The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 9, 1902, Page 3

\ THE SUNDAY CALL. erriving under the black shadow of the ar trees a little earller than usual, ound the apparently familiar figure wait- ing for her.” All unsuspecting, she gave herself to the embrace of 2 strange pair of arms, and Vanamee, arriving but a score of moments later, stumbled over te body, inert and unconscious, shadow of the overspiring trees. ho was the other? Angele was car- ried to her home on the Seed ranch, de- lirious, all but raving, and Vanamee, with knife and revolver ready, ranged the courtryside like a wolf. He was not alone. The whole county rese, raging, horror-struck. Posse after posse was formed, sent out, and returned without 80 much as a clew. Upon no one could even the shadow of suspicion be thrown. The other had withdrawn into an impene- trable mystery. There he remained. He never was found; he never was so much @s 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 leav- ing behind him a track of terror_and death and rage and undying grief. With- in the year, in giving birth to the child, Angele had’ died. Che 1t le abe was taken by Angele’s Angele was buried in the garden nmnear to the aged, dial. Vanamee stood by ceremony, but half con- what was going forward. sun the of scious At the last moment he had stepped for- ward, 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 fullness; at the sweet, slender neck: the long, slim hands; then abruptly turned about. The last clods wereilling the grave at a time when he was already far away, his borse's head turned toward the desert. 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 Sar- ria, returning from a visit to the fick at Bonneville, met him on the upper road. Eighteen vears had passed since Angele bad died, hut the thread of Vanamee's life had been snapped. Nothing remained mow but the tangled ends. He had never forgottem The long, dull ache, the poig- pant grief had now become a part of bhim. Presley knew this to be so. While Presley had been refiecting 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 shepherf’s Mfe, another part of his brain had been swiftly registering picture after picture that Vanamee's mo- notonous flow of words struck off, as it 'Were, upon a steadily moving scroll. The music of the unfamiliar names that oc- curred in his recital was a stimulant to the poet’s imaginiation. Presley had the poet’s passion for expressive, sonorous names. As these came and went in Vana- mee’s monotonous undertones, like little notes of harmony in a musical progres- sion, he listened, delighted with their res- onance. Navajo, Quijotoa, Uintah, So- nora, Laredo, Uncompahgre—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 sun- set; the still, gigantic mountains, heav- ing into the sky from out the canyons; the strenuous, fierce life of isolated towns, lost and forgotten, down there, far off, below horizon. Abruptly his great poem, his “Song of the West,” leaped up again in his imagination. For the mo- t he all but held it. It was there, at hand. In anbther instant he " he exclaimed, “I can see it rt, the mountains, all wild, , untamed. How I should have ve been with you. Then, per- nouid have got hold of my idea.” idea?" great poem of the West. It's that nt to write. Oh, to put it all meters; strike the great iron g the vast, terrible song; the people; the forerunners of note; s! song of nodded “Yes, it is there. It is life, the primi- le, direct life, passionate, tu- there is an epic there.” Y ught at the word. It had never before occurred to him. “Epic; yes, that’s it. It is the eple 'm for. And how I search for it. now. It is sometimes almost Often and often I can feel it there, at my finger tips, but I never e catch it. It always eludes me. s 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, &ll over here, from Winnipeg to Guada- lupe. 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.” Vanamee heard him to the end, his El\'e, sad face thoughtful and attentive. en he rose. “I em going over to the mission,” he said, “to see Father Sarria. I have not seen him yet.” “How about the sheep?” “The dogs will keep them in hand, and I shall not be gone long. Besides that, I have a boy here to help me. He is over yonder on the other side of the herd. We can’t ses him from here.” 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. ““Well, yes, it is there—your epic,” ob- _urved anamee, &8 they went along. “But why write? Why not live in it? Bteep oneself In the heat of the desert, the glory of the sunset, the blue haze of the mesa and the canyon.” “As you have done, for instance?” Vanamee nodded. “No; I could not do that” declared Presley; “I want to go back, but not so far as you. I feel that I must compro- mise. must find expression. I could not lose myself like that in your desert. When its vastness overwhelmed me, or its bcunx dazzied me; or its loneliness weighed down upon me, I should have to record my impressions. Otherwis I should suffocate.” “Each to his own life,” observed Vana- mee. ‘The mission of San Juan, built of bro *dobe blocks, covered with yellow Ll.lt‘:lr‘, thet at many points had dropped away from the walls, £tood 