Samson,
      you have made his strength your own. You have shorn his head; you have put
      out his eyes; you have set him to turn your millstones, to grind the grist
      for your mills; you have made him a shame and a mock. Take care, oh, as
      you love your lives, take care, lest some day calling upon the Lord his
      God he reach not out his arms for the pillars of your temples.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The audience, at first bewildered, confused by this unexpected invective,
      suddenly took fire at his last words. There was a roar of applause; then,
      more significant than mere vociferation, Presley's listeners, as he began
      to speak again, grew suddenly silent. His next sentences were uttered in
      the midst of a profound stillness.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They own us, these task-masters of ours; they own our homes, they own our
      legislatures. We cannot escape from them. There is no redress. We are told
      we can defeat them by the ballot-box. They own the ballot-box. We are told
      that we must look to the courts for redress; they own the courts. We know
      them for what they are,&mdash;ruffians in politics, ruffians in finance,
      ruffians in law, ruffians in trade, bribers, swindlers, and tricksters. No
      outrage too great to daunt them, no petty larceny too small to shame them;
      despoiling a government treasury of a million dollars, yet picking the
      pockets of a farm hand of the price of a loaf of bread.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They swindle a nation of a hundred million and call it Financiering; they
      levy a blackmail and call it Commerce; they corrupt a legislature and call
      it Politics; they bribe a judge and call it Law; they hire blacklegs to
      carry out their plans and call it Organisation; they prostitute the honour
      of a State and call it Competition.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And this is America. We fought Lexington to free ourselves; we fought
      Gettysburg to free others. Yet the yoke remains; we have only shifted it
      to the other shoulder. We talk of liberty&mdash;oh, the farce of it, oh,
      the folly of it! We tell ourselves and teach our children that we have
      achieved liberty, that we no longer need fight for it. Why, the fight is
      just beginning and so long as our conception of liberty remains as it is
      to-day, it will continue.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;For we conceive of Liberty in the statues we raise to her as a beautiful
      woman, crowned, victorious, in bright armour and white robes, a light in
      her uplifted hand&mdash;a serene, calm, conquering goddess. Oh, the farce
      of it, oh, the folly of it! Liberty is NOT a crowned goddess, beautiful,
      in spotless garments, victorious, supreme. Liberty is the Man In the
      Street, a terrible figure, rushing through powder smoke, fouled with the
      mud and ordure of the gutter, bloody, rampant, brutal, yelling curses, in
      one hand a smoking rifle, in the other, a blazing torch.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Freedom is NOT given free to any who ask; Liberty is not born of the
      gods. She is a child of the People, born in the very height and heat of
      battle, born from death, stained with blood, grimed with powder. And she
      grows to be not a goddess, but a Fury, a fearful figure, slaying friend
      and foe alike, raging, insatiable, merciless, the Red Terror.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley ceased speaking. Weak, shaking, scarcely knowing what he was
      about, he descended from the stage. A prolonged explosion of applause
      followed, the Opera House roaring to the roof, men cheering, stamping,
      waving their hats. But it was not intelligent applause. Instinctively as
      he made his way out, Presley knew that, after all, he had not once held
      the hearts of his audience. He had talked as he would have written; for
      all his scorn of literature, he had been literary. The men who listened to
      him, ranchers, country people, store-keepers, attentive though they were,
      were not once sympathetic. Vaguely they had felt that here was something
      which other men&mdash;more educated&mdash;would possibly consider
      eloquent. They applauded vociferously but perfunctorily, in order to
      appear to understand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley, for all his love of the people, saw clearly for one moment that
      he was an outsider to their minds. He had not helped them nor their cause
      in the least; he never would.
    </p>
    <p>
      Disappointed, bewildered, ashamed, he made his way slowly from the Opera
      House and stood on the steps outside, thoughtful, his head bent.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had failed, thus he told himself. In that moment of crisis, that at the
      time he believed had been an inspiration, he had failed. The people would
      not consider him, would not believe that he could do them service. Then
      suddenly he seemed to remember. The resolute set of his lips returned once
      more. Pushing his way through the crowded streets, he went on towards the
      stable where he had left his pony.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meanwhile, in the Opera House, a great commotion had occurred. Magnus
      Derrick had appeared.
    </p>
    <p>
      Only a sense of enormous responsibility, of gravest duty could have
      prevailed upon Magnus to have left his house and the dead body of his son
      that day. But he was the President of the League, and never since its
      organisation had a meeting of such importance as this one been held. He
      had been in command at the irrigating ditch the day before. It was he who
      had gathered the handful of Leaguers together. It was he who must bear the
      responsibility of the fight.
    </p>
    <p>
      When he had entered the Opera House, making his way down the central aisle
      towards the stage, a loud disturbance had broken out, partly applause,
      partly a meaningless uproar. Many had pressed forward to shake his hand,
      but others were not found wanting who, formerly his staunch supporters,
      now scenting opposition in the air, held back, hesitating, afraid to
      compromise themselves by adhering to the fortunes of a man whose actions
      might be discredited by the very organisation of which he was the head.
    </p>
    <p>
      Declining to take the chair of presiding officer which Garnett offered
      him, the Governor withdrew to an angle of the stage, where he was joined
      by Keast.
    </p>
    <p>
      This one, still unalterably devoted to Magnus, acquainted him briefly with
      the tenor of the speeches that had been made.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am ashamed of them, Governor,&rdquo; he protested indignantly, &ldquo;to lose their
      nerve now! To fail you now! it makes my blood boil. If you had succeeded
      yesterday, if all had gone well, do you think we would have heard of any
      talk of 'assumption of authority,' or 'acting without advice and consent'?
      As if there was any time to call a meeting of the Executive Committee. If
      you hadn't acted as you did, the whole county would have been grabbed by
      the Railroad. Get up, Governor, and bring 'em all up standing. Just tear
      'em all to pieces, show 'em that you are the head, the boss. That's what
      they need. That killing yesterday has shaken the nerve clean out of them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      For the instant the Governor was taken all aback. What, his lieutenants
      were failing him? What, he was to be questioned, interpolated upon
      yesterday's &ldquo;irrepressible conflict&rdquo;? Had disaffection appeared in the
      ranks of the League&mdash;at this, of all moments? He put from him his
      terrible grief. The cause was in danger. At the instant he was the
      President of the League only, the chief, the master. A royal anger surged
      within him, a wide, towering scorn of opposition. He would crush this
      disaffection in its incipiency, would vindicate himself and strengthen the
      cause at one and the same time. He stepped forward and stood in the
      speaker's place, turning partly toward the audience, partly toward the
      assembled Leaguers.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gentlemen of the League,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;citizens of Bonneville&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But at once the silence in which the Governor had begun to speak was
      broken by a shout. It was as though his words had furnished a signal. In a
      certain quarter of the gallery, directly opposite, a man arose, and in a
      voice partly of derision, partly of defiance, cried out:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How about the bribery of those two delegates at Sacramento? Tell us about
      that. That's what we want to hear about.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A great confusion broke out. The first cry was repeated not only by the
      original speaker, but by a whole group of which he was but a part. Others
      in the audience, however, seeing in the disturbance only the clamour of a
      few Railroad supporters, attempted to howl them down, hissing vigorously
      and exclaiming:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Put 'em out, put 'em out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Order, order,&rdquo; called Garnett, pounding with his gavel. The whole Opera
      House was in an uproar.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the interruption of the Governor's speech was evidently not
      unpremeditated. It began to look like a deliberate and planned attack.
      Persistently, doggedly, the group in the gallery vociferated: &ldquo;Tell us how
      you bribed the delegates at Sacramento. Before you throw mud at the
      Railroad, let's see if you are clean yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Put 'em out, put 'em out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Briber, briber&mdash;Magnus Derrick, unconvicted briber! Put him out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Keast, beside himself with anger, pushed down the aisle underneath where
      the recalcitrant group had its place and, shaking his fist, called up at
      them:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You were paid to break up this meeting. If you have anything to say; you
      will be afforded the opportunity, but if you do not let the gentleman
      proceed, the police will be called upon to put you out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But at this, the man who had raised the first shout leaned over the
      balcony rail, and, his face flaming with wrath, shouted:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;YAH! talk to me of your police. Look out we don't call on them first to
      arrest your President for bribery. You and your howl about law and justice
      and corruption! Here&rdquo;&mdash;he turned to the audience&mdash;&ldquo;read about
      him, read the story of how the Sacramento convention was bought by Magnus
      Derrick, President of the San Joaquin League. Here's the facts printed and
      proved.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      With the words, he stooped down and from under his seat dragged forth a
      great package of extra editions of the &ldquo;Bonneville Mercury,&rdquo; not an hour
      off the presses. Other equally large bundles of the paper appeared in the
      hands of the surrounding group. The strings were cut and in handfuls and
      armfuls the papers were flung out over the heads of the audience
      underneath. The air was full of the flutter of the newly printed sheets.
      They swarmed over the rim of the gallery like clouds of monstrous, winged
      insects, settled upon the heads and into the hands of the audience, were
      passed swiftly from man to man, and within five minutes of the first
      outbreak every one in the Opera House had read Genslinger's detailed and
      substantiated account of Magnus Derrick's &ldquo;deal&rdquo; with the political bosses
      of the Sacramento convention.
    </p>
    <p>
      Genslinger, after pocketing the Governor's hush money, had &ldquo;sold him out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Keast, one quiver of indignation, made his way back upon the stage. The
      Leaguers were in wild confusion. Half the assembly of them were on their
      feet, bewildered, shouting vaguely. From proscenium wall to foyer, the
      Opera House was a tumult of noise. The gleam of the thousands of the
      &ldquo;Mercury&rdquo; extras was like the flash of white caps on a troubled sea.
    </p>
    <p>
      Keast faced the audience.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Liars,&rdquo; he shouted, striving with all the power of his voice to dominate
      the clamour, &ldquo;liars and slanderers. Your paper is the paid organ of the
      corporation. You have not one shadow of proof to back you up. Do you
      choose this, of all times, to heap your calumny upon the head of an
      honourable gentleman, already prostrated by your murder of his son? Proofs&mdash;we
      demand your proofs!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We've got the very assemblymen themselves,&rdquo; came back the answering
      shout. &ldquo;Let Derrick speak. Where is he hiding? If this is a lie, let him
      deny it. Let HIM DISPROVE the charge.&rdquo; &ldquo;Derrick, Derrick,&rdquo; thundered the
      Opera House.
    </p>
    <p>
      Keast wheeled about. Where was Magnus? He was not in sight upon the stage.
      He had disappeared. Crowding through the throng of Leaguers, Keast got
      from off the stage into the wings. Here the crowd was no less dense.
      Nearly every one had a copy of the &ldquo;Mercury.&rdquo; It was being read aloud to
      groups here and there, and once Keast overheard the words, &ldquo;Say, I wonder
      if this is true, after all?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, and even if it was,&rdquo; cried Keast, turning upon the speaker, &ldquo;we
      should be the last ones to kick. In any case, it was done for our benefit.
      It elected the Ranchers' Commission.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A lot of benefit we got out of the Ranchers' Commission,&rdquo; retorted the
      other.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And then,&rdquo; protested a third speaker, &ldquo;that ain't the way to do&mdash;if
      he DID do it&mdash;bribing legislatures. Why, we were bucking against
      corrupt politics. We couldn't afford to be corrupt.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Keast turned away with a gesture of impatience. He pushed his way farther
      on. At last, opening a small door in a hallway back of the stage, he came
      upon Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      The room was tiny. It was a dressing-room. Only two nights before it had
      been used by the leading actress of a comic opera troupe which had played
      for three nights at Bonneville. A tattered sofa and limping toilet table
      occupied a third of the space. The air was heavy with the smell of stale
      grease paint, ointments, and sachet. Faded photographs of young women in
      tights and gauzes ornamented the mirror and the walls. Underneath the sofa
      was an old pair of corsets. The spangled skirt of a pink dress, turned
      inside out, hung against the wall.
    </p>
    <p>
      And in the midst of such environment, surrounded by an excited group of
      men who gesticulated and shouted in his very face, pale, alert, agitated,
      his thin lips pressed tightly together, stood Magnus Derrick.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here,&rdquo; cried Keast, as he entered, closing the door behind him, &ldquo;where's
      the Governor? Here, Magnus, I've been looking for you. The crowd has gone
      wild out there. You've got to talk 'em down. Come out there and give those
      blacklegs the lie. They are saying you are hiding.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But before Magnus could reply, Garnett turned to Keast.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that's what we want him to do, and he won't do it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; cried the half-dozen men who crowded around Magnus, &ldquo;yes,
      that's what we want him to do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Keast turned to Magnus.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, what's all this, Governor?&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;You've got to answer
      that. Hey? why don't you give 'em the lie?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I&mdash;I,&rdquo; Magnus loosened the collar about his throat &ldquo;it is a lie. I
      will not stoop&mdash;I would not&mdash;would be&mdash;it would be beneath
      my&mdash;my&mdash;it would be beneath me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Keast stared in amazement. Was this the Great Man the Leader, indomitable,
      of Roman integrity, of Roman valour, before whose voice whole conventions
      had quailed? Was it possible he was AFRAID to face those hired villifiers?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, how about this?&rdquo; demanded Garnett suddenly. &ldquo;It is a lie, isn't it?
      That Commission was elected honestly, wasn't it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How dare you, sir!&rdquo; Magnus burst out. &ldquo;How dare you question me&mdash;call
      me to account! Please understand, sir, that I tolerate&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, quit it!&rdquo; cried a voice from the group. &ldquo;You can't scare us, Derrick.
      That sort of talk was well enough once, but it don't go any more. We want
      a yes or no answer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was gone&mdash;that old-time power of mastery, that faculty of command.
      The ground crumbled beneath his feet. Long since it had been, by his own
      hand, undermined. Authority was gone. Why keep up this miserable sham any
      longer? Could they not read the lie in his face, in his voice? What a
      folly to maintain the wretched pretence! He had failed. He was ruined.
      Harran was gone. His ranch would soon go; his money was gone. Lyman was
      worse than dead. His own honour had been prostituted. Gone, gone,
      everything he held dear, gone, lost, and swept away in that fierce
      struggle. And suddenly and all in a moment the last remaining shells of
      the fabric of his being, the sham that had stood already wonderfully long,
      cracked and collapsed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Was the Commission honestly elected?&rdquo; insisted Garnett. &ldquo;Were the
      delegates&mdash;did you bribe the delegates?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We were obliged to shut our eyes to means,&rdquo; faltered Magnus. &ldquo;There was
      no other way to&mdash;&rdquo; Then suddenly and with the last dregs of his
      resolution, he concluded with: &ldquo;Yes, I gave them two thousand dollars
      each.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, hell! Oh, my God!&rdquo; exclaimed Keast, sitting swiftly down upon the
      ragged sofa.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a long silence. A sense of poignant embarrassment descended upon
      those present. No one knew what to say or where to look. Garnett, with a
      laboured attempt at nonchalance, murmured:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see. Well, that's what I was trying to get at. Yes, I see.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Gethings at length, bestirring himself, &ldquo;I guess I'LL go
      home.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a movement. The group broke up, the men making for the door. One
      by one they went out. The last to go was Keast. He came up to Magnus and
      shook the Governor's limp hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye, Governor,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'll see you again pretty soon. Don't let
      this discourage you. They'll come around all right after a while. So
      long.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He went out, shutting the door.
    </p>
    <p>
      And seated in the one chair of the room, Magnus Derrick remained a long
      time, looking at his face in the cracked mirror that for so many years had
      reflected the painted faces of soubrettes, in this atmosphere of stale
      perfume and mouldy rice powder.
    </p>
    <p>
      It had come&mdash;his fall, his ruin. After so many years of integrity and
      honest battle, his life had ended here&mdash;in an actress's
      dressing-room, deserted by his friends, his son murdered, his dishonesty
      known, an old man, broken, discarded, discredited, and abandoned. Before
      nightfall of that day, Bonneville was further excited by an astonishing
      bit of news. S. Behrman lived in a detached house at some distance from
      the town, surrounded by a grove of live oak and eucalyptus trees. At a
      little after half-past six, as he was sitting down to his supper, a bomb
      was thrown through the window of his dining-room, exploding near the
      doorway leading into the hall. The room was wrecked and nearly every
      window of the house shattered. By a miracle, S. Behrman, himself, remained
      untouched.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VIII
    </h2>
    <p>
      On a certain afternoon in the early part of July, about a month after the
      fight at the irrigating ditch and the mass meeting at Bonneville,
      Cedarquist, at the moment opening his mail in his office in San Francisco,
      was genuinely surprised to receive a visit from Presley.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, upon my word, Pres,&rdquo; exclaimed the manufacturer, as the young man
      came in through the door that the office boy held open for him, &ldquo;upon my
      word, have you been sick? Sit down, my boy. Have a glass of sherry. I
      always keep a bottle here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley accepted the wine and sank into the depths of a great leather
      chair near by.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sick?&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Yes, I have been sick. I'm sick now. I'm gone to
      pieces, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His manner was the extreme of listlessness&mdash;the listlessness of great
      fatigue. &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; observed the other. &ldquo;I'm right sorry to hear that.
      What's the trouble, Pres?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, nerves mostly, I suppose, and my head, and insomnia, and weakness, a
      general collapse all along the line, the doctor tells me.
      'Over-cerebration,' he says; 'over-excitement.' I fancy I rather narrowly
      missed brain fever.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I can easily suppose it,&rdquo; answered Cedarquist gravely, &ldquo;after all
      you have been through.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley closed his eyes&mdash;they were sunken in circles of dark brown
      flesh&mdash;and pressed a thin hand to the back of his head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is a nightmare,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;A frightful nightmare, and it's not
      over yet. You have heard of it all only through the newspaper reports. But
      down there, at Bonneville, at Los Muertos&mdash;oh, you can have no idea
      of it, of the misery caused by the defeat of the ranchers and by this
      decision of the Supreme Court that dispossesses them all. We had gone on
      hoping to the last that we would win there. We had thought that in the
      Supreme Court of the United States, at least, we could find justice. And
      the news of its decision was the worst, last blow of all. For Magnus it
      was the last&mdash;positively the very last.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Poor, poor Derrick,&rdquo; murmured Cedarquist. &ldquo;Tell me about him, Pres. How
      does he take it? What is he going to do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It beggars him, sir. He sunk a great deal more than any of us believed in
      his ranch, when he resolved to turn off most of the tenants and farm the
      ranch himself. Then the fight he made against the Railroad in the Courts
      and the political campaign he went into, to get Lyman on the Railroad
      Commission, took more of it. The money that Genslinger blackmailed him of,
      it seems, was about all he had left. He had been gambling&mdash;you know
      the Governor&mdash;on another bonanza crop this year to recoup him. Well,
      the bonanza came right enough&mdash;just in time for S. Behrman and the
      Railroad to grab it. Magnus is ruined.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What a tragedy! what a tragedy!&rdquo; murmured the other. &ldquo;Lyman turning
      rascal, Harran killed, and now this; and all within so short a time&mdash;all
      at the SAME time, you might almost say.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If it had only killed him,&rdquo; continued Presley; &ldquo;but that is the worst of
      it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How the worst?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm afraid, honestly, I'm afraid it is going to turn his wits, sir. It's
      broken him; oh, you should see him, you should see him. A shambling,
      stooping, trembling old man, in his dotage already. He sits all day in the
      dining-room, turning over papers, sorting them, tying them up, opening
      them again, forgetting them&mdash;all fumbling and mumbling and confused.
      And at table sometimes he forgets to eat. And, listen, you know, from the
      house we can hear the trains whistling for the Long Trestle. As often as
      that happens the Governor seems to be&mdash;oh, I don't know, frightened.
      He will sink his head between his shoulders, as though he were dodging
      something, and he won't fetch a long breath again till the train is out of
      hearing. He seems to have conceived an abject, unreasoned terror of the
      Railroad.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But he will have to leave Los Muertos now, of course?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, they will all have to leave. They have a fortnight more. The few
      tenants that were still on Los Muertos are leaving. That is one thing that
      brings me to the city. The family of one of the men who was killed&mdash;Hooven
      was his name&mdash;have come to the city to find work. I think they are
      liable to be in great distress, unless they have been wonderfully lucky,
      and I am trying to find them in order to look after them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You need looking after yourself, Pres.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, once away from Bonneville and the sight of the ruin there, I'm
      better. But I intend to go away. And that makes me think, I came to ask
      you if you could help me. If you would let me take passage on one of your
      wheat ships. The Doctor says an ocean voyage would set me up.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, certainly, Pres,&rdquo; declared Cedarquist. &ldquo;But I'm sorry you'll have to
      go. We expected to have you down in the country with us this winter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley shook his head. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I must go. Even if I had all
      my health, I could not bring myself to stay in California just now. If you
      can introduce me to one of your captains&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;With pleasure. When do you want to go? You may have to wait a few weeks.
      Our first ship won't clear till the end of the month.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That would do very well. Thank you, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Cedarquist was still interested in the land troubles of the Bonneville
      farmers, and took the first occasion to ask:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;So, the Railroad are in possession on most of the ranches?&rdquo; &ldquo;On all of
      them,&rdquo; returned Presley. &ldquo;The League went all to pieces, so soon as Magnus
      was forced to resign. The old story&mdash;they got quarrelling among
      themselves. Somebody started a compromise party, and upon that issue a new
      president was elected. Then there were defections. The Railroad offered to
      lease the lands in question to the ranchers&mdash;the ranchers who owned
      them,&rdquo; he exclaimed bitterly, &ldquo;and because the terms were nominal&mdash;almost
      nothing&mdash;plenty of the men took the chance of saving themselves. And,
      of course, once signing the lease, they acknowledged the Railroad's title.
      But the road would not lease to Magnus. S. Behrman takes over Los Muertos
      in a few weeks now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No doubt, the road made over their title in the property to him,&rdquo;
       observed Cedarquist, &ldquo;as a reward of his services.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No doubt,&rdquo; murmured Presley wearily. He rose to go.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By the way,&rdquo; said Cedarquist, &ldquo;what have you on hand for, let us say,
      Friday evening? Won't you dine with us then? The girls are going to the
      country Monday of next week, and you probably won't see them again for
      some time if you take that ocean voyage of yours.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm afraid I shall be very poor company, sir,&rdquo; hazarded Presley. &ldquo;There's
      no 'go,' no life in me at all these days. I am like a clock with a broken
      spring.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not broken, Pres, my boy;&rdquo; urged the other, &ldquo;only run down. Try and see
      if we can't wind you up a bit. Say that we can expect you. We dine at
      seven.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Thank you, sir. Till Friday at seven, then.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Regaining the street, Presley sent his valise to his club (where he had
      engaged a room) by a messenger boy, and boarded a Castro Street car.
      Before leaving Bonneville, he had ascertained, by strenuous enquiry, Mrs.
      Hooven's address in the city, and thitherward he now directed his steps.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Presley had told Cedarquist that he was ill, that he was jaded, worn
      out, he had only told half the truth. Exhausted he was, nerveless, weak,
      but this apathy was still invaded from time to time with fierce incursions
      of a spirit of unrest and revolt, reactions, momentary returns of the
      blind, undirected energy that at one time had prompted him to a vast
      desire to acquit himself of some terrible deed of readjustment, just what,
      he could not say, some terrifying martyrdom, some awe-inspiring
      immolation, consummate, incisive, conclusive. He fancied himself to be
      fired with the purblind, mistaken heroism of the anarchist, hurling his
      victim to destruction with full knowledge that the catastrophe shall sweep
      him also into the vortex it creates.
    </p>
    <p>
      But his constitutional irresoluteness obstructed his path continually;
      brain-sick, weak of will, emotional, timid even, he temporised,
      procrastinated, brooded; came to decisions in the dark hours of the night,
      only to abandon them in the morning.
    </p>
    <p>
      Once only he had ACTED. And at this moment, as he was carried through the
      windy, squalid streets, he trembled at the remembrance of it. The horror
      of &ldquo;what might have been&rdquo; incompatible with the vengeance whose minister
      he fancied he was, oppressed him. The scene perpetually reconstructed
      itself in his imagination. He saw himself under the shade of the
      encompassing trees and shrubbery, creeping on his belly toward the house,
      in the suburbs of Bonneville, watching his chances, seizing opportunities,
      spying upon the lighted windows where the raised curtains afforded a view
      of the interior. Then had come the appearance in the glare of the gas of
      the figure of the man for whom he waited. He saw himself rise and run
      forward. He remembered the feel and weight in his hand of Caraher's bomb&mdash;the
      six inches of plugged gas pipe. His upraised arm shot forward. There was a
      shiver of smashed window-panes, then&mdash;a void&mdash;a red whirl of
      confusion, the air rent, the ground rocking, himself flung headlong, flung
      off the spinning circumference of things out into a place of terror and
      vacancy and darkness. And then after a long time the return of reason, the
      consciousness that his feet were set upon the road to Los Muertos, and
      that he was fleeing terror-stricken, gasping, all but insane with
      hysteria. Then the never-to-be-forgotten night that ensued, when he
      descended into the pit, horrified at what he supposed he had done, at one
      moment ridden with remorse, at another raging against his own feebleness,
      his lack of courage, his wretched, vacillating spirit. But morning had
      come, and with it the knowledge that he had failed, and the baser
      assurance that he was not even remotely suspected. His own escape had been
      no less miraculous than that of his enemy, and he had fallen on his knees
      in inarticulate prayer, weeping, pouring out his thanks to God for the
      deliverance from the gulf to the very brink of which his feet had been
      drawn.
    </p>
    <p>
      After this, however, there had come to Presley a deep-rooted suspicion
      that he was&mdash;of all human beings, the most wretched&mdash;a failure.
      Everything to which he had set his mind failed&mdash;his great epic, his
      efforts to help the people who surrounded him, even his attempted
      destruction of the enemy, all these had come to nothing. Girding his
      shattered strength together, he resolved upon one last attempt to live up
      to the best that was in him, and to that end had set himself to lift out
      of the despair into which they had been thrust, the bereaved family of the
      German, Hooven.
    </p>
    <p>
      After all was over, and Hooven, together with the seven others who had
      fallen at the irrigating ditch, was buried in the Bonneville cemetery,
      Mrs. Hooven, asking no one's aid or advice, and taking with her Minna and
      little Hilda, had gone to San Francisco&mdash;had gone to find work,
      abandoning Los Muertos and her home forever. Presley only learned of the
      departure of the family after fifteen days had elapsed.
    </p>
    <p>
      At once, however, the suspicion forced itself upon him that Mrs. Hooven&mdash;and
      Minna, too for the matter of that&mdash;country-bred, ignorant of city
      ways, might easily come to grief in the hard, huge struggle of city life.
      This suspicion had swiftly hardened to a conviction, acting at last upon
      which Presley had followed them to San Francisco, bent upon finding and
      assisting them.
    </p>
    <p>
      The house to which Presley was led by the address in his memorandum book
      was a cheap but fairly decent hotel near the power house of the Castro
      Street cable. He inquired for Mrs. Hooven.
    </p>
    <p>
      The landlady recollected the Hoovens perfectly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;German woman, with a little girl-baby, and an older daughter, sure. The
      older daughter was main pretty. Sure I remember them, but they ain't here
      no more. They left a week ago. I had to ask them for their room. As it
      was, they owed a week's room-rent. Mister, I can't afford&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, do you know where they went? Did you hear what address they had
      their trunk expressed to?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, yes, their trunk,&rdquo; vociferated the woman, clapping her hands to her
      hips, her face purpling. &ldquo;Their trunk, ah, sure. I got their trunk, and
      what are you going to do about it? I'm holding it till I get my money.
      What have you got to say about it? Let's hear it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley turned away with a gesture of discouragement, his heart sinking.
      On the street corner he stood for a long time, frowning in trouble and
      perplexity. His suspicions had been only too well founded. So long ago as
      a week, the Hoovens had exhausted all their little store of money. For
      seven days now they had been without resources, unless, indeed, work had
      been found; &ldquo;and what,&rdquo; he asked himself, &ldquo;what work in God's name could
      they find to do here in the city?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Seven days! He quailed at the thought of it. Seven days without money,
      knowing not a soul in all that swarming city. Ignorant of city life as
      both Minna and her mother were, would they even realise that there were
      institutions built and generously endowed for just such as they? He knew
      them to have their share of pride, the dogged sullen pride of the peasant;
      even if they knew of charitable organisations, would they, could they
      bring themselves to apply there? A poignant anxiety thrust itself sharply
      into Presley's heart. Where were they now? Where had they slept last
      night? Where breakfasted this morning? Had there even been any breakfast
      this morning? Had there even been any bed last night? Lost, and forgotten
      in the plexus of the city's life, what had befallen them? Towards what
      fate was the ebb tide of the streets drifting them?
    </p>
    <p>
      Was this to be still another theme wrought out by iron hands upon the old,
      the world-old, world-wide keynote? How far were the consequences of that
      dreadful day's work at the irrigating ditch to reach? To what length was
      the tentacle of the monster to extend?
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley returned toward the central, the business quarter of the city,
      alternately formulating and dismissing from his mind plan after plan for
      the finding and aiding of Mrs. Hooven and her daughters. He reached
      Montgomery Street, and turned toward his club, his imagination once more
      reviewing all the causes and circumstances of the great battle of which
      for the last eighteen months he had been witness.
    </p>
    <p>
      All at once he paused, his eye caught by a sign affixed to the wall just
      inside the street entrance of a huge office building, and smitten with an
      idea, stood for an instant motionless, upon the sidewalk, his eyes wide,
      his fists shut tight.
    </p>
    <p>
      The building contained the General Office of the Pacific and Southwestern
      Railroad. Large though it was, it nevertheless, was not pretentious, and
      during his visits to the city, Presley must have passed it, unheeding,
      many times.
    </p>
    <p>
      But for all that it was the stronghold of the enemy&mdash;the centre of
      all that vast ramifying system of arteries that drained the life-blood of
      the State; the nucleus of the web in which so many lives, so many
      fortunes, so many destinies had been enmeshed. From this place&mdash;so he
      told himself&mdash;had emanated that policy of extortion, oppression and
      injustice that little by little had shouldered the ranchers from their
      rights, till, their backs to the wall, exasperated and despairing they had
      turned and fought and died. From here had come the orders to S. Behrman,
      to Cyrus Ruggles and to Genslinger, the orders that had brought Dyke to a
      prison, that had killed Annixter, that had ruined Magnus, that had
      corrupted Lyman. Here was the keep of the castle, and here, behind one of
      those many windows, in one of those many offices, his hand upon the levers
      of his mighty engine, sat the master, Shelgrim himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Instantly, upon the realisation of this fact an ungovernable desire seized
      upon Presley, an inordinate curiosity. Why not see, face to face, the man
      whose power was so vast, whose will was so resistless, whose potency for
      evil so limitless, the man who for so long and so hopelessly they had all
      been fighting. By reputation he knew him to be approachable; why should he
      not then approach him? Presley took his resolution in both hands. If he
      failed to act upon this impulse, he knew he would never act at all. His
      heart beating, his breath coming short, he entered the building, and in a
      few moments found himself seated in an ante-room, his eyes fixed with
      hypnotic intensity upon the frosted pane of an adjoining door, whereon in
      gold letters was inscribed the word, &ldquo;PRESIDENT.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In the end, Presley had been surprised to find that Shelgrim was still in.
      It was already very late, after six o'clock, and the other offices in the
      building were in the act of closing. Many of them were already deserted.
      At every instant, through the open door of the ante-room, he caught a
      glimpse of clerks, office boys, book-keepers, and other employees hurrying
      towards the stairs and elevators, quitting business for the day. Shelgrim,
      it seemed, still remained at his desk, knowing no fatigue, requiring no
      leisure.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What time does Mr. Shelgrim usually go home?&rdquo; inquired Presley of the
      young man who sat ruling forms at the table in the ante-room.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Anywhere between half-past six and seven,&rdquo; the other answered, adding,
      &ldquo;Very often he comes back in the evening.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And the man was seventy years old. Presley could not repress a murmur of
      astonishment. Not only mentally, then, was the President of the P. and S.
      W. a giant. Seventy years of age and still at his post, holding there with
      the energy, with a concentration of purpose that would have wrecked the
      health and impaired the mind of many men in the prime of their manhood.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the next instant Presley set his teeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is an ogre's vitality,&rdquo; he said to himself. &ldquo;Just so is the man-eating
      tiger strong. The man should have energy who has sucked the life-blood
      from an entire People.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A little electric bell on the wall near at hand trilled a warning. The
      young man who was ruling forms laid down his pen, and opening the door of
      the President's office, thrust in his head, then after a word exchanged
      with the unseen occupant of the room, he swung the door wide, saying to
      Presley:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Shelgrim will see you, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley entered a large, well lighted, but singularly barren office. A
      well-worn carpet was on the floor, two steel engravings hung against the
      wall, an extra chair or two stood near a large, plain, littered table.
      That was absolutely all, unless he excepted the corner wash-stand, on
      which was set a pitcher of ice water, covered with a clean, stiff napkin.
      A man, evidently some sort of manager's assistant, stood at the end of the
      table, leaning on the back of one of the chairs. Shelgrim himself sat at
      the table.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was large, almost to massiveness. An iron-grey beard and a mustache
      that completely hid the mouth covered the lower part of his face. His eyes
      were a pale blue, and a little watery; here and there upon his face were
      moth spots. But the enormous breadth of the shoulders was what, at first,
      most vividly forced itself upon Presley's notice. Never had he seen a
      broader man; the neck, however, seemed in a manner to have settled into
      the shoulders, and furthermore they were humped and rounded, as if to bear
      great responsibilities, and great abuse.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the moment he was wearing a silk skull-cap, pushed to one side and a
      little awry, a frock coat of broadcloth, with long sleeves, and a
      waistcoat from the lower buttons of which the cloth was worn and, upon the
      edges, rubbed away, showing the metal underneath. At the top this
      waistcoat was unbuttoned and in the shirt front disclosed were two pearl
      studs.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley, uninvited, unnoticed apparently, sat down. The assistant manager
      was in the act of making a report. His voice was not lowered, and Presley
      heard every word that was spoken.
    </p>
    <p>
      The report proved interesting. It concerned a book-keeper in the office of
      the auditor of disbursements. It seems he was at most times thoroughly
      reliable, hard-working, industrious, ambitious. But at long intervals the
      vice of drunkenness seized upon the man and for three days rode him like a
      hag. Not only during the period of this intemperance, but for the few days
      immediately following, the man was useless, his work untrustworthy. He was
      a family man and earnestly strove to rid himself of his habit; he was,
      when sober, valuable. In consideration of these facts, he had been
      pardoned again and again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You remember, Mr. Shelgrim,&rdquo; observed the manager, &ldquo;that you have more
      than once interfered in his behalf, when we were disposed to let him go. I
      don't think we can do anything with him, sir. He promises to reform
      continually, but it is the same old story. This last time we saw nothing
      of him for four days. Honestly, Mr. Shelgrim, I think we ought to let
      Tentell out. We can't afford to keep him. He is really losing us too much
      money. Here's the order ready now, if you care to let it go.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a pause. Presley all attention, listened breathlessly. The
      assistant manager laid before his President the typewritten order in
      question. The silence lengthened; in the hall outside, the wrought-iron
      door of the elevator cage slid to with a clash. Shelgrim did not look at
      the order. He turned his swivel chair about and faced the windows behind
      him, looking out with unseeing eyes. At last he spoke:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tentell has a family, wife and three children. How much do we pay him?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;One hundred and thirty.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Let's double that, or say two hundred and fifty. Let's see how that will
      do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why&mdash;of course&mdash;if you say so, but really, Mr. Shelgrim&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, we'll try that, anyhow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley had not time to readjust his perspective to this new point of view
      of the President of the P. and S. W. before the assistant manager had
      withdrawn. Shelgrim wrote a few memoranda on his calendar pad, and signed
      a couple of letters before turning his attention to Presley. At last, he
      looked up and fixed the young man with a direct, grave glance. He did not
      smile. It was some time before he spoke. At last, he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley advanced and took a chair nearer at hand. Shelgrim turned and from
      his desk picked up and consulted Presley's card. Presley observed that he
      read without the use of glasses.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You,&rdquo; he said, again facing about, &ldquo;you are the young man who wrote the
      poem called 'The Toilers.'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It seems to have made a great deal of talk. I've read it, and I've seen
      the picture in Cedarquist's house, the picture you took the idea from.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley, his senses never more alive, observed that, curiously enough,
      Shelgrim did not move his body. His arms moved, and his head, but the
      great bulk of the man remained immobile in its place, and as the interview
      proceeded and this peculiarity emphasised itself, Presley began to
      conceive the odd idea that Shelgrim had, as it were, placed his body in
      the chair to rest, while his head and brain and hands went on working
      independently. A saucer of shelled filberts stood near his elbow, and from
      time to time he picked up one of these in a great thumb and forefinger and
      put it between his teeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I've seen the picture called 'The Toilers,'&rdquo; continued Shelgrim, &ldquo;and of
      the two, I like the picture better than the poem.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The picture is by a master,&rdquo; Presley hastened to interpose.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And for that reason,&rdquo; said Shelgrim, &ldquo;it leaves nothing more to be said.
      You might just as well have kept quiet. There's only one best way to say
      anything. And what has made the picture of 'The Toilers' great is that the
      artist said in it the BEST that could be said on the subject.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I had never looked at it in just that light,&rdquo; observed Presley. He was
      confused, all at sea, embarrassed. What he had expected to find in
      Shelgrim, he could not have exactly said. But he had been prepared to come
      upon an ogre, a brute, a terrible man of blood and iron, and instead had
      discovered a sentimentalist and an art critic. No standards of measurement
      in his mental equipment would apply to the actual man, and it began to
      dawn upon him that possibly it was not because these standards were
      different in kind, but that they were lamentably deficient in size. He
      began to see that here was the man not only great, but large; many-sided,
      of vast sympathies, who understood with equal intelligence, the human
      nature in an habitual drunkard, the ethics of a masterpiece of painting,
      and the financiering and operation of ten thousand miles of railroad.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I had never looked at it in just that light,&rdquo; repeated Presley. &ldquo;There is
      a great deal in what you say.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If I am to listen,&rdquo; continued Shelgrim, &ldquo;to that kind of talk, I prefer
      to listen to it first hand. I would rather listen to what the great French
      painter has to say, than to what YOU have to say about what he has already
      said.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His speech, loud and emphatic at first, when the idea of what he had to
      say was fresh in his mind, lapsed and lowered itself at the end of his
      sentences as though he had already abandoned and lost interest in that
      thought, so that the concluding words were indistinct, beneath the grey
      beard and mustache. Also at times there was the faintest suggestion of a
      lisp.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I wrote that poem,&rdquo; hazarded Presley, &ldquo;at a time when I was terribly
      upset. I live,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;or did live on the Los Muertos ranch in
      Tulare County&mdash;Magnus Derrick's ranch.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The Railroad's ranch LEASED to Mr. Derrick,&rdquo; observed Shelgrim.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley spread out his hands with a helpless, resigned gesture.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; continued the President of the P. and S. W. with grave intensity,
      looking at Presley keenly, &ldquo;I suppose you believe I am a grand old
      rascal.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; answered Presley, &ldquo;I am persuaded&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; He
      hesitated, searching for his words.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Believe this, young man,&rdquo; exclaimed Shelgrim, laying a thick powerful
      forefinger on the table to emphasise his words, &ldquo;try to believe this&mdash;to
      begin with&mdash;THAT RAILROADS BUILD THEMSELVES. Where there is a demand
      sooner or later there will be a supply. Mr. Derrick, does he grow his
      wheat? The Wheat grows itself. What does he count for? Does he supply the
      force? What do I count for? Do I build the Railroad? You are dealing with
      forces, young man, when you speak of Wheat and the Railroads, not with
      men. There is the Wheat, the supply. It must be carried to feed the
      People. There is the demand. The Wheat is one force, the Railroad,
      another, and there is the law that governs them&mdash;supply and demand.