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, £plit longitudinally, and laid in alternate TOWS, NOW concave, NOW Convex. The ma'n body of the church itself was at right angles to the colonnade, and at the point of intersection rose the belfry tow- er, an encient campanile, where swung the three cracked bells, the gift of the King of Spain. Beyond the church was the mission garden and the graveyard thet overlooked the Seed ranch in a little hollow beyond. Presley and Vanamee went down the long colonnade to the last door next the belfry tower, and Vanamee pulled the Jeather 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 a8 Sunday stiliness, an absolute repose. Only at in. tervals one heard the trickle of the un- seen fountain and the liquid cooing of doves in the garden. Father Sarria opened the door. He was & 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 & broken leather vizor. *He was smoking & cheap cigar, very fat and black. But instantly he recognized 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, pattl him affection- ately on the shoulder with the other. He ‘was voluble in his welcome, tall art- 1y in Spanish, partly in nfillh. So he had come back again, this great 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 ar? down, as it were, from out the sky. Buch 2 hermit! To live in the des- ert! A veritable Saint Jerome. Did a lion feed him down there in Arizona, or was it a raven, like Elijuh? The good an agony. right there, God had not fattened him at any rate and, apropos, he was just about to dine himself. He had made a saled from his own lettuce. The two would dine with him, eh? For this, my son, that was lost is found again. But Presley excused himself. Instine- tively, he feit 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. 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 £arria’s peacocks balancing himself upon the top- most wire of the fence, his long tail trail- ing, his neck outstretched, filling the air with ‘Fs stupid outery, for mo reason than the desire|to make a noise. Abodt an_hour later, toward 4 in the afternoon, Presley reached the spring at the head of the little canyon in the north- east corner of the Quien Sabe ranch, the point toward which he had been travel- ing since early in the forenoon. The place was not without its charm. In- numerable live oaks overhung theé canyon and Broderson Creek—there a mere rivu- let, running down from the spring—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 Der- rick’s ranch was nothing better than a dusty cutting in_the ground, filled with brittle, concave flakes of dried and sun- cracked mud. Presley climbed to the summit of one of the hills—the highest—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 upward of an hour, his head empty of thought, allowing him- self to succumb to a pleasant, gentle in- anition, 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; con- sciousness dwindled to a point, the ani- mal 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. 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, aft- er the failure of all the suitors to bend Ulysses' bow, it is finally put, with mock- 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 té every im- pression. The desire of creation, of com- position, grew big within him. Hexame- ters of his own clamored, tumultuous, in his brain. Not for a long time had he “fell his poem,” as he called this sensa- tion, so polgnantly. For an instant he told himself that he actually held it. 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 color. movement dnd 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 inspira- tion, and this time he all but found it He rose to his feet, looking out and off below him. As from a pinnacle, Presley, from where he now_stood, dominated the en- tire country. The sun had begun to set; everything in the range of his vision was overlaid with a sheen of gold. 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 mis- sion itself, its venerable campanile, in whose arches hung the Spanish King's bells, already glowing ruddy in the sun- set. Farther on he could make out An- nixter’s ranchhouse, marked by the skele- ton-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 plainly, and the dome of the .courthouse, a purple silhouette against the glare of the sky. Other points detached them- selves, swimming in a golden mist, pro- Jecting blue shadows far before them; the mammoth live oak by Hooven's, tow- ering superb and magnificent; the line of eucalyptus trees, behind which he knew was the Los Muertos: ranchhouse—his home; the watering tank, the great iron- hooped tower of wood that stood at the joining of the lower road and the coun- ty road; the long windbreak of poplar trees and the white walls of Caraher’s saloon on the county road. 2 But all this seemed to be only fore- ground, a mere array of accessories—a mass of irrelevant details. Beyond An- nixter's, beyond Guadalajara, beyond the lower road, beyond Broderson Creek, on to the south and west, infinite, illimita- ble. stretching out there under the sheen of the sunset forever and forever, flat, vast, unbroken, a ge 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 Broder- son 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 vis- ion, even those great raaches resolved themselves into mere foreggound, mere accessories, irrelevant detalls. 