      Men have only little to do in the whole business. Complications may arise,
      conditions that bear hard on the individual&mdash;crush him maybe&mdash;BUT
      THE WHEAT WILL BE CARRIED TO FEED THE PEOPLE as inevitably as it will
      grow. If you want to fasten the blame of the affair at Los Muertos on any
      one person, you will make a mistake. Blame conditions, not men.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But&mdash;but,&rdquo; faltered Presley, &ldquo;you are the head, you control the
      road.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are a very young man. Control the road! Can I stop it? I can go into
      bankruptcy if you like. But otherwise if I run my road, as a business
      proposition, I can do nothing. I can not control it. It is a force born
      out of certain conditions, and I&mdash;no man&mdash;can stop it or control
      it. Can your Mr. Derrick stop the Wheat growing? He can burn his crop, or
      he can give it away, or sell it for a cent a bushel&mdash;just as I could
      go into bankruptcy&mdash;but otherwise his Wheat must grow. Can any one
      stop the Wheat? Well, then no more can I stop the Road.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley regained the street stupefied, his brain in a whirl. This new
      idea, this new conception dumfounded him. Somehow, he could not deny it.
      It rang with the clear reverberation of truth. Was no one, then, to blame
      for the horror at the irrigating ditch? Forces, conditions, laws of supply
      and demand&mdash;were these then the enemies, after all? Not enemies;
      there was no malevolence in Nature. Colossal indifference only, a vast
      trend toward appointed goals. Nature was, then, a gigantic engine, a vast
      cyclopean power, huge, terrible, a leviathan with a heart of steel,
      knowing no compunction, no forgiveness, no tolerance; crushing out the
      human atom standing in its way, with nirvanic calm, the agony of
      destruction sending never a jar, never the faintest tremour through all
      that prodigious mechanism of wheels and cogs. He went to his club and ate
      his supper alone, in gloomy agitation. He was sombre, brooding, lost in a
      dark maze of gloomy reflections. However, just as he was rising from the
      table an incident occurred that for the moment roused him and sharply
      diverted his mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      His table had been placed near a window and as he was sipping his
      after-dinner coffee, he happened to glance across the street. His eye was
      at once caught by the sight of a familiar figure. Was it Minna Hooven? The
      figure turned the street corner and was lost to sight; but it had been
      strangely like. On the moment, Presley had risen from the table and,
      clapping on his hat, had hurried into the streets, where the lamps were
      already beginning to shine.
    </p>
    <p>
      But search though he would, Presley could not again come upon the young
      woman, in whom he fancied he had seen the daughter of the unfortunate
      German. At last, he gave up the hunt, and returning to his club&mdash;at
      this hour almost deserted&mdash;smoked a few cigarettes, vainly attempted
      to read from a volume of essays in the library, and at last, nervous,
      distraught, exhausted, retired to his bed.
    </p>
    <p>
      But none the less, Presley had not been mistaken. The girl whom he had
      tried to follow had been indeed Minna Hooven.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Minna, a week before this time, had returned to the lodging house on
      Castro Street, after a day's unsuccessful effort to find employment, and
      was told that her mother and Hilda had gone, she was struck speechless
      with surprise and dismay. She had never before been in any town larger
      than Bonneville, and now knew not which way to turn nor how to account for
      the disappearance of her mother and little Hilda. That the landlady was on
      the point of turning them out, she understood, but it had been agreed that
      the family should be allowed to stay yet one more day, in the hope that
      Minna would find work. Of this she reminded the land-lady. But this latter
      at once launched upon her such a torrent of vituperation, that the girl
      was frightened to speechless submission.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, oh,&rdquo; she faltered, &ldquo;I know. I am sorry. I know we owe you money, but
      where did my mother go? I only want to find her.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I ain't going to be bothered,&rdquo; shrilled the other. &ldquo;How do I know?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The truth of the matter was that Mrs. Hooven, afraid to stay in the
      vicinity of the house, after her eviction, and threatened with arrest by
      the landlady if she persisted in hanging around, had left with the woman a
      note scrawled on an old blotter, to be given to Minna when she returned.
      This the landlady had lost. To cover her confusion, she affected a vast
      indignation, and a turbulent, irascible demeanour.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I ain't going to be bothered with such cattle as you,&rdquo; she vociferated in
      Minna's face. &ldquo;I don't know where your folks is. Me, I only have dealings
      with honest people. I ain't got a word to say so long as the rent is paid.
      But when I'm soldiered out of a week's lodging, then I'm done. You get
      right along now. I don't know you. I ain't going to have my place get a
      bad name by having any South of Market Street chippies hanging around. You
      get along, or I'll call an officer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Minna sought the street, her head in a whirl. It was about five o'clock.
      In her pocket was thirty-five cents, all she had in the world. What now?
    </p>
    <p>
      All at once, the Terror of the City, that blind, unreasoned fear that only
      the outcast knows, swooped upon her, and clutched her vulture-wise, by the
      throat.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her first few days' experience in the matter of finding employment, had
      taught her just what she might expect from this new world upon which she
      had been thrown. What was to become of her? What was she to do, where was
      she to go? Unanswerable, grim questions, and now she no longer had herself
      to fear for. Her mother and the baby, little Hilda, both of them equally
      unable to look after themselves, what was to become of them, where were
      they gone? Lost, lost, all of them, herself as well. But she rallied
      herself, as she walked along. The idea of her starving, of her mother and
      Hilda starving, was out of all reason. Of course, it would not come to
      that, of course not. It was not thus that starvation came. Something would
      happen, of course, it would&mdash;in time. But meanwhile, meanwhile, how
      to get through this approaching night, and the next few days. That was the
      thing to think of just now.
    </p>
    <p>
      The suddenness of it all was what most unnerved her. During all the
      nineteen years of her life, she had never known what it meant to shift for
      herself. Her father had always sufficed for the family; he had taken care
      of her, then, all of a sudden, her father had been killed, her mother
      snatched from her. Then all of a sudden there was no help anywhere. Then
      all of a sudden a terrible voice demanded of her, &ldquo;Now just what can you
      do to keep yourself alive?&rdquo; Life faced her; she looked the huge stone
      image squarely in the lustreless eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was nearly twilight. Minna, for the sake of avoiding observation&mdash;for
      it seemed to her that now a thousand prying glances followed her&mdash;assumed
      a matter-of-fact demeanour, and began to walk briskly toward the business
      quarter of the town.
    </p>
    <p>
      She was dressed neatly enough, in a blue cloth skirt with a blue plush
      belt, fairly decent shoes, once her mother's, a pink shirt waist, and
      jacket and a straw sailor. She was, in an unusual fashion, pretty. Even
      her troubles had not dimmed the bright light of her pale, greenish-blue
      eyes, nor faded the astonishing redness of her lips, nor hollowed her
      strangely white face. Her blue-black hair was trim. She carried her
      well-shaped, well-rounded figure erectly. Even in her distress, she
      observed that men looked keenly at her, and sometimes after her as she
      went along. But this she noted with a dim sub-conscious faculty. The real
      Minna, harassed, terrified, lashed with a thousand anxieties, kept
      murmuring under her breath:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What shall I do, what shall I do, oh, what shall I do, now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      After an interminable walk, she gained Kearney Street, and held it till
      the well-lighted, well-kept neighbourhood of the shopping district gave
      place to the vice-crowded saloons and concert halls of the Barbary Coast.
      She turned aside in avoidance of this, only to plunge into the purlieus of
      Chinatown, whence only she emerged, panic-stricken and out of breath,
      after a half hour of never-to-be-forgotten terrors, and at a time when it
      had grown quite dark.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the corner of California and Dupont streets, she stood a long moment,
      pondering.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I MUST do something,&rdquo; she said to herself. &ldquo;I must do SOMETHING.&rdquo; She was
      tired out by now, and the idea occurred to her to enter the Catholic
      church in whose shadow she stood, and sit down and rest. This she did. The
      evening service was just being concluded. But long after the priests and
      altar boys had departed from the chancel, Minna still sat in the dim,
      echoing interior, confronting her desperate situation as best she might.
    </p>
    <p>
      Two or three hours later, the sexton woke her. The church was being
      closed; she must leave. Once more, chilled with the sharp night air, numb
      with long sitting in the same attitude, still oppressed with drowsiness,
      confused, frightened, Minna found herself on the pavement. She began to be
      hungry, and, at length, yielding to the demand that every moment grew more
      imperious, bought and eagerly devoured a five-cent bag of fruit. Then,
      once more she took up the round of walking.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length, in an obscure street that branched from Kearney Street, near
      the corner of the Plaza, she came upon an illuminated sign, bearing the
      inscription, &ldquo;Beds for the Night, 15 and 25 cents.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Fifteen cents! Could she afford it? It would leave her with only that much
      more, that much between herself and a state of privation of which she
      dared not think; and, besides, the forbidding look of the building
      frightened her. It was dark, gloomy, dirty, a place suggestive of obscure
      crimes and hidden terrors. For twenty minutes or half an hour, she
      hesitated, walking twice and three times around the block. At last, she
      made up her mind. Exhaustion such as she had never known, weighed like
      lead upon her shoulders and dragged at her heels. She must sleep. She
      could not walk the streets all night. She entered the door-way under the
      sign, and found her way up a filthy flight of stairs. At the top, a man in
      a blue checked &ldquo;jumper&rdquo; was filling a lamp behind a high desk. To him
      Minna applied.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I should like,&rdquo; she faltered, &ldquo;to have a room&mdash;a bed for the night.
      One of those for fifteen cents will be good enough, I think.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, this place is only for men,&rdquo; said the man, looking up from the
      lamp.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Minna, &ldquo;oh&mdash;I&mdash;I didn't know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She looked at him stupidly, and he, with equal stupidity, returned the
      gaze. Thus, for a long moment, they held each other's eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I&mdash;I didn't know,&rdquo; repeated Minna.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, it's for men,&rdquo; repeated the other. She slowly descended the stairs,
      and once more came out upon the streets.
    </p>
    <p>
      And upon those streets that, as the hours advanced, grew more and more
      deserted, more and more silent, more and more oppressive with the sense of
      the bitter hardness of life towards those who have no means of living,
      Minna Hooven spent the first night of her struggle to keep her head above
      the ebb-tide of the city's sea, into which she had been plunged.
    </p>
    <p>
      Morning came, and with it renewed hunger. At this time, she had found her
      way uptown again, and towards ten o'clock was sitting upon a bench in a
      little park full of nurse-maids and children. A group of the maids drew
      their baby-buggies to Minna's bench, and sat down, continuing a
      conversation they had already begun. Minna listened. A friend of one of
      the maids had suddenly thrown up her position, leaving her &ldquo;madame&rdquo; in
      what would appear to have been deserved embarrassment.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Minna, breaking in, and lying with sudden unwonted fluency, &ldquo;I
      am a nurse-girl. I am out of a place. Do you think I could get that one?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The group turned and fixed her&mdash;so evidently a country girl&mdash;with
      a supercilious indifference.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you might try,&rdquo; said one of them. &ldquo;Got good references?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;References?&rdquo; repeated Minna blankly. She did not know what this meant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Mrs. Field ain't the kind to stick about references,&rdquo; spoke up the
      other, &ldquo;she's that soft. Why, anybody could work her.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll go there,&rdquo; said Minna. &ldquo;Have you the address?&rdquo; It was told to her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lorin,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;Is that out of town?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, it's across the Bay.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Across the Bay.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Um. You're from the country, ain't you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. How&mdash;how do I get there? Is it far?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you take the ferry at the foot of Market Street, and then the train
      on the other side. No, it ain't very far. Just ask any one down there.
      They'll tell you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was a chance; but Minna, after walking down to the ferry slips, found
      that the round trip would cost her twenty cents. If the journey proved
      fruitless, only a dime would stand between her and the end of everything.
      But it was a chance; the only one that had, as yet, presented itself. She
      made the trip.
    </p>
    <p>
      And upon the street-railway cars, upon the ferryboats, on the locomotives
      and way-coaches of the local trains, she was reminded of her father's
      death, and of the giant power that had reduced her to her present straits,
      by the letters, P. and S. W. R. R. To her mind, they occurred everywhere.
      She seemed to see them in every direction. She fancied herself surrounded
      upon every hand by the long arms of the monster.
    </p>
    <p>
      Minute after minute, her hunger gnawed at her. She could not keep her mind
      from it. As she sat on the boat, she found herself curiously scanning the
      faces of the passengers, wondering how long since such a one had
      breakfasted, how long before this other should sit down to lunch.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Minna descended from the train, at Lorin on the other side of the
      Bay, she found that the place was one of those suburban towns, not yet
      become fashionable, such as may be seen beyond the outskirts of any large
      American city. All along the line of the railroad thereabouts, houses,
      small villas&mdash;contractors' ventures&mdash;were scattered, the
      advantages of suburban lots and sites for homes being proclaimed in
      seven-foot letters upon mammoth bill-boards close to the right of way.
      Without much trouble, Minna found the house to which she had been
      directed, a pretty little cottage, set back from the street and shaded by
      palms, live oaks, and the inevitable eucalyptus. Her heart warmed at the
      sight of it. Oh, to find a little niche for herself here, a home, a refuge
      from those horrible city streets, from the rat of famine, with its
      relentless tooth. How she would work, how strenuously she would endeavour
      to please, how patient of rebuke she would be, how faithful, how
      conscientious. Nor were her pretensions altogether false; upon her, while
      at home, had devolved almost continually the care of the baby Hilda, her
      little sister. She knew the wants and needs of children.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her heart beating, her breath failing, she rang the bell set squarely in
      the middle of the front door.
    </p>
    <p>
      The lady of the house herself, an elderly lady, with pleasant, kindly
      face, opened the door. Minna stated her errand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I have already engaged a girl,&rdquo; she said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; murmured Minna, striving with all her might to maintain appearances.
      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;I thought perhaps&mdash;&rdquo; She turned away.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm sorry,&rdquo; said the lady. Then she added, &ldquo;Would you care to look after
      so many as three little children, and help around in light housework
      between whiles?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, ma'am.&rdquo; &ldquo;Because my sister&mdash;she lives in North Berkeley, above
      here&mdash;she's looking far a girl. Have you had lots of experience? Got
      good references?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, ma'am.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I'll give you the address. She lives up in North Berkeley.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She turned back into the house a moment, and returned, handing Minna a
      card.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's where she lives&mdash;careful not to BLOT it, child, the ink's wet
      yet&mdash;you had better see her.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is it far? Could I walk there?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My, no; you better take the electric cars, about six blocks above here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When Minna arrived in North Berkeley, she had no money left. By a cruel
      mistake, she had taken a car going in the wrong direction, and though her
      error was rectified easily enough, it had cost her her last five-cent
      piece. She was now to try her last hope. Promptly it crumbled away. Like
      the former, this place had been already filled, and Minna left the door of
      the house with the certainty that her chance had come to naught, and that
      now she entered into the last struggle with life&mdash;the death struggle&mdash;shorn
      of her last pitiful defence, her last safeguard, her last penny.
    </p>
    <p>
      As she once more resumed her interminable walk, she realised she was weak,
      faint; and she knew that it was the weakness of complete exhaustion, and
      the faintness of approaching starvation. Was this the end coming on?
      Terror of death aroused her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I MUST, I MUST do something, oh, anything. I must have something to eat.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      At this late hour, the idea of pawning her little jacket occurred to her,
      but now she was far away from the city and its pawnshops, and there was no
      getting back.
    </p>
    <p>
      She walked on. An hour passed. She lost her sense of direction, became
      confused, knew not where she was going, turned corners and went up
      by-streets without knowing why, anything to keep moving, for she fancied
      that so soon as she stood still, the rat in the pit of her stomach gnawed
      more eagerly.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last, she entered what seemed to be, if not a park, at least some sort
      of public enclosure. There were many trees; the place was beautiful;
      well-kept roads and walks led sinuously and invitingly underneath the
      shade. Through the trees upon the other side of a wide expanse of turf,
      brown and sear under the summer sun, she caught a glimpse of tall
      buildings and a flagstaff. The whole place had a vaguely public,
      educational appearance, and Minna guessed, from certain notices affixed to
      the trees, warning the public against the picking of flowers, that she had
      found her way into the grounds of the State University. She went on a
      little further. The path she was following led her, at length, into a
      grove of gigantic live oaks, whose lower branches all but swept the
      ground. Here the grass was green, the few flowers in bloom, the shade very
      thick. A more lovely spot she had seldom seen. Near at hand was a bench,
      built around the trunk of the largest live oak, and here, at length, weak
      from hunger, exhausted to the limits of her endurance, despairing,
      abandoned, Minna Hooven sat down to enquire of herself what next she could
      do.
    </p>
    <p>
      But once seated, the demands of the animal&mdash;so she could believe&mdash;became
      more clamorous, more insistent. To eat, to rest, to be safely housed
      against another night, above all else, these were the things she craved;
      and the craving within her grew so mighty that she crisped her poor,
      starved hands into little fists, in an agony of desire, while the tears
      ran from her eyes, and the sobs rose thick from her breast and struggled
      and strangled in her aching throat.
    </p>
    <p>
      But in a few moments Minna was aware that a woman, apparently of some
      thirty years of age, had twice passed along the walk in front of the bench
      where she sat, and now, as she took more notice of her, she remembered
      that she had seen her on the ferry-boat coming over from the city.
    </p>
    <p>
      The woman was gowned in silk, tightly corseted, and wore a hat of rather
      ostentatious smartness. Minna became convinced that the person was
      watching her, but before she had a chance to act upon this conviction she
      was surprised out of all countenance by the stranger coming up to where
      she sat and speaking to her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here is a coincidence,&rdquo; exclaimed the new-comer, as she sat down; &ldquo;surely
      you are the young girl who sat opposite me on the boat. Strange I should
      come across you again. I've had you in mind ever since.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      On this nearer view Minna observed that the woman's face bore rather more
      than a trace of enamel and that the atmosphere about was impregnated with
      sachet. She was not otherwise conspicuous, but there was a certain
      hardness about her mouth and a certain droop of fatigue in her eyelids
      which, combined with an indefinite self-confidence of manner, held Minna's
      attention.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you know,&rdquo; continued the woman, &ldquo;I believe you are in trouble. I
      thought so when I saw you on the boat, and I think so now. Are you? Are
      you in trouble? You're from the country, ain't you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Minna, glad to find a sympathiser, even in this chance acquaintance,
      admitted that she was in distress; that she had become separated from her
      mother, and that she was indeed from the country.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I've been trying to find a situation,&rdquo; she hazarded in conclusion, &ldquo;but I
      don't seem to succeed. I've never been in a city before, except
      Bonneville.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, it IS a coincidence,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;I know I wasn't drawn to you
      for nothing. I am looking for just such a young girl as you. You see, I
      live alone a good deal and I've been wanting to find a nice, bright,
      sociable girl who will be a sort of COMPANION to me. Understand? And
      there's something about you that I like. I took to you the moment I saw
      you on the boat. Now shall we talk this over?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Towards the end of the week, one afternoon, as Presley was returning from
      his club, he came suddenly face to face with Minna upon a street corner.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; he cried, coming toward her joyfully. &ldquo;Upon my word, I had almost
      given you up. I've been looking everywhere for you. I was afraid you might
      not be getting along, and I wanted to see if there was anything I could
      do. How are your mother and Hilda? Where are you stopping? Have you got a
      good place?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know where mamma is,&rdquo; answered Minna. &ldquo;We got separated, and I
      never have been able to find her again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Meanwhile, Presley had been taking in with a quick eye the details of
      Minna's silk dress, with its garniture of lace, its edging of velvet, its
      silver belt-buckle. Her hair was arranged in a new way and on her head was
      a wide hat with a flare to one side, set off with a gilt buckle and a puff
      of bright blue plush. He glanced at her sharply.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, but&mdash;but how are you getting on?&rdquo; he demanded.