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 multi- plying, lengthening out vaster and vaster. The whole gigantic sweep of the San Joaquin expanded, Titanic, before the eye of the mind, flagellated with heat, quiv- ering 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, accéntuating the silence, marking off the stillness. It seemed to ex- hale f the land fitself, & pro- longed gh 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 labor, agiv- ered 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 inspira- tion, his West, his thundering progres- sion of hexameters. A sudden uplift, a sense of exhilaration, of physical exalta- tion 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 mor- bid 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 af a gallop through his imagination. He stéfrted homeward, still in his dream, descending from the hill, emerging from the canyon, and took the ~short cat straight across the Quien Sabe ranch, leaving Guadalajara far to the left. He tramped steadily on through the wheat stubble, walking fast, his head in a whirl. Never had he so nearly grasped his in- spiration as that moment on the hilltop. Even.now, though the sunset was fad- ing, though the wide reach of valley was shut from sight, it still kept him com- pany. Now the details came thronging back—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 cen- tenarian’s vividly colored reminiscences— De la Cuesta, holding his grant from the Spanish _crown, with his _power of life and death; the romance of his ma: e; 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 mar. velous loveliness; the Egyptian fullness of her lips, the perplexing upward slant of her violet eyes, bizarre, Oriental; 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 beyond the al- tarlike 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— Quijotoa, Ulintah, Sonora, Laredo, Un- compahgre. 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 them- selves, the priests, the padres, planting the first wheat and oil and wine to pro- duce thel elements of the sacrament—a trinity of great industries, taking their rise jn a religious rite. e Abruptly, as if in confirmation, Presley heard the sound of a bell from the direc- tion 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 medieval Eurgpe, Soundi there in this new land, unfamiliar an strange at this end-of-the-century time. y now, however, it was dark. ley hurried forward. He came to the line fence of the Quien Sabe ranch. Every- thing was very still. The stars were all out. There was not a sound other than the-De Profyndis, 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 un- troubled happiness and content seem- ed descending from the stars like & 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 hithertp incom- plete. 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 Quine Sabe ranch. Beyond was Los Muertos, but between the two ran the railroad. He had only time to jum back upon the embankment when, wit 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 enor- mous eye, cyclopean, red, throwing a glare far in advance, shooting by in a sudden crash of confused thunder; filling the night with the terrific clamor of its iron hoofs. Abruptly Presley remembered. This must be the crack passenger engine of which Dyke had told him, the one de- layed by the accident on the Bakersfield division and for whose passage the track had been opered all the way to Fresno. Before Presley could recover from the shock of the irruption, while the earth was still vibrating, the rails still hum- ming, 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 sub- dued and distant humming. All at once this ceased. The engine was gone. But the moment the noise of the engine lapsed, Presley—about to start forward agaln—was conscious of a confusion of lamentable sounds that rose into _the night from out the engine’s wake. Pro- longed cries of agony, sobbing wails of infinite pain, heart-rending, pitiful. The noises came from a little distance. He ran down the track, crossing the cul- vert over the irrigating ditch, and at the head of the long reach of track—between the culvert and the long trestle—paused abruptly, held immovable at the sight of the ground and rails all about him. In some way. the herd of sheep—Vana- mee’s herd—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 slaugh- ter, 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 ljttle 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. 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 land- scape. The hideous ruin in the engine's path drove all thought of his poem from bis mind. The inspiration vanished like a mist. The De Profundis had ceased to ng. He hurried on across the Los Muertos ranch, almost running, even putting his hands over his ears till he was out of hearing distadce of that all but human distress. Not until he was beyond ear- shot did he pause, looking back, listen- ing. The night had shut down again. For 2 moment the silence was profound, unbroken. 