    </p>
    <p>
      Minna laughed scornfully.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Oh, I'VE gone to hell. It was either that or starvation.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley regained his room at the club, white and trembling. Worse than the
      worst he had feared had happened. He had not been soon enough to help. He
      had failed again. A superstitious fear assailed him that he was, in a
      manner, marked; that he was foredoomed to fail. Minna had come&mdash;had
      been driven to this; and he, acting too late upon his tardy resolve, had
      not been able to prevent it. Were the horrors, then, never to end? Was the
      grisly spectre of consequence to forever dance in his vision? Were the
      results, the far-reaching results of that battle at the irrigating ditch
      to cross his path forever? When would the affair be terminated, the
      incident closed? Where was that spot to which the tentacle of the monster
      could not reach?
    </p>
    <p>
      By now, he was sick with the dread of it all. He wanted to get away, to be
      free from that endless misery, so that he might not see what he could no
      longer help. Cowardly he now knew himself to be. He thought of himself
      only with loathing.
    </p>
    <p>
      Bitterly self-contemptuous that he could bring himself to a participation
      in such trivialities, he began to dress to keep his engagement to dine
      with the Cedarquists.
    </p>
    <p>
      He arrived at the house nearly half an hour late, but before he could take
      off his overcoat, Mrs. Cedarquist appeared in the doorway of the
      drawing-room at the end of the hall. She was dressed as if to go out.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My DEAR Presley,&rdquo; she exclaimed, her stout, over-dressed body bustling
      toward him with a great rustle of silk. &ldquo;I never was so glad. You poor,
      dear poet, you are thin as a ghost. You need a better dinner than I can
      give you, and that is just what you are to have.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Have I blundered?&rdquo; Presley hastened to exclaim. &ldquo;Did not Mr. Cedarquist
      mention Friday evening?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no, no,&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;it was he who blundered. YOU blundering in a
      social amenity! Preposterous! No; Mr. Cedarquist forgot that we were
      dining out ourselves to-night, and when he told me he had asked you here
      for the same evening, I fell upon the man, my dear, I did actually, tooth
      and nail. But I wouldn't hear of his wiring you. I just dropped a note to
      our hostess, asking if I could not bring you, and when I told her who you
      WERE, she received the idea with, oh, empressement. So, there it is, all
      settled. Cedarquist and the girls are gone on ahead, and you are to take
      the old lady like a dear, dear poet. I believe I hear the carriage.
      Allons! En voiture!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Once settled in the cool gloom of the coupe, odorous of leather and
      upholstery, Mrs. Cedarquist exclaimed:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And I've never told you who you were to dine with; oh, a personage,
      really. Fancy, you will be in the camp of your dearest foes. You are to
      dine with the Gerard people, one of the Vice-Presidents of your bete noir,
      the P. and S. W. Railroad.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley started, his fists clenching so abruptly as to all but split his
      white gloves. He was not conscious of what he said in reply, and Mrs.
      Cedarquist was so taken up with her own endless stream of talk that she
      did not observe his confusion.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Their daughter Honora is going to Europe next week; her mother is to take
      her, and Mrs. Gerard is to have just a few people to dinner&mdash;very
      informal, you know&mdash;ourselves, you and, oh, I don't know, two or
      three others. Have you ever seen Honora? The prettiest little thing, and
      will she be rich? Millions, I would not dare say how many. Tiens. Nous
      voici.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The coupe drew up to the curb, and Presley followed Mrs. Cedarquist up the
      steps to the massive doors of the great house. In a confused daze, he
      allowed one of the footmen to relieve him of his hat and coat; in a daze
      he rejoined Mrs. Cedarquist in a room with a glass roof, hung with
      pictures, the art gallery, no doubt, and in a daze heard their names
      announced at the entrance of another room, the doors of which were hung
      with thick, blue curtains.
    </p>
    <p>
      He entered, collecting his wits for the introductions and presentations
      that he foresaw impended.
    </p>
    <p>
      The room was very large, and of excessive loftiness. Flat, rectagonal
      pillars of a rose-tinted, variegated marble, rose from the floor almost
      flush with the walls, finishing off at the top with gilded capitals of a
      Corinthian design, which supported the ceiling. The ceiling itself,
      instead of joining the walls at right angles, curved to meet them, a
      device that produced a sort of dome-like effect. This ceiling was a maze
      of golden involutions in very high relief, that adjusted themselves to
      form a massive framing for a great picture, nymphs and goddesses, white
      doves, golden chariots and the like, all wreathed about with clouds and
      garlands of roses. Between the pillars around the sides of the room were
      hangings of silk, the design&mdash;of a Louis Quinze type&mdash;of
      beautiful simplicity and faultless taste. The fireplace was a marvel. It
      reached from floor to ceiling; the lower parts, black marble, carved into
      crouching Atlases, with great muscles that upbore the superstructure. The
      design of this latter, of a kind of purple marble, shot through with white
      veinings, was in the same style as the design of the silk hangings. In its
      midst was a bronze escutcheon, bearing an undecipherable monogram and a
      Latin motto. Andirons of brass, nearly six feet high, flanked the
      hearthstone.
    </p>
    <p>
      The windows of the room were heavily draped in sombre brocade and ecru
      lace, in which the initials of the family were very beautifully worked.
      But directly opposite the fireplace, an extra window, lighted from the
      adjoining conservatory, threw a wonderful, rich light into the apartment.
      It was a Gothic window of stained glass, very large, the centre figures
      being armed warriors, Parsifal and Lohengrin; the one with a banner, the
      other with a swan. The effect was exquisite, the window a veritable
      masterpiece, glowing, flaming, and burning with a hundred tints and
      colours&mdash;opalescent, purple, wine-red, clouded pinks, royal blues,
      saffrons, violets so dark as to be almost black.
    </p>
    <p>
      Under foot, the carpet had all the softness of texture of grass; skins
      (one of them of an enormous polar bear) and rugs of silk velvet were
      spread upon the floor. A Renaissance cabinet of ebony, many feet taller
      than Presley's head, and inlaid with ivory and silver, occupied one corner
      of the room, while in its centre stood a vast table of Flemish oak, black,
      heavy as iron, massive. A faint odour of sandalwood pervaded the air. From
      the conservatory near-by, came the splashing of a fountain. A row of
      electric bulbs let into the frieze of the walls between the golden
      capitals, and burning dimly behind hemispheres of clouded glass, threw a
      subdued light over the whole scene.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Gerard came forward.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is Mr. Presley, of course, our new poet of whom we are all so proud.
      I was so afraid you would be unable to come. You have given me a real
      pleasure in allowing me to welcome you here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The footman appeared at her elbow.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dinner is served, madame,&rdquo; he announced.
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      When Mrs. Hooven had left the boarding-house on Castro Street, she had
      taken up a position on a neighbouring corner, to wait for Minna's
      reappearance. Little Hilda, at this time hardly more than six years of
      age, was with her, holding to her hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Hooven was by no means an old woman, but hard work had aged her. She
      no longer had any claim to good looks. She no longer took much interest in
      her personal appearance. At the time of her eviction from the Castro
      Street boarding-house, she wore a faded black bonnet, garnished with faded
      artificial flowers of dirty pink. A plaid shawl was about her shoulders.
      But this day of misfortune had set Mrs. Hooven adrift in even worse
      condition than her daughter. Her purse, containing a miserable handful of
      dimes and nickels, was in her trunk, and her trunk was in the hands of the
      landlady. Minna had been allowed such reprieve as her thirty-five cents
      would purchase. The destitution of Mrs. Hooven and her little girl had
      begun from the very moment of her eviction.
    </p>
    <p>
      While she waited for Minna, watching every street car and every
      approaching pedestrian, a policeman appeared, asked what she did, and,
      receiving no satisfactory reply, promptly moved her on.
    </p>
    <p>
      Minna had had little assurance in facing the life struggle of the city.
      Mrs. Hooven had absolutely none. In her, grief, distress, the pinch of
      poverty, and, above all, the nameless fear of the turbulent, fierce life
      of the streets, had produced a numbness, an embruted, sodden, silent,
      speechless condition of dazed mind, and clogged, unintelligent speech. She
      was dumb, bewildered, stupid, animated but by a single impulse. She clung
      to life, and to the life of her little daughter Hilda, with the blind
      tenacity of purpose of a drowning cat.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus, when ordered to move on by the officer, she had silently obeyed, not
      even attempting to explain her situation. She walked away to the next
      street-crossing. Then, in a few moments returned, taking up her place on
      the corner near the boarding-house, spying upon the approaching cable
      cars, peeping anxiously down the length of the sidewalks.
    </p>
    <p>
      Once more, the officer ordered her away, and once more, unprotesting, she
      complied. But when for the third time the policeman found her on the
      forbidden spot, he had lost his temper. This time when Mrs. Hooven
      departed, he had followed her, and when, bewildered, persistent, she had
      attempted to turn back, he caught her by the shoulder.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you want to get arrested, hey?&rdquo; he demanded. &ldquo;Do you want me to lock
      you up? Say, do you, speak up?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The ominous words at length reached Mrs. Hooven's comprehension. Arrested!
      She was to be arrested. The countrywoman's fear of the Jail nipped and bit
      eagerly at her unwilling heels. She hurried off, thinking to return to her
      post after the policeman should have gone away. But when, at length,
      turning back, she tried to find the boarding-house, she suddenly
      discovered that she was on an unfamiliar street. Unwittingly, no doubt,
      she had turned a corner. She could not retrace her steps. She and Hilda
      were lost.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy, I'm tired,&rdquo; Hilda complained.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her mother picked her up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy, where're we gowun, mammy?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Where, indeed? Stupefied, Mrs. Hooven looked about her at the endless
      blocks of buildings, the endless procession of vehicles in the streets,
      the endless march of pedestrians on the sidewalks. Where was Minna; where
      was she and her baby to sleep that night? How was Hilda to be fed?
    </p>
    <p>
      She could not stand still. There was no place to sit down; but one thing
      was left, walk.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ah, that via dolorosa of the destitute, that chemin de la croix of the
      homeless. Ah, the mile after mile of granite pavement that MUST be, MUST
      be traversed. Walk they must. Move, they must; onward, forward, whither
      they cannot tell; why, they do not know. Walk, walk, walk with bleeding
      feet and smarting joints; walk with aching back and trembling knees; walk,
      though the senses grow giddy with fatigue, though the eyes droop with
      sleep, though every nerve, demanding rest, sets in motion its tiny alarm
      of pain. Death is at the end of that devious, winding maze of paths,
      crossed and re-crossed and crossed again. There is but one goal to the via
      dolorosa; there is no escape from the central chamber of that labyrinth.
      Fate guides the feet of them that are set therein. Double on their steps
      though they may, weave in and out of the myriad corners of the city's
      streets, return, go forward, back, from side to side, here, there,
      anywhere, dodge, twist, wind, the central chamber where Death sits is
      reached inexorably at the end.
    </p>
    <p>
      Sometimes leading and sometimes carrying Hilda, Mrs. Hooven set off upon
      her objectless journey. Block after block she walked, street after street.
      She was afraid to stop, because of the policemen. As often as she so much
      as slackened her pace, she was sure to see one of these terrible figures
      in the distance, watching her, so it seemed to her, waiting for her to
      halt for the fraction of a second, in order that he might have an excuse
      to arrest her.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hilda fretted incessantly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy, where're we gowun? Mammy, I'm tired.&rdquo; Then, at last, for the first
      time, that plaint that stabbed the mother's heart:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy, I'm hungry.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Be qui-ut, den,&rdquo; said Mrs. Hooven. &ldquo;Bretty soon we'll hev der subber.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Passers-by on the sidewalk, men and women in the great six o'clock
      homeward march, jostled them as they went along. With dumb, dull
      curiousness, she looked into one after another of the limitless stream of
      faces, and she fancied she saw in them every emotion but pity. The faces
      were gay, were anxious, were sorrowful, were mirthful, were lined with
      thought, or were merely flat and expressionless, but not one was turned
      toward her in compassion. The expressions of the faces might be various,
      but an underlying callousness was discoverable beneath every mask. The
      people seemed removed from her immeasurably; they were infinitely above
      her. What was she to them, she and her baby, the crippled outcasts of the
      human herd, the unfit, not able to survive, thrust out on the heath to
      perish?
    </p>
    <p>
      To beg from these people did not yet occur to her. There was no pride,
      however, in the matter. She would have as readily asked alms of so many
      sphinxes.
    </p>
    <p>
      She went on. Without willing it, her feet carried her in a wide circle.
      Soon she began to recognise the houses; she had been in that street
      before. Somehow, this was distasteful to her; so, striking off at right
      angles, she walked straight before her for over a dozen blocks. By now, it
      was growing darker. The sun had set. The hands of a clock on the
      power-house of a cable line pointed to seven. No doubt, Minna had come
      long before this time, had found her mother gone, and had&mdash;just what
      had she done, just what COULD she do? Where was her daughter now? Walking
      the streets herself, no doubt. What was to become of Minna, pretty girl
      that she was, lost, houseless and friendless in the maze of these streets?
      Mrs. Hooven, roused from her lethargy, could not repress an exclamation of
      anguish. Here was misfortune indeed; here was calamity. She bestirred
      herself, and remembered the address of the boarding-house. She might
      inquire her way back thither. No doubt, by now the policeman would be gone
      home for the night. She looked about. She was in the district of modest
      residences, and a young man was coming toward her, carrying a new garden
      hose looped around his shoulder.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, Meest'r; say, blease&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The young man gave her a quick look and passed on, hitching the coil of
      hose over his shoulder. But a few paces distant, he slackened in his walk
      and fumbled in his vest pocket with his fingers. Then he came back to Mrs.
      Hooven and put a quarter into her hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Hooven stared at the coin stupefied. The young man disappeared. He
      thought, then, that she was begging. It had come to that; she, independent
      all her life, whose husband had held five hundred acres of wheat land, had
      been taken for a beggar. A flush of shame shot to her face. She was about
      to throw the money after its giver. But at the moment, Hilda again
      exclaimed:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy, I'm hungry.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      With a movement of infinite lassitude and resigned acceptance of the
      situation, Mrs. Hooven put the coin in her pocket. She had no right to be
      proud any longer. Hilda must have food.
    </p>
    <p>
      That evening, she and her child had supper at a cheap restaurant in a poor
      quarter of the town, and passed the night on the benches of a little
      uptown park.
    </p>
    <p>
      Unused to the ways of the town, ignorant as to the customs and
      possibilities of eating-houses, she spent the whole of her quarter upon
      supper for herself and Hilda, and had nothing left wherewith to buy a
      lodging.
    </p>
    <p>
      The night was dreadful; Hilda sobbed herself to sleep on her mother's
      shoulder, waking thereafter from hour to hour, to protest, though wrapped
      in her mother's shawl, that she was cold, and to enquire why they did not
      go to bed. Drunken men snored and sprawled near at hand. Towards morning,
      a loafer, reeking of alcohol, sat down beside her, and indulged in an
      incoherent soliloquy, punctuated with oaths and obscenities. It was not
      till far along towards daylight that she fell asleep.
    </p>
    <p>
      She awoke to find it broad day. Hilda&mdash;mercifully&mdash;slept. Her
      mother's limbs were stiff and lame with cold and damp; her head throbbed.
      She moved to another bench which stood in the rays of the sun, and for a
      long two hours sat there in the thin warmth, till the moisture of the
      night that clung to her clothes was evaporated.
    </p>
    <p>
      A policeman came into view. She woke Hilda, and carrying her in her arms,
      took herself away.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy,&rdquo; began Hilda as soon as she was well awake; &ldquo;Mammy, I'm hungry. I
      want mein breakfest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure, sure, soon now, leedle tochter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She herself was hungry, but she had but little thought of that. How was
      Hilda to be fed? She remembered her experience of the previous day, when
      the young man with the hose had given her money. Was it so easy, then, to
      beg? Could charity be had for the asking? So it seemed; but all that was
      left of her sturdy independence revolted at the thought. SHE beg! SHE hold
      out the hand to strangers!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy, I'm hungry.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was no other way. It must come to that in the end. Why temporise,
      why put off the inevitable? She sought out a frequented street where men
      and women were on their way to work. One after another, she let them go
      by, searching their faces, deterred at the very last moment by some
      trifling variation of expression, a firm set mouth, a serious, level
      eyebrow, an advancing chin. Then, twice, when she had made a choice, and
      brought her resolution to the point of speech, she quailed, shrinking, her
      ears tingling, her whole being protesting against the degradation. Every
      one must be looking at her. Her shame was no doubt the object of an
      hundred eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy, I'm hungry,&rdquo; protested Hilda again.
    </p>
    <p>
      She made up her mind. What, though, was she to say? In what words did
      beggars ask for assistance?
    </p>
    <p>
      She tried to remember how tramps who had appeared at her back door on Los
      Muertos had addressed her; how and with what formula certain mendicants of
      Bonneville had appealed to her. Then, having settled upon a phrase, she
      approached a whiskered gentleman with a large stomach, walking briskly in
      the direction of the town.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, den, blease hellup a boor womun.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The gentleman passed on.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps he doand hear me,&rdquo; she murmured.
    </p>
    <p>
      Two well-dressed women advanced, chattering gayly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, say, den, blease hellup a boor womun.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      One of the women paused, murmuring to her companion, and from her purse
      extracted a yellow ticket which she gave to Mrs. Hooven with voluble
      explanations. But Mrs. Hooven was confused, she did not understand. What
      could the ticket mean? The women went on their way.
    </p>
    <p>
      The next person to whom she applied was a young girl of about eighteen,
      very prettily dressed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, say, den, blease hellup a boor womun.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In evident embarrassment, the young girl paused and searched in her little
      pocketbook. &ldquo;I think I have&mdash;I think&mdash;I have just ten cents here
      somewhere,&rdquo; she murmured again and again.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the end, she found a dime, and dropped it into Mrs. Hooven's palm.
    </p>
    <p>
      That was the beginning. The first step once taken, the others became easy.
      All day long, Mrs. Hooven and Hilda followed the streets, begging,
      begging. Here it was a nickel, there a dime, here a nickel again. But she
      was not expert in the art, nor did she know where to buy food the
      cheapest; and the entire day's work resulted only in barely enough for two
      meals of bread, milk, and a wretchedly cooked stew. Tuesday night found
      the pair once more shelterless.
    </p>
    <p>
      Once more, Mrs. Hooven and her baby passed the night on the park benches.
      But early on Wednesday morning, Mrs. Hooven found herself assailed by
      sharp pains and cramps in her stomach. What was the cause she could not
      say; but as the day went on, the pains increased, alternating with hot
      flushes over all her body, and a certain weakness and faintness. As the
      day went on, the pain and the weakness increased. When she tried to walk,
      she found she could do so only with the greatest difficulty. Here was
      fresh misfortune. To beg, she must walk. Dragging herself forward a
      half-block at a time, she regained the street once more. She succeeded in
      begging a couple of nickels, bought a bag of apples from a vender, and,
      returning to the park, sank exhausted upon a bench.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here she remained all day until evening, Hilda alternately whimpering for
      her bread and milk, or playing languidly in the gravel walk at her feet.
      In the evening, she started out again. This time, it was bitter hard.
      Nobody seemed inclined to give. Twice she was &ldquo;moved on&rdquo; by policemen. Two
      hours' begging elicited but a single dime. With this, she bought Hilda's
      bread and milk, and refusing herself to eat, returned to the bench&mdash;the
      only home she knew&mdash;and spent the night shivering with cold, burning
      with fever.
    </p>
    <p>
      From Wednesday morning till Friday evening, with the exception of the few
      apples she had bought, and a quarter of a loaf of hard bread that she
      found in a greasy newspaper&mdash;scraps of a workman's dinner&mdash;Mrs.