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 whistied for road crossings, for sharp curves, for trestles; ominous notes, hoarse, bellowing, ringing with the ac- cents of menace and defiance; and ab- ruptiy Presley saw again, in his imagina- tion, the galloping monster, the terror of steel and steam, with its single eye, cy- clopean, red, shooting from horizon to horizon; but saw it now as the symbol of a vast power, huge, terrible, flinging the echio of its thunder over all the reaches of the valley, leaving blood and destruc- tion in its path; the leviathan, with ten- tacles of steel clutching into the soil, the soulless force, the iron-hearted power, the monster, the colossus, the Octopus. 1L On the following morning Harran Der- rick was up and about by a little after 6 o'clock, and a quarter of an hour later had breakfast in the kitchen .of the ranchhouse, 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 anx- ious to be at it betimes. He was prac- tically 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, occipying himself with the details of his fflther'atplax:s. execiutlngbfll’;lu orders, sign- ng contracts, paying bills and keepi, the books. iy For the last three weeks little had been dcne. The crop—such as it was—had been harvested and sold, and there had .been & general relaxation of activity for up- ward of a month. Now, however, the fall was coming on, the dry season was about at its end; any time after the 20th of the month the first rains might be ex- pected, softenlntg the ground, putting it into condition for the plow. 'gwo ays before this Harran had notified his su- perintendents on Three and Four to send in such grain as they-had reserved for seed. On two the wheat had npt 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. It was Harran's intention to‘ com- mence bluestoning 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 prnom‘ised tfi be busy. o - ut as Harran was finishi, cup of coffee, Phelps, the mn‘;ex:’:.nh:n' the Home ranch, who also looked after the storage barns where the seed kept, presented himself, caj S OB T wpeak T ) oug] P 0 you seed from Four, sir,’” Y oag o the hasn’t been brought in yet.” Harran nodded. “I'll see about it. You've t all th bluestone you want, have y«m‘:° Phelpl?'" and without waiting for an answer he added, ““Tell the stableman I shall want ul‘:j lgb?“t‘hg o'clloc{(htoblo to Guad- alajara. Put them in the buggy. bays, you understand.” Zhe ‘When the other had gone, Harran drank off the rest of his coffee, and, ris. ing, p.,sseéi throutl‘li %he“ dlning;rgom and across a stone-paved hallway with a roof into the uglce beyond. 4 Siass The office was the nerve-center of the entire ten thousand acres of Los Muertos,. bu: 1;‘ :.)]:pe‘llnntflb and t‘l‘nmlll}h\gs ‘were not in the least suggestive of a farm. divided at about its middle i kept, the safe, the letter-press and letter-files, an: Harran's_typewriting machire.: A v map of Los Muertos with every water- course, del;,)mlion. ‘and elevation, to- ether with indications of the varyin epth of the clays and loams in the waip accurately platted, hung against the wall between the windows, while near at hand by the safe was a telephone. ‘But. no_doubt, the most significant ob- ject in the office was the ticker. was an innovation in the San Joaquin, an idea of shrewd, quick-witted ung Boreie nad ‘been Guick. to"adoncSnus T} X 0 l0; after them Broderson and AR &N , and throus Minneapolis, Duluth, Chicago, New York, and at last, and most it 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, lto Outaman"u. i'll:ld ég‘B"’d“i'm"‘- 1Duir- ng a flurry in the Chicago wheat pits in the August of that year, which had af- fected even the San Francisco market, Harran and Magnus had sat up nearly balf of one night watching she strip of white tape jerkimg unsteadily from the reel. At such moments they no longer felt their individuality. The ranch be- came 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—a drought on the prai- ries of Dakota, a rain on the plains of Indla, a_frost on the Russian steppes, a hot wind on the llanos of the Argentine. Harran crossed over to the telephone and rang six bells, the call for the di- vision 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 Hoo- ven's and the Lower Road all of nine. “How about the seed?” demanded Har- ran when he had got Cutter on the line. The other made excuses for an un- avoidable delay, and was adding that he was on the point of starting out, when Harran cut in with: “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 aloni 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? * * * Al 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 jto-day. And that makes we think; we lost™ the case, -you know. I had a letter from the Governor yesterday. * * * Yes, hard luck. _S. Behrmann did us up. Well, good-by, and don‘t lose any time with that seed. I want to blue-stone to-day.” After telephoning Cutter, Harran put on his hat, went over to the barns, and found Phelps. Phelps had already clean- ed 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, tak- ing handfuls of wheat from each and al- lowing it to run through his fingers, or nipping the grains between his nails, test- ing their hardness. 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. “If it _was all like that, sir, hey?” ob- served Phelps, Harran put his chin in the air. “Bread would be as good as cake, then,” he answered, going from sack to sack, Inspecting the contents and consulting the tags affixed to the.mouths. “Hello,” he remarked, ‘“here’s a red ‘wheat. Where did this come from?"’ “That's that red Clawson we sowed to the plece on Four, north the Mission Creek, just to see how it would do here. We didn’t get a very good catch.” “We can’t do better than to stay ‘White Sonora and Propo,” remarked Har- ran. ‘“We've g%t our best results with that, and Burop®an millers like it to mix with the Eastern wheats that h: gluten than ours. That is, If any wheat at all next year.” A feeling of discouragement for the mo- ment bore down heavily upon him. At intervals this came to him and for the moment it was overpowering. The idea of “what’s-the-use” was upon occasions a Yerltable oppression. Everything seemed to combine to lower the price of wheat. The extension of wheat areas always ex- ceeded increase of population; competi- tion 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—the commission merchant, the elevator combine, the mixing-house ring, the banks, the warehouse men, the laborlng man, and, above all, the rail- road. Steadily the Liverpool buyers cut and cut and cut. Everything, every ele- ment of the world's markets, tended to force down the price to the lowest f{ao,vll- ble figure at which it could be profitably ggrmei No!w ltth'tufidown tghee‘s‘t‘zw'u?“.i was at. that fguge rop sold that year; and think that - ge Governor had seen Wh;annd two go]lll‘i of the Turko- e more e have and five cents in the Russian War! ? 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 a seminary of Marysville. 8he overworked herself here continually, loathing the strain of yet cl{nfl( to it with a tenac- of the owledge 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 “Marble Faun,” Raphael's ‘“Madonnas’ and “Il Trovatore’” were her beau ideals of literature and art. She dreamed of Italy, Rome, Naples, and the ‘world’s great “‘art-centers.” There was no doubt that her affair with Magnus had been a leve-match, but Annie Payne would have loved any man who would have taken hef out of the droning, heart-breaking rou- tine of the class and music room. She had followed his fortunes unquestioning-, ly. First at Sacramento, during the tur- moil of his political career, later on at Placerville in El lo_County, after Derrick had interested himself in the Congq Christi group of mines, and finally at Los Muertos, where, after selling out his fourth interest in Corgns Christi, he turned rancher and had ‘‘come in’ on the new tracts of wheat land just thrown open by the railroad. She had lived here now for néarly 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— the eyes of a young doe—a look of un- easiness, of distrust and aversion. Los Muertog frightened her. She remembered the days of her young girlhood passed on a farm in eastern Ohio—five hundred acres, neatly partitioned into the water lot, the cow pasture, the corn lot, the barley field and wheat farm; cozy, com- fortable, home-like; where the farmers loved their land, careulnf 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 plow was sufficient for the entire farm; ‘where the scythe sufficed to cut the har- Xeflt and the grain was thrashed with ails. But this riqw order of things—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, unplowed, = unharrowed and unsow the wheat came up—troubled her, aj even at times filled her with an un finable' terror. To her mind there was something inordinate about it all; some- thing almost unnatural. The direct bru- tality -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’ semi- Dary. With her pretty deer-like eves and delicate fingefs, shrank from jt. She did not want to look at so much wheat. There was something vaguely indecent in the sight, this food of the people, this ele- mental force, this basic energy, welter- ing here under the sun in all the uncon- sclous nakedness of a sprawling, primor- dial Titan. 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 rea- son, now for anqgther; the machine would not as yet run itself; he must still feel his hand upon the leter: next year, per- haps, 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 pretfy, question- ing eyes$to meet his. In the meantime she retired within herself. She sur- rounded 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 micd. “Marips the Epicurean,” “The Es- says of Elia,” *“Sesame and Lilies,” “The Stones of Venice” and the little toy mag- azines, full of the flaccid banalities of the yMinor Poets,” were continually in her ands. When Presley had appeared on Los Muertos she had welcomed his arrival with delight. Here at last was a conge- nial spirit. She looked forward ta long conversations with the young man on literature, art“and ethics. But Presley had dlsappolnte' her. That he—outside of his few chosen "deities—should care little for literatureishocked her beyond words. His indifference to ‘‘style,” to elegant Erglish, was a positive affront. His sav- age abuse and