      Hooven had nothing to eat. In her weakened condition, begging became
      hourly more difficult, and such little money as was given her, she
      resolutely spent on Hilda's bread and milk in the morning and evening.
    </p>
    <p>
      By Friday afternoon, she was very weak, indeed. Her eyes troubled her. She
      could no longer see distinctly, and at times there appeared to her curious
      figures, huge crystal goblets of the most graceful shapes, floating and
      swaying in the air in front of her, almost within arm's reach. Vases of
      elegant forms, made of shimmering glass, bowed and courtesied toward her.
      Glass bulbs took graceful and varying shapes before her vision, now
      rounding into globes, now evolving into hour-glasses, now twisting into
      pretzel-shaped convolutions.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy, I'm hungry,&rdquo; insisted Hilda, passing her hands over her face. Mrs.
      Hooven started and woke. It was Friday evening. Already the street lamps
      were being lit.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gome, den, leedle girl,&rdquo; she said, rising and taking Hilda's hand. &ldquo;Gome,
      den, we go vind subber, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She issued from the park and took a cross street, directly away from the
      locality where she had begged the previous days. She had had no success
      there of late. She would try some other quarter of the town. After a weary
      walk, she came out upon Van Ness Avenue, near its junction with Market
      Street. She turned into the avenue, and went on toward the Bay, painfully
      traversing block after block, begging of all whom she met (for she no
      longer made any distinction among the passers-by).
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, say, den, blease hellup a boor womun.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy, mammy, I'm hungry.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was Friday night, between seven and eight. The great deserted avenue
      was already dark. A sea fog was scudding overhead, and by degrees
      descending lower. The warmth was of the meagerest, and the street lamps,
      birds of fire in cages of glass, fluttered and danced in the prolonged
      gusts of the trade wind that threshed and weltered in the city streets
      from off the ocean.
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      Presley entered the dining-room of the Gerard mansion with little Miss
      Gerard on his arm. The other guests had preceded them&mdash;Cedarquist
      with Mrs. Gerard; a pale-faced, languid young man (introduced to Presley
      as Julian Lambert) with Presley's cousin Beatrice, one of the twin
      daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Cedarquist; his brother Stephen, whose hair was
      straight as an Indian's, but of a pallid straw color, with Beatrice's
      sister; Gerard himself, taciturn, bearded, rotund, loud of breath,
      escorted Mrs. Cedarquist. Besides these, there were one or two other
      couples, whose names Presley did not remember.
    </p>
    <p>
      The dining-room was superb in its appointments. On three sides of the
      room, to the height of some ten feet, ran a continuous picture, an oil
      painting, divided into long sections by narrow panels of black oak. The
      painting represented the personages in the Romaunt de la Rose, and was
      conceived in an atmosphere of the most delicate, most ephemeral allegory.
      One saw young chevaliers, blue-eyed, of elemental beauty and purity; women
      with crowns, gold girdles, and cloudy wimples; young girls, entrancing in
      their loveliness, wearing snow-white kerchiefs, their golden hair unbound
      and flowing, dressed in white samite, bearing armfuls of flowers; the
      whole procession defiling against a background of forest glades, venerable
      oaks, half-hidden fountains, and fields of asphodel and roses.
    </p>
    <p>
      Otherwise, the room was simple. Against the side of the wall unoccupied by
      the picture stood a sideboard of gigantic size, that once had adorned the
      banquet hall of an Italian palace of the late Renaissance. It was black
      with age, and against its sombre surfaces glittered an array of heavy
      silver dishes and heavier cut-glass bowls and goblets.
    </p>
    <p>
      The company sat down to the first course of raw Blue Point oysters, served
      upon little pyramids of shaved ice, and the two butlers at once began
      filling the glasses of the guests with cool Haut Sauterne.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Gerard, who was very proud of her dinners, and never able to resist
      the temptation of commenting upon them to her guests, leaned across to
      Presley and Mrs. Cedarquist, murmuring, &ldquo;Mr. Presley, do you find that
      Sauterne too cold? I always believe it is so bourgeois to keep such a
      delicate wine as Sauterne on the ice, and to ice Bordeaux or Burgundy&mdash;oh,
      it is nothing short of a crime.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is from your own vineyard, is it not?&rdquo; asked Julian Lambert. &ldquo;I
      think I recognise the bouquet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He strove to maintain an attitude of fin gourmet, unable to refrain from
      comment upon the courses as they succeeded one another.
    </p>
    <p>
      Little Honora Gerard turned to Presley:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You know,&rdquo; she explained, &ldquo;Papa has his own vineyards in southern France.
      He is so particular about his wines; turns up his nose at California
      wines. And I am to go there next summer. Ferrieres is the name of the
      place where our vineyards are, the dearest village!&rdquo; She was a beautiful
      little girl of a dainty porcelain type, her colouring low in tone. She
      wore no jewels, but her little, undeveloped neck and shoulders, of an
      exquisite immaturity, rose from the tulle bodice of her first decollete
      gown.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she continued; &ldquo;I'm to go to Europe for the first time. Won't it be
      gay? And I am to have my own bonne, and Mamma and I are to travel&mdash;so
      many places, Baden, Homburg, Spa, the Tyrol. Won't it be gay?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley assented in meaningless words. He sipped his wine mechanically,
      looking about that marvellous room, with its subdued saffron lights, its
      glitter of glass and silver, its beautiful women in their elaborate
      toilets, its deft, correct servants; its array of tableware&mdash;cut
      glass, chased silver, and Dresden crockery. It was Wealth, in all its
      outward and visible forms, the signs of an opulence so great that it need
      never be husbanded. It was the home of a railway &ldquo;Magnate,&rdquo; a Railroad
      King. For this, then, the farmers paid. It was for this that S. Behrman
      turned the screw, tightened the vise. It was for this that Dyke had been
      driven to outlawry and a jail. It was for this that Lyman Derrick had been
      bought, the Governor ruined and broken, Annixter shot down, Hooven killed.
    </p>
    <p>
      The soup, puree a la Derby, was served, and at the same time, as hors
      d'oeuvres, ortolan patties, together with a tiny sandwich made of browned
      toast and thin slices of ham, sprinkled over with Parmesan cheese. The
      wine, so Mrs. Gerard caused it to be understood, was Xeres, of the 1815
      vintage.
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      Mrs. Hooven crossed the avenue. It was growing late. Without knowing it,
      she had come to a part of the city that experienced beggars shunned. There
      was nobody about. Block after block of residences stretched away on either
      hand, lighted, full of people. But the sidewalks were deserted.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy,&rdquo; whimpered Hilda. &ldquo;I'm tired, carry me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Using all her strength, Mrs. Hooven picked her up and moved on aimlessly.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then again that terrible cry, the cry of the hungry child appealing to the
      helpless mother:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy, I'm hungry.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ach, Gott, leedle girl,&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Hooven, holding her close to her
      shoulder, the tears starting from her eyes. &ldquo;Ach, leedle tochter. Doand,
      doand, doand. You praik my hairt. I cen't vind any subber. We got noddings
      to eat, noddings, noddings.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;When do we have those bread'n milk again, Mammy?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To-morrow&mdash;soon&mdash;py-and-py, Hilda. I doand know what pecome oaf
      us now, what pecome oaf my leedle babby.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She went on, holding Hilda against her shoulder with one arm as best she
      might, one hand steadying herself against the fence railings along the
      sidewalk. At last, a solitary pedestrian came into view, a young man in a
      top hat and overcoat, walking rapidly. Mrs. Hooven held out a quivering
      hand as he passed her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Say, say, den, Meest'r, blease hellup a boor womun.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other hurried on.
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      The fish course was grenadins of bass and small salmon, the latter
      stuffed, and cooked in white wine and mushroom liquor.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have read your poem, of course, Mr. Presley,&rdquo; observed Mrs. Gerard.
      &ldquo;'The Toilers,' I mean. What a sermon you read us, you dreadful young man.
      I felt that I ought at once to 'sell all that I have and give to the
      poor.' Positively, it did stir me up. You may congratulate yourself upon
      making at least one convert. Just because of that poem Mrs. Cedarquist and
      I have started a movement to send a whole shipload of wheat to the
      starving people in India. Now, you horrid reactionnaire, are you
      satisfied?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am very glad,&rdquo; murmured Presley.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I am afraid,&rdquo; observed Mrs. Cedarquist, &ldquo;that we may be too late.
      They are dying so fast, those poor people. By the time our ship reaches
      India the famine may be all over.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;One need never be afraid of being 'too late' in the matter of helping the
      destitute,&rdquo; answered Presley. &ldquo;Unfortunately, they are always a fixed
      quantity. 'The poor ye have always with you.'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How very clever that is,&rdquo; said Mrs. Gerard.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Cedarquist tapped the table with her fan in mild applause.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Brilliant, brilliant,&rdquo; she murmured, &ldquo;epigrammatical.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Honora,&rdquo; said Mrs. Gerard, turning to her daughter, at that moment in
      conversation with the languid Lambert, &ldquo;Honora, entends-tu, ma cherie,
      l'esprit de notre jeune Lamartine.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      Mrs. Hooven went on, stumbling from street to street, holding Hilda to her
      breast. Famine gnawed incessantly at her stomach; walk though she might,
      turn upon her tracks up and down the streets, back to the avenue again,
      incessantly and relentlessly the torture dug into her vitals. She was
      hungry, hungry, and if the want of food harassed and rended her,
      full-grown woman that she was, what must it be in the poor, starved
      stomach of her little girl? Oh, for some helping hand now, oh, for one
      little mouthful, one little nibble! Food, food, all her wrecked body
      clamoured for nourishment; anything to numb those gnawing teeth&mdash;an
      abandoned loaf, hard, mouldered; a half-eaten fruit, yes, even the refuse
      of the gutter, even the garbage of the ash heap. On she went, peering into
      dark corners, into the areaways, anywhere, everywhere, watching the silent
      prowling of cats, the intent rovings of stray dogs. But she was growing
      weaker; the pains and cramps in her stomach returned. Hilda's weight bore
      her to the pavement. More than once a great giddiness, a certain wheeling
      faintness all but overcame her. Hilda, however, was asleep. To wake her
      would only mean to revive her to the consciousness of hunger; yet how to
      carry her further? Mrs. Hooven began to fear that she would fall with her
      child in her arms. The terror of a collapse upon those cold pavements
      glistening with fog-damp roused her; she must make an effort to get
      through the night. She rallied all her strength, and pausing a moment to
      shift the weight of her baby to the other arm, once more set off through
      the night. A little while later she found on the edge of the sidewalk the
      peeling of a banana. It had been trodden upon and it was muddy, but
      joyfully she caught it up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hilda,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;wake oop, leedle girl. See, loog den, dere's
      somedings to eat. Look den, hey? Dat's goot, ain't it? Zum bunaner.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But it could not be eaten. Decayed, dirty, all but rotting, the stomach
      turned from the refuse, nauseated.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; cried Hilda, &ldquo;that's not good. I can't eat it. Oh, Mammy, please
      gif me those bread'n milk.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      By now the guests of Mrs. Gerard had come to the entrees&mdash;Londonderry
      pheasants, escallops of duck, and rissolettes a la pompadour. The wine was
      Chateau Latour.
    </p>
    <p>
      All around the table conversations were going forward gayly. The good
      wines had broken up the slight restraint of the early part of the evening
      and a spirit of good humour and good fellowship prevailed. Young Lambert
      and Mr. Gerard were deep in reminiscences of certain mutual duck-shooting
      expeditions. Mrs. Gerard and Mrs. Cedarquist discussed a novel&mdash;a
      strange mingling of psychology, degeneracy, and analysis of erotic
      conditions&mdash;which had just been translated from the Italian. Stephen
      Lambert and Beatrice disputed over the merits of a Scotch collie just
      given to the young lady. The scene was gay, the electric bulbs sparkled,
      the wine flashing back the light. The entire table was a vague glow of
      white napery, delicate china, and glass as brilliant as crystal. Behind
      the guests the serving-men came and went, filling the glasses continually,
      changing the covers, serving the entrees, managing the dinner without
      interruption, confusion, or the slightest unnecessary noise.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Presley could find no enjoyment in the occasion. From that picture of
      feasting, that scene of luxury, that atmosphere of decorous, well-bred
      refinement, his thoughts went back to Los Muertos and Quien Sabe and the
      irrigating ditch at Hooven's. He saw them fall, one by one, Harran,
      Annixter, Osterman, Broderson, Hooven. The clink of the wine glasses was
      drowned in the explosion of revolvers. The Railroad might indeed be a
      force only, which no man could control and for which no man was
      responsible, but his friends had been killed, but years of extortion and
      oppression had wrung money from all the San Joaquin, money that had made
      possible this very scene in which he found himself. Because Magnus had
      been beggared, Gerard had become Railroad King; because the farmers of the
      valley were poor, these men were rich.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fancy grew big in his mind, distorted, caricatured, terrible. Because
      the farmers had been killed at the irrigation ditch, these others, Gerard
      and his family, fed full. They fattened on the blood of the People, on the
      blood of the men who had been killed at the ditch. It was a
      half-ludicrous, half-horrible &ldquo;dog eat dog,&rdquo; an unspeakable cannibalism.
      Harran, Annixter, and Hooven were being devoured there under his eyes.
      These dainty women, his cousin Beatrice and little Miss Gerard, frail,
      delicate; all these fine ladies with their small fingers and slender
      necks, suddenly were transfigured in his tortured mind into harpies
      tearing human flesh. His head swam with the horror of it, the terror of
      it. Yes, the People WOULD turn some day, and turning, rend those who now
      preyed upon them. It would be &ldquo;dog eat dog&rdquo; again, with positions
      reversed, and he saw for one instant of time that splendid house sacked to
      its foundations, the tables overturned, the pictures torn, the hangings
      blazing, and Liberty, the red-handed Man in the Street, grimed with powder
      smoke, foul with the gutter, rush yelling, torch in hand, through every
      door.
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      At ten o'clock Mrs. Hooven fell.
    </p>
    <p>
      Luckily she was leading Hilda by the hand at the time and the little girl
      was not hurt. In vain had Mrs. Hooven, hour after hour, walked the
      streets. After a while she no longer made any attempt to beg; nobody was
      stirring, nor did she even try to hunt for food with the stray dogs and
      cats. She had made up her mind to return to the park in order to sit upon
      the benches there, but she had mistaken the direction, and following up
      Sacramento Street, had come out at length, not upon the park, but upon a
      great vacant lot at the very top of the Clay Street hill. The ground was
      unfenced and rose above her to form the cap of the hill, all overgrown
      with bushes and a few stunted live oaks. It was in trying to cross this
      piece of ground that she fell. She got upon her feet again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ach, Mammy, did you hurt yourself?&rdquo; asked Hilda.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is that house where we get those bread'n milk?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilda pointed to a single rambling building just visible in the night,
      that stood isolated upon the summit of the hill in a grove of trees.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no, dere aindt no braid end miluk, leedle tochter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hilda once more began to sob.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ach, Mammy, please, PLEASE, I want it. I'm hungry.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The jangled nerves snapped at last under the tension, and Mrs. Hooven,
      suddenly shaking Hilda roughly, cried out: &ldquo;Stop, stop. Doand say ut egen,
      you. My Gott, you kill me yet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But quick upon this came the reaction. The mother caught her little girl
      to her, sinking down upon her knees, putting her arms around her, holding
      her close.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, no, gry all so mudge es you want. Say dot you are hongry. Say ut
      egen, say ut all de dime, ofer end ofer egen. Say ut, poor, starfing,
      leedle babby. Oh, mein poor, leedle tochter. My Gott, oh, I go crazy
      bretty soon, I guess. I cen't hellup you. I cen't ged you noddings to eat,
      noddings, noddings. Hilda, we gowun to die togedder. Put der arms roundt
      me, soh, tighd, leedle babby. We gowun to die, we gowun to vind Popper. We
      aindt gowun to be hongry eny more.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Vair we go now?&rdquo; demanded Hilda.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No places. Mommer's soh tiredt. We stop heir, leedle while, end rest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Underneath a large bush that afforded a little shelter from the wind, Mrs.
      Hooven lay down, taking Hilda in her arms and wrapping her shawl about
      her. The infinite, vast night expanded gigantic all around them. At this
      elevation they were far above the city. It was still. Close overhead
      whirled the chariots of the fog, galloping landward, smothering lights,
      blurring outlines. Soon all sight of the town was shut out; even the
      solitary house on the hilltop vanished. There was nothing left but grey,
      wheeling fog, and the mother and child, alone, shivering in a little strip
      of damp ground, an island drifting aimlessly in empty space.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hilda's fingers touched a leaf from the bush and instinctively closed upon
      it and carried it to her mouth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I'm eating those leaf. Is those good?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Her mother did not reply.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You going to sleep, Mammy?&rdquo; inquired Hilda, touching her face.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Hooven roused herself a little.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hey? Vat you say? Asleep? Yais, I guess I wass asleep.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Her voice trailed unintelligibly to silence again. She was not, however,
      asleep. Her eyes were open. A grateful numbness had begun to creep over
      her, a pleasing semi-insensibility. She no longer felt the pain and cramps
      of her stomach, even the hunger was ceasing to bite.
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      &ldquo;These stuffed artichokes are delicious, Mrs. Gerard,&rdquo; murmured young
      Lambert, wiping his lips with a corner of his napkin. &ldquo;Pardon me for
      mentioning it, but your dinner must be my excuse.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And this asparagus&mdash;since Mr. Lambert has set the bad example,&rdquo;
       observed Mrs. Cedarquist, &ldquo;so delicate, such an exquisite flavour. How do
      you manage?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We get all our asparagus from the southern part of the State, from one
      particular ranch,&rdquo; explained Mrs. Gerard. &ldquo;We order it by wire and get it
      only twenty hours after cutting. My husband sees to it that it is put on a
      special train. It stops at this ranch just to take on our asparagus.
      Extravagant, isn't it, but I simply cannot eat asparagus that has been cut
      more than a day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nor I,&rdquo; exclaimed Julian Lambert, who posed as an epicure. &ldquo;I can tell to
      an hour just how long asparagus has been picked.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fancy eating ordinary market asparagus,&rdquo; said Mrs. Gerard, &ldquo;that has been
      fingered by Heaven knows how many hands.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy, mammy, wake up,&rdquo; cried Hilda, trying to push open Mrs. Hooven's
      eyelids, at last closed. &ldquo;Mammy, don't. You're just trying to frighten
      me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Feebly Hilda shook her by the shoulder. At last Mrs. Hooven's lips
      stirred. Putting her head down, Hilda distinguished the whispered words:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm sick. Go to schleep....Sick....Noddings to eat.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      The dessert was a wonderful preparation of alternate layers of biscuit
      glaces, ice cream, and candied chestnuts.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Delicious, is it not?&rdquo; observed Julian Lambert, partly to himself, partly
      to Miss Cedarquist. &ldquo;This Moscovite fouette&mdash;upon my word, I have
      never tasted its equal.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And you should know, shouldn't you?&rdquo; returned the young lady.
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mammy, mammy, wake up,&rdquo; cried Hilda. &ldquo;Don't sleep so. I'm frightenedt.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Repeatedly she shook her; repeatedly she tried to raise the inert eyelids
      with the point of her finger. But her mother no longer stirred. The gaunt,
      lean body, with its bony face and sunken eye-sockets, lay back, prone upon
      the ground, the feet upturned and showing the ragged, worn soles of the
      shoes, the forehead and grey hair beaded with fog, the poor, faded bonnet
      awry, the poor, faded dress soiled and torn. Hilda drew close to her
      mother, kissing her face, twining her arms around her neck. For a long
      time, she lay that way, alternately sobbing and sleeping. Then, after a
      long time, there was a stir. She woke from a doze to find a police officer
      and two or three other men bending over her. Some one carried a lantern.
      Terrified, smitten dumb, she was unable to answer the questions put to
      her. Then a woman, evidently a mistress of the house on the top of the
      hill, arrived and took Hilda in her arms and cried over her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll take the little girl,&rdquo; she said to the police officer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But the mother, can you save her? Is she too far gone?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I've sent for a doctor,&rdquo; replied the other.
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      Just before the ladies left the table, young Lambert raised his glass of
      Madeira. Turning towards the wife of the Railroad King, he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My best compliments for a delightful dinner.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      The doctor who had been bending over Mrs. Hooven, rose.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's no use,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;she has been dead some time&mdash;exhaustion from
      starvation.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IX
    </h2>
    <p>
      On Division Number Three of the Los Muertos ranch the wheat had already
      been cut, and S. Behrman on a certain morning in the first week of August
      drove across the open expanse of stubble toward the southwest, his eyes
      searching the horizon for the feather of smoke that would mark the
      location of the steam harvester. However, he saw nothing. The stubble
      extended onward apparently to the very margin of the world.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length, S. Behrman halted his buggy and brought out his field glasses
      from beneath the seat. He stood up in his place and, adjusting the lenses,
      swept the prospect to the south and west. It was the same as though the
      sea of land were, in reality, the ocean, and he, lost in an open boat,
      were scanning the waste through his glasses, looking for the smoke of a
      steamer, hull down, below the horizon. &ldquo;Wonder,&rdquo; he muttered, &ldquo;if they're
      working on Four this morning?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      At length, he murmured an &ldquo;Ah&rdquo; of satisfaction. Far to the south into the
      white sheen of sky, immediately over the horizon, he made out a faint
      smudge&mdash;the harvester beyond doubt.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thither S. Behrman turned his horse's head. It was all of an hour's drive
      over the uneven ground and through the crackling stubble, but at length he
      reached the harvester. He found, however, that it had been halted. The
      sack sewers, together with the header-man, were stretched on the ground in
      the shade of the machine, while the engineer and separator-man were
      pottering about a portion of the works.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's the matter, Billy?&rdquo; demanded S. Behrman reining up.
    </p>
    <p>
      The engineer turned about.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The grain is heavy in here. We thought we'd better increase the speed of
      the cup-carrier, and pulled up to put in a smaller sprocket.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman nodded to say that was all right, and added a question.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How is she going?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Anywheres from twenty-five to thirty sacks to the acre right along here;
      nothing the matter with THAT I guess.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nothing in the world, Bill.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      One of the sack sewers interposed:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;For the last half hour we've been throwing off three bags to the minute.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's good, that's good.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was more than good; it was &ldquo;bonanza,&rdquo; and all that division of the
      great ranch was thick with just such wonderful wheat. Never had Los
      Muertos been more generous, never a season more successful. S. Behrman
      drew a long breath of satisfaction. He knew just how great was his share
      in the lands which had just been absorbed by the corporation he served,
      just how many thousands of bushels of this marvellous crop were his
      property. Through all these years of confusion, bickerings, open hostility
      and, at last, actual warfare he had waited, nursing his patience, calm
      with the firm assurance of ultimate success. The end, at length, had come;
      he had entered into his reward and saw himself at last installed in the
      place he had so long, so silently coveted; saw himself chief of a
      principality, the Master of the Wheat.
    </p>
    <p>
      The sprocket adjusted, the engineer called up the gang and the men took
      their places. The fireman stoked vigorously, the two sack sewers resumed
      their posts on the sacking platform, putting on the goggles that kept the
      chaff from their eyes. The separator-man and header-man gripped their
      levers.
    </p>
    <p>
      The harvester, shooting a column of thick smoke straight upward, vibrating
      to the top of the stack, hissed, clanked, and lurched forward. Instantly,
      motion sprang to life in all its component parts; the header knives,
      cutting a thirty-six foot swath, gnashed like teeth; beltings slid and
      moved like smooth flowing streams; the separator whirred, the agitator
      jarred and crashed; cylinders, augers, fans, seeders and elevators,
      drapers and chaff-carriers clattered, rumbled, buzzed, and clanged. The
      steam hissed and rasped; the ground reverberated a hollow note, and the
      thousands upon thousands of wheat stalks sliced and slashed in the
      clashing shears of the header, rattled like dry rushes in a hurricane, as
      they fell inward, and were caught up by an endless belt, to disappear into
      the bowels of the vast brute that devoured them.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was that and no less. It was the feeding of some prodigious monster,
      insatiable, with iron teeth, gnashing and threshing into the fields of
      standing wheat; devouring always, never glutted, never satiated,
      swallowing an entire harvest, snarling and slobbering in a welter of warm
      vapour, acrid smoke, and blinding, pungent clouds of chaff. It moved
      belly-deep in the standing grain, a hippopotamus, half-mired in river
      ooze, gorging rushes, snorting, sweating; a dinosaur wallowing through
      thick, hot grasses, floundering there, crouching, grovelling there as its
      vast jaws crushed and tore, and its enormous gullet swallowed, incessant,
      ravenous, and inordinate.
    </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman, very much amused, changed places with one of the sack sewers,
      allowing him to hold his horse while he mounted the sacking platform and
      took his place. The trepidation and jostling of the machine shook him till
      his teeth chattered in his head. His ears were shocked and assaulted by a
      myriad-tongued clamour, clashing steel, straining belts, jarring woodwork,
      while the impalpable chaff powder from the separators settled like dust in
      his hair, his ears, eyes, and mouth.
    </p>
    <p>
      Directly in front of where he sat on the platform was the chute from the
      cleaner, and from this into the mouth of a half-full sack spouted an
      unending gush of grain, winnowed, cleaned, threshed, ready for the mill.
    </p>
    <p>
      The pour from the chute of the cleaner had for S. Behrman an immense
      satisfaction. Without an instant's pause, a thick rivulet of wheat rolled
      and dashed tumultuous into the sack. In half a minute&mdash;sometimes in
      twenty seconds&mdash;the sack was full, was passed over to the second
      sewer, the mouth reeved up, and the sack dumped out upon the ground, to be
      picked up by the wagons and hauled to the railroad.
    </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman, hypnotised, sat watching that river of grain. All that
      shrieking, bellowing machinery, all that gigantic organism, all the months
      of labour, the ploughing, the planting, the prayers for rain, the years of
      preparation, the heartaches, the anxiety, the foresight, all the whole
      business of the ranch, the work of horses, of steam, of men and boys,
      looked to this spot&mdash;the grain chute from the harvester into the
      sacks. Its volume was the index of failure or success, of riches or
      poverty. And at this point, the labour of the rancher ended. Here, at the
      lip of the chute, he parted company with his grain, and from here the
      wheat streamed forth to feed the world. The yawning mouths of the sacks
      might well stand for the unnumbered mouths of the People, all agape for
      food; and here, into these sacks, at first so lean, so flaccid, attenuated
      like starved stomachs, rushed the living stream of food, insistent,
      interminable, filling the empty, fattening the shrivelled, making it sleek
      and heavy and solid.
    </p>
    <p>
      Half an hour later, the harvester stopped again. The men on the sacking
      platform had used up all the sacks. But S. Behrman's foreman, a new man on
      Los Muertos, put in an appearance with the report that the wagon bringing
      a fresh supply was approaching.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How is the grain elevator at Port Costa getting on, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Finished,&rdquo; replied S. Behrman.
    </p>
    <p>
      The new master of Los Muertos had decided upon accumulating his grain in
      bulk in a great elevator at the tide-water port, where the grain ships for
      Liverpool and the East took on their cargoes. To this end, he had bought
      and greatly enlarged a building at Port Costa, that was already in use for
      that purpose, and to this elevator all the crop of Los Muertos was to be
      carried. The P. and S. W. made S. Behrman a special rate.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By the way,&rdquo; said S. Behrman to his superintendent, &ldquo;we're in luck.
      Fallon's buyer was in Bonneville yesterday. He's buying for Fallon and for
      Holt, too. I happened to run into him, and I've sold a ship load.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A ship load!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Of Los Muertos wheat. He's acting for some Indian Famine Relief Committee&mdash;lot
      of women people up in the city&mdash;and wanted a whole cargo. I made a
      deal with him. There's about fifty thousand tons of disengaged shipping in
      San Francisco Bay right now, and ships are fighting for charters. I wired
      McKissick and got a long distance telephone from him this morning. He got
      me a barque, the 'Swanhilda.' She'll dock day after to-morrow, and begin
      loading.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hadn't I better take a run up,&rdquo; observed the superintendent, &ldquo;and keep an
      eye on things?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered S. Behrman, &ldquo;I want you to stop down here, and see that
      those carpenters hustle the work in the ranch house. Derrick will be out
      by then. You see this deal is peculiar. I'm not selling to any middle-man&mdash;not
      to Fallon's buyer. He only put me on to the thing. I'm acting direct with
      these women people, and I've got to have some hand in shipping this stuff
      myself. But I made my selling figure cover the price of a charter. It's a
      queer, mixed-up deal, and I don't fancy it much, but there's boodle in it.
      I'll go to Port Costa myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A little later on in the day, when S. Behrman had satisfied himself that
      his harvesting was going forward favourably, he reentered his buggy and
      driving to the County Road turned southward towards the Los Muertos ranch
      house. He had not gone far, however, before he became aware of a familiar
      figure on horse-back, jogging slowly along ahead of him. He recognised
      Presley; he shook the reins over his horse's back and very soon ranging up
      by the side of the young man passed the time of day with him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, what brings you down here again, Mr. Presley?&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;I
      thought we had seen the last of you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I came down to say good-bye to my friends,&rdquo; answered Presley shortly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Going away?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;to India.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, upon my word. For your health, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You LOOK knocked up,&rdquo; asserted the other. &ldquo;By the way,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;I
      suppose you've heard the news?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley shrank a little. Of late the reports of disasters had followed so
      swiftly upon one another that he had begun to tremble and to quail at
      every unexpected bit of information.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What news do you mean?&rdquo; he asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;About Dyke. He has been convicted. The judge sentenced him for life.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      For life! Riding on by the side of this man through the ranches by the
      County Road, Presley repeated these words to himself till the full effect
      of them burst at last upon him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jailed for life! No outlook. No hope for the future. Day after day, year
      after year, to tread the rounds of the same gloomy monotony. He saw the
      grey stone walls, the iron doors; the flagging of the &ldquo;yard&rdquo; bare of grass
      or trees&mdash;the cell, narrow, bald, cheerless; the prison garb, the
      prison fare, and round all the grim granite of insuperable barriers,
      shutting out the world, shutting in the man with outcasts, with the pariah
      dogs of society, thieves, murderers, men below the beasts, lost to all
      decency, drugged with opium, utter reprobates. To this, Dyke had been
      brought, Dyke, than whom no man had been more honest, more courageous,
      more jovial. This was the end of him, a prison; this was his final estate,
      a criminal.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley found an excuse for riding on, leaving S. Behrman behind him. He
      did not stop at Caraher's saloon, for the heat of his rage had long since
      begun to cool, and dispassionately, he saw things in their true light. For
      all the tragedy of his wife's death, Caraher was none the less an evil
      influence among the ranchers, an influence that worked only to the
      inciting of crime. Unwilling to venture himself, to risk his own life, the
      anarchist saloon-keeper had goaded Dyke and Presley both to murder; a bad
      man, a plague spot in the world of the ranchers, poisoning the farmers'
      bodies with alcohol and their minds with discontent.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last, Presley arrived at the ranch house of Los Muertos. The place was
      silent; the grass on the lawn was half dead and over a foot high; the
      beginnings of weeds showed here and there in the driveway. He tied his
      horse to a ring in the trunk of one of the larger eucalyptus trees and
      entered the house.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Derrick met him in the dining-room. The old look of uneasiness,
      almost of terror, had gone from her wide-open brown eyes. There was in
      them instead, the expression of one to whom a contingency, long dreaded,
      has arrived and passed. The stolidity of a settled grief, of an
      irreparable calamity, of a despair from which there was no escape was in
      her look, her manner, her voice. She was listless, apathetic, calm with
      the calmness of a woman who knows she can suffer no further.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We are going away,&rdquo; she told Presley, as the two sat down at opposite
      ends of the dining table. &ldquo;Just Magnus and myself&mdash;all there is left
      of us. There is very little money left; Magnus can hardly take care of
      himself, to say nothing of me. I must look after him now. We are going to
      Marysville.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why there?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; she explained, &ldquo;it happens that my old place is vacant in the
      Seminary there. I am going back to teach&mdash;literature.&rdquo; She smiled
      wearily. &ldquo;It is beginning all over again, isn't it? Only there is nothing
      to look forward to now. Magnus is an old man already, and I must take care
      of him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He will go with you, then,&rdquo; Presley said, &ldquo;that will be some comfort to
      you at least.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; she said slowly, &ldquo;you have not seen Magnus lately.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is he&mdash;how do you mean? Isn't he any better?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Would you like to see him? He is in the office. You can go right in.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley rose. He hesitated a moment, then:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mrs. Annixter,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;Hilma&mdash;is she still with you? I should
      like to see her before I go.&rdquo; &ldquo;Go in and see Magnus,&rdquo; said Mrs. Derrick.
      &ldquo;I will tell her you are here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley stepped across the stone-paved hallway with the glass roof, and
      after knocking three times at the office door pushed it open and entered.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus sat in the chair before the desk and did not look up as Presley
      entered. He had the appearance of a man nearer eighty than sixty. All the
      old-time erectness was broken and bent. It was as though the muscles that
      once had held the back rigid, the chin high, had softened and stretched. A
      certain fatness, the obesity of inertia, hung heavy around the hips and
      abdomen, the eye was watery and vague, the cheeks and chin unshaven and
      unkempt, the grey hair had lost its forward curl towards the temples and
      hung thin and ragged around the ears. The hawk-like nose seemed hooked to
      meet the chin; the lips were slack, the mouth half-opened.
    </p>
    <p>
      Where once the Governor had been a model of neatness in his dress, the
      frock coat buttoned, the linen clean, he now sat in his shirt sleeves, the
      waistcoat open and showing the soiled shirt. His hands were stained with
      ink, and these, the only members of his body that yet appeared to retain
      their activity, were busy with a great pile of papers,&mdash;oblong, legal
      documents, that littered the table before him. Without a moment's
      cessation, these hands of the Governor's came and went among the papers,
      deft, nimble, dexterous.
    </p>
    <p>
      Magnus was sorting papers. From the heap upon his left hand he selected a
      document, opened it, glanced over it, then tied it carefully, and laid it
      away upon a second pile on his right hand. When all the papers were in one
      pile, he reversed the process, taking from his right hand to place upon
      his left, then back from left to right again, then once more from right to
      left. He spoke no word, he sat absolutely still, even his eyes did not
      move, only his hands, swift, nervous, agitated, seemed alive.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, how are you, Governor?&rdquo; said Presley, coming forward. Magnus turned
      slowly about and looked at him and at the hand in which he shook his own.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; he said at length, &ldquo;Presley...yes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then his glance fell, and he looked aimlessly about upon the floor. &ldquo;I've
      come to say good-bye, Governor,&rdquo; continued Presley, &ldquo;I'm going away.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Going away...yes, why it's Presley. Good-day, Presley.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-day, Governor. I'm going away. I've come to say good-bye.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye?&rdquo; Magnus bent his brows, &ldquo;what are you saying good-bye for?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm going away, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Governor did not answer. Staring at the ledge of the desk, he seemed
      lost in thought. There was a long silence. Then, at length, Presley said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How are you getting on, Governor?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Magnus looked up slowly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why it's Presley,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;How do you do, Presley.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Are you getting on all right, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Magnus after a while, &ldquo;yes, all right. I am going away. I've
      come to say good-bye. No&mdash;&rdquo; He interrupted himself with a deprecatory
      smile, &ldquo;YOU said THAT, didn't you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you are going away, too, your wife tells me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, I'm going away. I can't stay on...&rdquo; he hesitated a long time,
      groping for the right word, &ldquo;I can't stay on&mdash;on&mdash;what's the
      name of this place?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Los Muertos,&rdquo; put in Presley.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, it isn't. Yes, it is, too, that's right, Los Muertos. I don't know
      where my memory has gone to of late.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I hope you will be better soon, Governor.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As Presley spoke the words, S. Behrman entered the room, and the Governor
      sprang up with unexpected agility and stood against the wall, drawing one
      long breath after another, watching the railroad agent with intent eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman saluted both men affably and sat down near the desk, drawing
      the links of his heavy watch chain through his fat fingers.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There wasn't anybody outside when I knocked, but I heard your voice in
      here, Governor, so I came right in. I wanted to ask you, Governor, if my
      carpenters can begin work in here day after to-morrow. I want to take down
      that partition there, and throw this room and the next into one. I guess
      that will be O. K., won't it? You'll be out of here by then, won't you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was no vagueness about Magnus's speech or manner now. There was that
      same alertness in his demeanour that one sees in a tamed lion in the
      presence of its trainer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; he said quickly, &ldquo;you can send your men here. I will be gone
      by to-morrow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't want to seem to hurry you, Governor.&rdquo; &ldquo;No, you will not hurry me.
      I am ready to go now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Anything I can do for you, Governor?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nothing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, there is, Governor,&rdquo; insisted S. Behrman. &ldquo;I think now that all is
      over we ought to be good friends. I think I can do something for you. We
      still want an assistant in the local freight manager's office. Now, what
      do you say to having a try at it? There's a salary of fifty a month goes
      with it. I guess you must be in need of money now, and there's always the
      wife to support; what do you say? Will you try the place?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley could only stare at the man in speechless wonder. What was he
      driving at? What reason was there back of this new move, and why should it
      be made thus openly and in his hearing? An explanation occurred to him.
      Was this merely a pleasantry on the part of S. Behrman, a way of enjoying
      to the full his triumph; was he testing the completeness of his victory,
      trying to see just how far he could go, how far beneath his feet he could
      push his old-time enemy?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do you say?&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Will you try the place?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You&mdash;you INSIST?&rdquo; inquired the Governor.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I'm not insisting on anything,&rdquo; cried S. Behrman. &ldquo;I'm offering you a
      place, that's all. Will you take it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I'll take it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You'll come over to our side?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, I'll come over.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You'll have to turn 'railroad,' understand?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll turn railroad.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Guess there may be times when you'll have to take orders from me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll take orders from you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You'll have to be loyal to railroad, you know. No funny business.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll be loyal to the railroad.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You would like the place then?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman turned from Magnus, who at once resumed his seat and began
      again to sort his papers.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, Presley,&rdquo; said the railroad agent: &ldquo;I guess I won't see you again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hope not,&rdquo; answered the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tut, tut, Presley, you know you can't make me angry.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He put on his hat of varnished straw and wiped his fat forehead with his
      handkerchief. Of late, he had grown fatter than ever, and the linen vest,
      stamped with a multitude of interlocked horseshoes, strained tight its
      imitation pearl buttons across the great protuberant stomach.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley looked at the man a moment before replying.
    </p>
    <p>
      But a few weeks ago he could not thus have faced the great enemy of the
      farmers without a gust of blind rage blowing tempestuous through all his
      bones. Now, however, he found to his surprise that his fury had lapsed to
      a profound contempt, in which there was bitterness, but no truculence. He
      was tired, tired to death of the whole business.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he answered deliberately, &ldquo;I am going away. You have ruined this
      place for me. I couldn't live here where I should have to see you, or the
      results of what you have done, whenever I stirred out of doors.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nonsense, Presley,&rdquo; answered the other, refusing to become angry. &ldquo;That's
      foolishness, that kind of talk; though, of course, I understand how you
      feel. I guess it was you, wasn't it, who threw that bomb into my house?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It was.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, that don't show any common sense, Presley,&rdquo; returned S. Behrman
      with perfect aplomb. &ldquo;What could you have gained by killing me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not so much probably as you have gained by killing Harran and Annixter.
      But that's all passed now. You're safe from me.&rdquo; The strangeness of this
      talk, the oddity of the situation burst upon him and he laughed aloud. &ldquo;It
      don't seem as though you could be brought to book, S. Behrman, by anybody,
      or by any means, does it? They can't get at you through the courts,&mdash;the
      law can't get you, Dyke's pistol missed fire for just your benefit, and
      you even escaped Caraher's six inches of plugged gas pipe. Just what are
      we going to do with you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Best give it up, Pres, my boy,&rdquo; returned the other. &ldquo;I guess there ain't
      anything can touch me. Well, Magnus,&rdquo; he said, turning once more to the
      Governor. &ldquo;Well, I'll think over what you say, and let you know if I can
      get the place for you in a day or two. You see,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;you're getting
      pretty old, Magnus Derrick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Presley flung himself from the room, unable any longer to witness the
      depths into which Magnus had fallen. What other scenes of degradation were
      enacted in that room, how much further S. Behrman carried the humiliation,
      he did not know. He suddenly felt that the air of the office was choking
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      He hurried up to what once had been his own room. On his way he could not
      but note that much of the house was in disarray, a great packing-up was in
      progress; trunks, half-full, stood in the hallways, crates and cases in a
      litter of straw encumbered the rooms. The servants came and went with
      armfuls of books, ornaments, articles of clothing.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley took from his room only a few manuscripts and note-books, and a
      small valise full of his personal effects; at the doorway he paused and,
      holding the knob of the door in his hand, looked back into the room a very
      long time.
    </p>
    <p>
      He descended to the lower floor and entered the dining-room. Mrs. Derrick
      had disappeared. Presley stood for a long moment in front of the
      fireplace, looking about the room, remembering the scenes that he had
      witnessed there&mdash;the conference when Osterman had first suggested the
      fight for Railroad Commissioner and then later the attack on Lyman Derrick
      and the sudden revelation of that inconceivable treachery. But as he stood
      considering these things a door to his right opened and Hilma entered the
      room.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley came forward, holding out his hand, all unable to believe his
      eyes. It was a woman, grave, dignified, composed, who advanced to meet
      him. Hilma was dressed in black, the cut and fashion of the gown severe,
      almost monastic. All the little feminine and contradictory daintinesses
      were nowhere to be seen. Her statuesque calm evenness of contour yet
      remained, but it was the calmness of great sorrow, of infinite
      resignation. Beautiful she still remained, but she was older. The
      seriousness of one who has gained the knowledge of the world&mdash;knowledge
      of its evil&mdash;seemed to envelope her. The calm gravity of a great
      suffering past, but not forgotten, sat upon her. Not yet twenty-one, she
      exhibited the demeanour of a woman of forty.
    </p>
    <p>
      The one-time amplitude of her figure, the fulness of hip and shoulder, the
      great deep swell from waist to throat were gone. She had grown thinner
      and, in consequence, seemed unusually, almost unnaturally tall. Her neck
      was slender, the outline of her full lips and round chin was a little
      sharp; her arms, those wonderful, beautiful arms of hers, were a little
      shrunken. But her eyes were as wide open as always, rimmed as ever by the
      thin, intensely black line of the lashes and her brown, fragrant hair was
      still thick, still, at times, glittered and coruscated in the sun. When
      she spoke, it was with the old-time velvety huskiness of voice that
      Annixter had learned to love so well.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, it is you,&rdquo; she said, giving him her hand. &ldquo;You were good to want to
      see me before you left. I hear that you are going away.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She sat down upon the sofa.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Presley answered, drawing a chair near to her, &ldquo;yes, I felt I could
      not stay&mdash;down here any longer. I am going to take a long ocean
      voyage. My ship sails in a few days. But you, Mrs. Annixter, what are you
      going to do? Is there any way I can serve you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;nothing. Papa is doing well. We are living here now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are well?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She made a little helpless gesture with both her hands, smiling very
      sadly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As you see,&rdquo; she answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      As he talked, Presley was looking at her intently. Her dignity was a new
      element in her character and the certain slender effect of her figure,
      emphasised now by the long folds of the black gown she wore, carried it
      almost superbly. She conveyed something of the impression of a queen in
      exile. But she had lost none of her womanliness; rather, the contrary.
      Adversity had softened her, as well as deepened her. Presley saw that very
      clearly. Hilma had arrived now at her perfect maturity; she had known
      great love and she had known great grief, and the woman that had awakened
      in her with her affection for Annixter had been strengthened and
      infinitely ennobled by his death. What if things had been different? Thus,
      as he conversed with her, Presley found himself wondering. Her sweetness,
      her beautiful gentleness, and tenderness were almost like palpable
      presences. It was almost as if a caress had been laid softly upon his
      cheek, as if a gentle hand closed upon his. Here, he knew, was sympathy;
      here, he knew, was an infinite capacity for love.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then suddenly all the tired heart of him went out towards her. A longing
      to give the best that was in him to the memory of her, to be strong and
      noble because of her, to reshape his purposeless, half-wasted life with
      her nobility and purity and gentleness for his inspiration leaped all at
      once within him, leaped and stood firm, hardening to a resolve stronger
      than any he had ever known.
    </p>
    <p>
      For an instant he told himself that the suddenness of this new emotion
      must be evidence of its insincerity. He was perfectly well aware that his
      impulses were abrupt and of short duration. But he knew that this was not
      sudden. Without realising it, he had been from the first drawn to Hilma,
      and all through these last terrible days, since the time he had seen her
      at Los Muertos, just after the battle at the ditch, she had obtruded
      continually upon his thoughts. The sight of her to-day, more beautiful
      than ever, quiet, strong, reserved, had only brought matters to a
      culmination.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Are you,&rdquo; he asked her, &ldquo;are you so unhappy, Hilma, that you can look
      forward to no more brightness in your life?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Unless I could forget&mdash;forget my husband,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;how can I
      be happy? I would rather be unhappy in remembering him than happy in
      forgetting him. He was my whole world, literally and truly. Nothing seemed
      to count before I knew him, and nothing can count for me now, after I have
      lost him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You think now,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;that in being happy again you would be
      disloyal to him. But you will find after a while&mdash;years from now&mdash;that
      it need not be so. The part of you that belonged to your husband can
      always keep him sacred, that part of you belongs to him and he to it. But
      you are young; you have all your life to live yet. Your sorrow need not be
      a burden to you. If you consider it as you should&mdash;as you WILL some
      day, believe me&mdash;it will only be a great help to you. It will make
      you more noble, a truer woman, more generous.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think I see,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;and I never thought about it in that light
      before.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I want to help you,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;as you have helped me. I want to be
      your friend, and above all things I do not want to see your life wasted. I
      am going away and it is quite possible I shall never see you again, but
      you will always be a help to me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do not understand,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;but I know you mean to be very, very
      kind to me. Yes, I hope when you come back&mdash;if you ever do&mdash;you
      will still be that. I do not know why you should want to be so kind,
      unless&mdash;yes, of course&mdash;you were my husband's dearest friend.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They talked a little longer, and at length Presley rose.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I cannot bring myself to see Mrs. Derrick again,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It would only
      serve to make her very unhappy. Will you explain that to her? I think she
      will understand.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Hilma. &ldquo;Yes, I will.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a pause. There seemed to be nothing more for either of them to
      say. Presley held out his hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; she said, as she gave him hers.
    </p>
    <p>
      He carried it to his lips.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Good-bye and may God bless you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He turned away abruptly and left the room. But as he was quietly making
      his way out of the house, hoping to get to his horse unobserved, he came
      suddenly upon Mrs. Dyke and Sidney on the porch of the house. He had
      forgotten that since the affair at the ditch, Los Muertos had been a home
      to the engineer's mother and daughter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And you, Mrs. Dyke,&rdquo; he asked as he took her hand, &ldquo;in this break-up of
      everything, where do you go?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To the city,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;to San Francisco. I have a sister there who
      will look after the little tad.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you, how about yourself, Mrs. Dyke?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She answered him in a quiet voice, monotonous, expressionless:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am going to die very soon, Mr. Presley. There is no reason why I should
      live any longer. My son is in prison for life, everything is over for me,
      and I am tired, worn out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You mustn't talk like that, Mrs. Dyke,&rdquo; protested Presley, &ldquo;nonsense; you
      will live long enough to see the little tad married.&rdquo; He tried to be
      cheerful. But he knew his words lacked the ring of conviction. Death
      already overshadowed the face of the engineer's mother. He felt that she
      spoke the truth, and as he stood there speaking to her for the last time,
      his arm about little Sidney's shoulder, he knew that he was seeing the
      beginnings of the wreck of another family and that, like Hilda Hooven,
      another baby girl was to be started in life, through no fault of hers,
      fearfully handicapped, weighed down at the threshold of existence with a
      load of disgrace. Hilda Hooven and Sidney Dyke, what was to be their
      histories? the one, sister of an outcast; the other, daughter of a
      convict. And he thought of that other young girl, the little Honora
      Gerard, the heiress of millions, petted, loved, receiving adulation from
      all who came near to her, whose only care was to choose from among the
      multitude of pleasures that the world hastened to present to her
      consideration.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; he said, holding out his hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye, Sidney.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He kissed the little girl, clasped Mrs. Dyke's hand a moment with his;
      then, slinging his satchel about his shoulders by the long strap with
      which it was provided, left the house, and mounting his horse rode away
      from Los Muertos never to return.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presley came out upon the County Road. At a little distance to his left he
      could see the group of buildings where once Broderson had lived. These
      were being remodelled, at length, to suit the larger demands of the New
      Agriculture. A strange man came out by the road gate; no doubt, the new
      proprietor. Presley turned away, hurrying northwards along the County Road
      by the mammoth watering-tank and the long wind-break of poplars.
    </p>
    <p>
      He came to Caraher's place. There was no change here. The saloon had
      weathered the storm, indispensable to the new as well as to the old
      regime. The same dusty buggies and buckboards were tied under the shed,
      and as Presley hurried by he could distinguish Caraher's voice, loud as
      ever, still proclaiming his creed of annihilation.
    </p>
    <p>
      Bonneville Presley avoided. He had no associations with the town. He
      turned aside from the road, and crossing the northwest corner of Los
      Muertos and the line of the railroad, turned back along the Upper Road
      till he came to the Long Trestle and Annixter's,&mdash;Silence,
      desolation, abandonment.
    </p>
    <p>
      A vast stillness, profound, unbroken, brooded low over all the place. No
      living thing stirred. The rusted wind-mill on the skeleton-like tower of
      the artesian well was motionless; the great barn empty; the windows of the
      ranch house, cook house, and dairy boarded up. Nailed upon a tree near the
      broken gateway was a board, white painted, with stencilled letters,
      bearing the inscription:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Warning. ALL PERSONS FOUND TRESPASSING ON THESE PREMISES WILL BE
      PROSECUTED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW. By order P. and S. W. R. R.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As he had planned, Presley reached the hills by the head waters of
      Broderson's Creek late in the afternoon. Toilfully he climbed them,
      reached the highest crest, and turning about, looked long and for the last
      time at all the reach of the valley unrolled beneath him. The land of the
      ranches opened out forever and forever under the stimulus of that
      measureless range of vision. The whole gigantic sweep of the San Joaquin
      expanded Titanic before the eye of the mind, flagellated with heat,
      quivering and shimmering under the sun's red eye. It was the season after
      the harvest, and the great earth, the mother, after its period of
      reproduction, its pains of labour, delivered of the fruit of its loins,
      slept the sleep of exhaustion in the infinite repose of the colossus,
      benignant, eternal, strong, the nourisher of nations, the feeder of an
      entire world.
    </p>
    <p>
      And as Presley looked there came to him strong and true the sense and the
      significance of all the enigma of growth. He seemed for one instant to
      touch the explanation of existence. Men were nothings, mere animalculae,
      mere ephemerides that fluttered and fell and were forgotten between dawn
      and dusk. Vanamee had said there was no death. But for one second Presley
      could go one step further. Men were naught, death was naught, life was
      naught; FORCE only existed&mdash;FORCE that brought men into the world,
      FORCE that crowded them out of it to make way for the succeeding
      generation, FORCE that made the wheat grow, FORCE that garnered it from
      the soil to give place to the succeeding crop.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the mystery of creation, the stupendous miracle of recreation; the
      vast rhythm of the seasons, measured, alternative, the sun and the stars
      keeping time as the eternal symphony of reproduction swung in its
      tremendous cadences like the colossal pendulum of an almighty machine&mdash;primordial
      energy flung out from the hand of the Lord God himself, immortal, calm,
      infinitely strong.
    </p>
    <p>
      But as he stood thus looking down upon the great valley he was aware of
      the figure of a man, far in the distance, moving steadily towards the
      Mission of San Juan. The man was hardly more than a dot, but there was
      something unmistakably familiar in his gait; and besides this, Presley
      could fancy that he was hatless. He touched his pony with his spur. The
      man was Vanamee beyond all doubt, and a little later Presley, descending
      the maze of cow-paths and cattle-trails that led down towards the
      Broderson Creek, overtook his friend.
    </p>
    <p>
      Instantly Presley was aware of an immense change. Vanamee's face was still
      that of an ascetic, still glowed with the rarefied intelligence of a young
      seer, a half-inspired shepherd-prophet of Hebraic legends; but the shadow
      of that great sadness which for so long had brooded over him was gone; the
      grief that once he had fancied deathless was, indeed, dead, or rather
      swallowed up in a victorious joy that radiated like sunlight at dawn from
      the deep-set eyes, and the hollow, swarthy cheeks. They talked together
      till nearly sundown, but to Presley's questions as to the reasons for
      Vanamee's happiness, the other would say nothing. Once only he allowed
      himself to touch upon the subject.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Death and grief are little things,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They are transient. Life
      must be before death, and joy before grief. Else there are no such things
      as death or grief. These are only negatives. Life is positive. Death is
      only the absence of life, just as night is only the absence of day, and if
      this is so, there is no such thing as death. There is only life, and the
      suppression of life, that we, foolishly, say is death. 'Suppression,' I
      say, not extinction. I do not say that life returns. Life never departs.
      Life simply IS. For certain seasons, it is hidden in the dark, but is that
      death, extinction, annihilation? I take it, thank God, that it is not.
      Does the grain of wheat, hidden for certain seasons in the dark, die? The
      grain we think is dead RESUMES AGAIN; but how? Not as one grain, but as
      twenty. So all life. Death is only real for all the detritus of the world,
      for all the sorrow, for all the injustice, for all the grief. Presley, the
      good never dies; evil dies, cruelty, oppression, selfishness, greed&mdash;these
      die; but nobility, but love, but sacrifice, but generosity, but truth,
      thank God for it, small as they are, difficult as it is to discover them&mdash;these
      live forever, these are eternal. You are all broken, all cast down by what
      you have seen in this valley, this hopeless struggle, this apparently
      hopeless despair. Well, the end is not yet. What is it that remains after
      all is over, after the dead are buried and the hearts are broken? Look at
      it all from the vast height of humanity&mdash;'the greatest good to the
      greatest numbers.' What remains? Men perish, men are corrupted, hearts are
      rent asunder, but what remains untouched, unassailable, undefiled? Try to
      find that, not only in this, but in every crisis of the world's life, and
      you will find, if your view be large enough, that it is not evil, but
      good, that in the end remains.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a long pause. Presley, his mind full of new thoughts, held his
      peace, and Vanamee added at length:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I believed Angele dead. I wept over her grave; mourned for her as dead in
      corruption. She has come back to me, more beautiful than ever. Do not ask
      me any further. To put this story, this idyl, into words, would, for me,
      be a profanation. This must suffice you. Angele has returned to me, and I
      am happy. Adios.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He rose suddenly. The friends clasped each other's hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We shall probably never meet again,&rdquo; said Vanamee; &ldquo;but if these are the
      last words I ever speak to you, listen to them, and remember them, because
      I know I speak the truth. Evil is short-lived. Never judge of the whole
      round of life by the mere segment you can see. The whole is, in the end,
      perfect.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Abruptly he took himself away. He was gone. Presley, alone, thoughtful,
      his hands clasped behind him, passed on through the ranches&mdash;here
      teeming with ripened wheat&mdash;his face set from them forever.
    </p>
    <p>
      Not so Vanamee. For hours he roamed the countryside, now through the
      deserted cluster of buildings that had once been Annixter's home; now
      through the rustling and, as yet, uncut wheat of Quien Sabe! now treading
      the slopes of the hills far to the north, and again following the winding
      courses of the streams. Thus he spent the night.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length, the day broke, resplendent, cloudless. The night was passed.
      There was all the sparkle and effervescence of joy in the crystal sunlight
      as the dawn expanded roseate, and at length flamed dazzling to the zenith
      when the sun moved over the edge of the world and looked down upon all the
      earth like the eye of God the Father.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the moment, Vanamee stood breast-deep in the wheat in a solitary corner
      of the Quien Sabe rancho. He turned eastward, facing the celestial glory
      of the day and sent his voiceless call far from him across the golden
      grain out towards the little valley of flowers.
    </p>
    <p>
      Swiftly the answer came. It advanced to meet him. The flowers of the Seed
      ranch were gone, dried and parched by the summer's sun, shedding their
      seed by handfuls to be sown again and blossom yet another time. The Seed
      ranch was no longer royal with colour. The roses, the lilies, the
      carnations, the hyacinths, the poppies, the violets, the mignonette, all
      these had vanished, the little valley was without colour; where once it
      had exhaled the most delicious perfume, it was now odourless. Under the
      blinding light of the day it stretched to its hillsides, bare, brown,
      unlovely. The romance of the place had vanished, but with it had vanished
      the Vision.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was no longer a figment of his imagination, a creature of dreams that
      advanced to meet Vanamee. It was Reality&mdash;it was Angele in the flesh,
      vital, sane, material, who at last issued forth from the entrance of the
      little valley. Romance had vanished, but better than romance was here. Not
      a manifestation, not a dream, but her very self. The night was gone, but
      the sun had risen; the flowers had disappeared, but strong, vigorous,
      noble, the wheat had come.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the wheat he waited for her. He saw her coming. She was simply dressed.
      No fanciful wreath of tube-roses was about her head now, no strange
      garment of red and gold enveloped her now. It was no longer an ephemeral
      illusion of the night, evanescent, mystic, but a simple country girl
      coming to meet her lover. The vision of the night had been beautiful, but
      what was it compared to this? Reality was better than Romance. The simple
      honesty of a loving, trusting heart was better than a legend of flowers,
      an hallucination of the moonlight. She came nearer. Bathed in sunlight, he
      saw her face to face, saw her hair hanging in two straight plaits on
      either side of her face, saw the enchanting fulness of her lips, the
      strange, balancing movement of her head upon her slender neck. But now she
      was no longer asleep. The wonderful eyes, violet blue, heavy-lidded, with
      their perplexing, oriental slant towards the temples, were wide open and
      fixed upon his.
    </p>
    <p>
      From out the world of romance, out of the moonlight and the star sheen,
      out of the faint radiance of the lilies and the still air heavy with
      perfume, she had at last come to him. The moonlight, the flowers, and the
      dream were all vanished away. Angele was realised in the Wheat. She stood
      forth in the sunlight, a fact, and no longer a fancy.
    </p>
    <p>
      He ran forward to meet her and she held out her arms to him. He caught her
      to him, and she, turning her face to his, kissed him on the mouth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I love you, I love you,&rdquo; she murmured.
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      Upon descending from his train at Port Costa, S. Behrman asked to be
      directed at once to where the bark &ldquo;Swanhilda&rdquo; was taking on grain. Though
      he had bought and greatly enlarged his new elevator at this port, he had
      never seen it. The work had been carried on through agents, S. Behrman
      having far too many and more pressing occupations to demand his presence
      and attention. Now, however, he was to see the concrete evidence of his
      success for the first time.
    </p>
    <p>
      He picked his way across the railroad tracks to the line of warehouses
      that bordered the docks, numbered with enormous Roman numerals and full of
      grain in bags. The sight of these bags of grain put him in mind of the
      fact that among all the other shippers he was practically alone in his way
      of handling his wheat. They handled the grain in bags; he, however,
      preferred it in the bulk. Bags were sometimes four cents apiece, and he
      had decided to build his elevator and bulk his grain therein, rather than
      to incur this expense. Only a small part of his wheat&mdash;that on Number
      Three division&mdash;had been sacked. All the rest, practically two-thirds
      of the entire harvest of Los Muertos, now found itself warehoused in his
      enormous elevator at Port Costa.
    </p>
    <p>
      To a certain degree it had been the desire of observing the working of his
      system of handling the wheat in bulk that had drawn S. Behrman to Port
      Costa. But the more powerful motive had been curiosity, not to say
      downright sentiment. So long had he planned for this day of triumph, so
      eagerly had he looked forward to it, that now, when it had come, he wished
      to enjoy it to its fullest extent, wished to miss no feature of the
      disposal of the crop. He had watched it harvested, he had watched it
      hauled to the railway, and now would watch it as it poured into the hold
      of the ship, would even watch the ship as she cleared and got under way.
    </p>
    <p>
      He passed through the warehouses and came out upon the dock that ran
      parallel with the shore of the bay. A great quantity of shipping was in
      view, barques for the most part, Cape Horners, great, deep sea tramps,
      whose iron-shod forefeet had parted every ocean the world round from
      Rangoon to Rio Janeiro, and from Melbourne to Christiania. Some were still
      in the stream, loaded with wheat to the Plimsoll mark, ready to depart
      with the next tide. But many others laid their great flanks alongside the
      docks and at that moment were being filled by derrick and crane with
      thousands upon thousands of bags of wheat. The scene was brisk; the cranes
      creaked and swung incessantly with a rattle of chains; stevedores and
      wharfingers toiled and perspired; boatswains and dock-masters shouted
      orders, drays rumbled, the water lapped at the piles; a group of sailors,
      painting the flanks of one of the great ships, raised an occasional
      chanty; the trade wind sang aeolian in the cordages, filling the air with
      the nimble taint of salt. All around were the noises of ships and the feel
      and flavor of the sea.
    </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman soon discovered his elevator. It was the largest structure
      discernible, and upon its red roof, in enormous white letters, was his own
      name. Thither, between piles of grain bags, halted drays, crates and boxes
      of merchandise, with an occasional pyramid of salmon cases, S. Behrman
      took his way. Cabled to the dock, close under his elevator, lay a great
      ship with lofty masts and great spars. Her stern was toward him as he
      approached, and upon it, in raised golden letters, he could read the words
      &ldquo;Swanhilda&mdash;Liverpool.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He went aboard by a very steep gangway and found the mate on the quarter
      deck. S. Behrman introduced himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;how are you getting on?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very fairly, sir,&rdquo; returned the mate, who was an Englishman. &ldquo;We'll have
      her all snugged down tight by this time, day after to-morrow. It's a great
      saving of time shunting the stuff in her like that, and three men can do
      the work of seven.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll have a look 'round, I believe,&rdquo; returned S. Behrman.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Right&mdash;oh,&rdquo; answered the mate with a nod.
    </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman went forward to the hatch that opened down into the vast hold
      of the ship. A great iron chute connected this hatch with the elevator,
      and through it was rushing a veritable cataract of wheat.
    </p>
    <p>
      It came from some gigantic bin within the elevator itself, rushing down
      the confines of the chute to plunge into the roomy, gloomy interior of the
      hold with an incessant, metallic roar, persistent, steady, inevitable. No
      men were in sight. The place was deserted. No human agency seemed to be
      back of the movement of the wheat. Rather, the grain seemed impelled with
      a force of its own, a resistless, huge force, eager, vivid, impatient for
      the sea.
    </p>
    <p>
      S. Behrman stood watching, his ears deafened with the roar of the hard
      grains against the metallic lining of the chute. He put his hand once into
      the rushing tide, and the contact rasped the flesh of his fingers and like
      an undertow drew his hand after it in its impetuous dash.
    </p>
    <p>
      Cautiously he peered down into the hold. A musty odour rose to his
      nostrils, the vigorous, pungent aroma of the raw cereal. It was dark. He
      could see nothing; but all about and over the opening of the hatch the air
      was full of a fine, impalpable dust that blinded the eyes and choked the
      throat and nostrils.
    </p>
    <p>
      As his eyes became used to the shadows of the cavern below him, he began
      to distinguish the grey mass of the wheat, a great expanse, almost liquid
      in its texture, which, as the cataract from above plunged into it, moved
      and shifted in long, slow eddies. As he stood there, this cataract on a
      sudden increased in volume. He turned about, casting his eyes upward
      toward the elevator to discover the cause. His foot caught in a coil of
      rope, and he fell headforemost into the hold.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fall was a long one and he struck the surface of the wheat with the
      sodden impact of a bundle of damp clothes. For the moment he was stunned.
      All the breath was driven from his body. He could neither move nor cry
      out. But, by degrees, his wits steadied themselves and his breath returned
      to him. He looked about and above him. The daylight in the hold was dimmed
      and clouded by the thick, chaff-dust thrown off by the pour of grain, and
      even this dimness dwindled to twilight at a short distance from the
      opening of the hatch, while the remotest quarters were lost in
      impenetrable blackness. He got upon his feet only to find that he sunk
      ankle deep in the loose packed mass underfoot.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hell,&rdquo; he muttered, &ldquo;here's a fix.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Directly underneath the chute, the wheat, as it poured in, raised itself
      in a conical mound, but from the sides of this mound it shunted away
      incessantly in thick layers, flowing in all directions with the nimbleness
      of water. Even as S. Behrman spoke, a wave of grain poured around his legs
      and rose rapidly to the level of his knees. He stepped quickly back. To
      stay near the chute would soon bury him to the waist.
    </p>
    <p>
      No doubt, there was some other exit from the hold, some companion ladder
      that led up to the deck. He scuffled and waded across the wheat, groping
      in the dark with outstretched hands. With every inhalation he choked,
      filling his mouth and nostrils more with dust than with air. At times he
      could not breathe at all, but gagged and gasped, his lips distended. But
      search as he would he could find no outlet to the hold, no stairway, no
      companion ladder. Again and again, staggering along in the black darkness,
      he bruised his knuckles and forehead against the iron sides of the ship.
      He gave up the attempt to find any interior means of escape and returned
      laboriously to the space under the open hatchway. Already he could see
      that the level of the wheat was raised.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;God,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;this isn't going to do at all.&rdquo; He uttered a great shout.
      &ldquo;Hello, on deck there, somebody. For God's sake.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The steady, metallic roar of the pouring wheat drowned out his voice. He
      could scarcely hear it himself above the rush of the cataract. Besides
      this, he found it impossible to stay under the hatch. The flying grains of
      wheat, spattering as they fell, stung his face like wind-driven particles
      of ice. It was a veritable torture; his hands smarted with it. Once he was
      all but blinded. Furthermore, the succeeding waves of wheat, rolling from
      the mound under the chute, beat him back, swirling and dashing against his
      legs and knees, mounting swiftly higher, carrying him off his feet.
    </p>
    <p>
      Once more he retreated, drawing back from beneath the hatch. He stood
      still for a moment and shouted again. It was in vain. His voice returned
      upon him, unable to penetrate the thunder of the chute, and horrified, he
      discovered that so soon as he stood motionless upon the wheat, he sank
      into it. Before he knew it, he was knee-deep again, and a long swirl of
      grain sweeping outward from the ever-breaking, ever-reforming pyramid
      below the chute, poured around his thighs, immobolising him.
    </p>
    <p>
      A frenzy of terror suddenly leaped to life within him. The horror of
      death, the Fear of The Trap, shook him like a dry reed. Shouting, he tore
      himself free of the wheat and once more scrambled and struggled towards
      the hatchway. He stumbled as he reached it and fell directly beneath the
      pour. Like a storm of small shot, mercilessly, pitilessly, the unnumbered
      multitude of hurtling grains flagellated and beat and tore his flesh.
      Blood streamed from his forehead and, thickening with the powder-like
      chaff-dust, blinded his eyes. He struggled to his feet once more. An
      avalanche from the cone of wheat buried him to his thighs. He was forced
      back and back and back, beating the air, falling, rising, howling for aid.
      He could no longer see; his eyes, crammed with dust, smarted as if
      transfixed with needles whenever he opened them. His mouth was full of the
      dust, his lips were dry with it; thirst tortured him, while his outcries
      choked and gagged in his rasped throat.
    </p>
    <p>
      And all the while without stop, incessantly, inexorably, the wheat, as if
      moving with a force all its own, shot downward in a prolonged roar,
      persistent, steady, inevitable.
    </p>
    <p>
      He retreated to a far corner of the hold and sat down with his back
      against the iron hull of the ship and tried to collect his thoughts, to
      calm himself. Surely there must be some way of escape; surely he was not
      to die like this, die in this dreadful substance that was neither solid
      nor fluid. What was he to do? How make himself heard?
    </p>
    <p>
      But even as he thought about this, the cone under the chute broke again
      and sent a great layer of grain rippling and tumbling toward him. It
      reached him where he sat and buried his hand and one foot.
    </p>
    <p>
      He sprang up trembling and made for another corner.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By God,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;by God, I must think of something pretty quick!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Once more the level of the wheat rose and the grains began piling deeper
      about him. Once more he retreated. Once more he crawled staggering to the
      foot of the cataract, screaming till his ears sang and his eyeballs
      strained in their sockets, and once more the relentless tide drove him
      back.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then began that terrible dance of death; the man dodging, doubling,
      squirming, hunted from one corner to another, the wheat slowly, inexorably
      flowing, rising, spreading to every angle, to every nook and cranny. It
      reached his middle. Furious and with bleeding hands and broken nails, he
      dug his way out to fall backward, all but exhausted, gasping for breath in
      the dust-thickened air. Roused again by the slow advance of the tide, he
      leaped up and stumbled away, blinded with the agony in his eyes, only to
      crash against the metal hull of the vessel. He turned about, the blood
      streaming from his face, and paused to collect his senses, and with a
      rush, another wave swirled about his ankles and knees. Exhaustion grew
      upon him. To stand still meant to sink; to lie or sit meant to be buried
      the quicker; and all this in the dark, all this in an air that could
      scarcely be breathed, all this while he fought an enemy that could not be
      gripped, toiling in a sea that could not be stayed.
    </p>
    <p>
      Guided by the sound of the falling wheat, S. Behrman crawled on hands and
      knees toward the hatchway. Once more he raised his voice in a shout for
      help. His bleeding throat and raw, parched lips refused to utter but a
      wheezing moan. Once more he tried to look toward the one patch of faint
      light above him. His eye-lids, clogged with chaff, could no longer open.
      The Wheat poured about his waist as he raised himself upon his knees.
    </p>
    <p>
      Reason fled. Deafened with the roar of the grain, blinded and made dumb
      with its chaff, he threw himself forward with clutching fingers, rolling
      upon his back, and lay there, moving feebly, the head rolling from side to
      side. The Wheat, leaping continuously from the chute, poured around him.
      It filled the pockets of the coat, it crept up the sleeves and trouser
      legs, it covered the great, protuberant stomach, it ran at last in
      rivulets into the distended, gasping mouth. It covered the face. Upon the
      surface of the Wheat, under the chute, nothing moved but the Wheat itself.
      There was no sign of life. Then, for an instant, the surface stirred. A
      hand, fat, with short fingers and swollen veins, reached up, clutching,
      then fell limp and prone. In another instant it was covered. In the hold
      of the &ldquo;Swanhilda&rdquo; there was no movement but the widening ripples that
      spread flowing from the ever-breaking, ever-reforming cone; no sound, but
      the rushing of the Wheat that continued to plunge incessantly from the
      iron chute in a prolonged roar, persistent, steady, inevitable.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_CONC" id="link2H_CONC">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CONCLUSION
    </h2>
    <p>
      The &ldquo;Swanhilda&rdquo; cast off from the docks at Port Costa two days after
      Presley had left Bonneville and the ranches and made her way up to San
      Francisco, anchoring in the stream off the City front. A few hours after
      her arrival, Presley, waiting at his club, received a despatch from
      Cedarquist to the effect that she would clear early the next morning and
      that he must be aboard of her before midnight.
    </p>
    <p>
      He sent his trunks aboard and at once hurried to Cedarquist's office to
      say good-bye. He found the manufacturer in excellent spirits.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do you think of Lyman Derrick now, Presley?&rdquo; he said, when Presley
      had sat down. &ldquo;He's in the new politics with a vengeance, isn't he? And
      our own dear Railroad openly acknowledges him as their candidate. You've
      heard of his canvass.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; answered Presley. &ldquo;Well, he knows his business best.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Cedarquist was full of another idea: his new venture&mdash;the
      organizing of a line of clipper wheat ships for Pacific and Oriental trade&mdash;was
      prospering.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The 'Swanhilda' is the mother of the fleet, Pres. I had to buy HER, but
      the keel of her sister ship will be laid by the time she discharges at
      Calcutta. We'll carry our wheat into Asia yet. The Anglo-Saxon started
      from there at the beginning of everything and it's manifest destiny that
      he must circle the globe and fetch up where he began his march. You are up
      with procession, Pres, going to India this way in a wheat ship that flies
      American colours. By the way, do you know where the money is to come from
      to build the sister ship of the 'Swanhilda'? From the sale of the plant
      and scrap iron of the Atlas Works. Yes, I've given it up definitely, that
      business. The people here would not back me up. But I'm working off on
      this new line now. It may break me, but we'll try it on. You know the
      'Million Dollar Fair' was formally opened yesterday. There is,&rdquo; he added
      with a wink, &ldquo;a Midway Pleasance in connection with the thing. Mrs.
      Cedarquist and our friend Hartrath 'got up a subscription' to construct a
      figure of California&mdash;heroic size&mdash;out of dried apricots. I
      assure you,&rdquo; he remarked With prodigious gravity, &ldquo;it is a real work of
      art and quite a 'feature' of the Fair. Well, good luck to you, Pres. Write
      to me from Honolulu, and bon voyage. My respects to the hungry Hindoo.
      Tell him 'we're coming, Father Abraham, a hundred thousand more.' Tell the
      men of the East to look out for the men of the West. The irrepressible
      Yank is knocking at the doors of their temples and he will want to sell
      'em carpet-sweepers for their harems and electric light plants for their
      temple shrines. Good-bye to you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Get fat yourself while you're about it, Presley,&rdquo; he observed, as the two
      stood up and shook hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There shouldn't be any lack of food on a wheat ship. Bread enough,
      surely.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Little monotonous, though. 'Man cannot live by bread alone.' Well, you're
      really off. Good-bye.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And as Presley issued from the building and stepped out into the street,
      he was abruptly aware of a great wagon shrouded in white cloth, inside of
      which a bass drum was being furiously beaten. On the cloth, in great
      letters, were the words:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Vote for Lyman Derrick, Regular Republican Nominee for Governor of
      California.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      The &ldquo;Swanhilda&rdquo; lifted and rolled slowly, majestically on the ground swell
      of the Pacific, the water hissing and boiling under her forefoot, her
      cordage vibrating and droning in the steady rush of the trade winds. It
      was drawing towards evening and her lights had just been set. The master
      passed Presley, who was leaning over the rail smoking a cigarette, and
      paused long enough to remark:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The land yonder, if you can make it out, is Point Gordo, and if you were
      to draw a line from our position now through that point and carry it on
      about a hundred miles further, it would just about cross Tulare County not
      very far from where you used to live.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; answered Presley, &ldquo;I see. Thanks. I am glad to know that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The master passed on, and Presley, going up to the quarter deck, looked
      long and earnestly at the faint line of mountains that showed vague and
      bluish above the waste of tumbling water.
    </p>
    <p>
      Those were the mountains of the Coast range and beyond them was what once
      had been his home. Bonneville was there, and Guadalajara and Los Muertos
      and Quien Sabe, the Mission of San Juan, the Seed ranch, Annixter's
      desolated home and Dyke's ruined hop-fields.
    </p>
    <p>
      Well, it was all over now, that terrible drama through which he had lived.
      Already it was far distant from him; but once again it rose in his memory,
      portentous, sombre, ineffaceable. He passed it all in review from the day
      of his first meeting with Vanamee to the day of his parting with Hilma. He
      saw it all&mdash;the great sweep of country opening to view from the
      summit of the hills at the head waters of Broderson's Creek; the barn
      dance at Annixter's, the harness room with its jam of furious men; the
      quiet garden of the Mission; Dyke's house, his flight upon the engine, his
      brave fight in the chaparral; Lyman Derrick at bay in the dining-room of
      the ranch house; the rabbit drive; the fight at the irrigating ditch, the
      shouting mob in the Bonneville Opera House. The drama was over. The fight
      of Ranch and Railroad had been wrought out to its dreadful close. It was
      true, as Shelgrim had said, that forces rather than men had locked horns
      in that struggle, but for all that the men of the Ranch and not the men of
      the Railroad had suffered. Into the prosperous valley, into the quiet
      community of farmers, that galloping monster, that terror of steel and
      steam had burst, shooting athwart the horizons, flinging the echo of its
      thunder over all the ranches of the valley, leaving blood and destruction
      in its path.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes, the Railroad had prevailed. The ranches had been seized in the
      tentacles of the octopus; the iniquitous burden of extortionate freight
      rates had been imposed like a yoke of iron. The monster had killed Harran,
      had killed Osterman, had killed Broderson, had killed Hooven. It had
      beggared Magnus and had driven him to a state of semi-insanity after he
      had wrecked his honour in the vain attempt to do evil that good might
      come. It had enticed Lyman into its toils to pluck from him his manhood
      and his honesty, corrupting him and poisoning him beyond redemption; it
      had hounded Dyke from his legitimate employment and had made of him a
      highwayman and criminal. It had cast forth Mrs. Hooven to starve to death
      upon the City streets. It had driven Minna to prostitution. It had slain
      Annixter at the very moment when painfully and manfully he had at last
      achieved his own salvation and stood forth resolved to do right, to act
      unselfishly and to live for others. It had widowed Hilma in the very dawn
      of her happiness. It had killed the very babe within the mother's womb,
      strangling life ere yet it had been born, stamping out the spark ordained
      by God to burn through all eternity.
    </p>
    <p>
      What then was left? Was there no hope, no outlook for the future, no rift
      in the black curtain, no glimmer through the night? Was good to be thus
      overthrown? Was evil thus to be strong and to prevail? Was nothing left?
    </p>
    <p>
      Then suddenly Vanamee's words came back to his mind. What was the larger
      view, what contributed the greatest good to the greatest numbers? What was
      the full round of the circle whose segment only he beheld? In the end, the
      ultimate, final end of all, what was left? Yes, good issued from this
      crisis, untouched, unassailable, undefiled.
    </p>
    <p>
      Men&mdash;motes in the sunshine&mdash;perished, were shot down in the very
      noon of life, hearts were broken, little children started in life
      lamentably handicapped; young girls were brought to a life of shame; old
      women died in the heart of life for lack of food. In that little, isolated
      group of human insects, misery, death, and anguish spun like a wheel of
      fire.
    </p>
    <p>
      BUT THE WHEAT REMAINED. Untouched, unassailable, undefiled, that mighty
      world-force, that nourisher of nations, wrapped in Nirvanic calm,
      indifferent to the human swarm, gigantic, resistless, moved onward in its
      appointed grooves. Through the welter of blood at the irrigation ditch,
      through the sham charity and shallow philanthropy of famine relief
      committees, the great harvest of Los Muertos rolled like a flood from the
      Sierras to the Himalayas to feed thousands of starving scarecrows on the
      barren plains of India.
    </p>
    <p>
      Falseness dies; injustice and oppression in the end of everything fade and
      vanish away. Greed, cruelty, selfishness, and inhumanity are short-lived;
      the individual suffers, but the race goes on. Annixter dies, but in a far
      distant corner of the world a thousand lives are saved. The larger view
      always and through all shams, all wickednesses, discovers the Truth that
      will, in the end, prevail, and all things, surely, inevitably,
      resistlessly work together for good.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">





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