open ridicule of the neatly phbrased rondeaux.and sestinas and chan- sonettes of the little magazines was to her mind a iton and uncalled for eru- eity. She found his Homer, with its sleughters and hecatémbs and barbaric outcome. So narrow had the margin of i = PR Sir YHAT % ey Season Totant (5PN and, heaatrone vassions! Moo bankruptey to the = smaller farmers/ throughout all the valley. He knew very well how widespread had been the dis- tress the last two years. With their own tenants on Los Muertos, affairs had reached the stage of desperation. Der- rick had practically been obliged to “‘car- ry” Hooven and some of the others. The Governor himself had made almost noth- ing during the last season; a third year like the last, with the price steadily sag- ging, meant nothing else but ruin. But here he checked himself. Two con- secutive dry seasons in California were almost unPreceden(ed: 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. 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 grove of eucalyptus, oak and cypress, enormous trees growlng 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. 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 bunkhouse and kitchen for some of the hands. From the steps of the PrCh the view to the southward ex- panded to infinity. There was not so much as a twig to obstruct the view. In one leap the eye reached the fine, deli- cate 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 su- perintendent’s house on Three—a mere §Deck, Just darker than the ground. Cut- er’'s house on Fo as not even in That wasbelow the horizon: Srim rran came up he saw his mother at breakfast. ‘The table had been set on the porch and Mrs. Derrick, stirring her coffec with one hand, held open with the other the pages of Walter Pater's “Mar- fus.” At her feet, Princess Nathalie, the white Angora cat, sleek, over-fed, self- centered, sat on her haunches, indus- triously licking at the white fur of her breast, while near at hand, by the rail- ing of the porch, Presley pottered with a new bicycle lamp, filling it with ofl, a e arran kisse is mother and m lhw{cker fl)xmir on the porch, ;:;zg'?l'n: s hat, running fingers throu, e hw’p rrick’s wite 1 roia agnus Del s e looked old enough to be the mother of tw‘:l 1'al\‘xdcll'n blfi‘tellown as Harran and Lyman Der- rick. She was not far into the fifties, and her brown halr still retained much ¢ jia tness. She could vet be called pret. ty. er eyes were large and easily as- sumed a look of inquiry and innocence, such as one might exPec! to see in a founs girl. By lsfoalt on she was retir- ng; she easily obliterated herself. She was not made for the harshness of the world, and yet she had known these arshnesses in her younger days, - nus had married her when she w.n.i” years old, at a time when she was a grad- “The Octopus,” by the late Frank Norris, has justly been considered the nearest ap- proach to the “great American novel” ever written, As a novel dealing with California life and scenes it is undoubtedly the best in print. . This splendid story is now running in The Sunday Call— FREE! NO EXTRA EX- PENSE! : f—— — & him any romance, any poetry in the life around her; she looked to Italy for that. His *“‘Song of the West,”” which only once, incoherent and flerce, he had tried to ex- plain to her—its swift, tumultuous life, its truth, its nobility and'savagery, its hero- ism and obscenity, had revolted her. ‘‘But Presley,” she murmured, “that is, not literature.” “No,” "he had cried between his teeth, “no, thank God, it is not.” . 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 cioud 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. R;ln. the first of the season, was not far “That’s good,” he uttered, touching the bays with the whip, “we can’t get our plows to hand any too soon.” These plows Magnus Derrick had or- dered from an Eastern manufacturer some months before, since he was dissat- isfied 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 plows iIn their Iimplement barns that V:l‘? week, but a tracer sent after them had only resulted in locating them, stiil en route, somewhere between The Need- les and Bakersfield. Now there was like- lihood of rain within a week. Plowing could be undertaken- immedlately after- ,ward, so soon as the ground was soft- ened, but there was a fair chance that the ranch would lie idle for want of proper machinery. It was ten minutes before train time when Harran reached the depot at Guad- alajara. The San cisco 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 an- nounced the approach of the down train. n one of the four passengers - that alighted from the train he recognized his father. He half rose in his seat, whist- ling shrilly between his teeth, waving his hand, and Magnus Derrick, catching sight of him, came forward quickly. agnus—the governor—was all of six feet all, and though now well toward his sixtieth’ year, was as erect as an officer M 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 cer- tain pride of race. He was smooth shav- en, thln-llpged, with a broad chin and a yminent hawk-like nose—the character- mr, of the family—thin, with a high bridge, such as one sees in the later por- traits of the Duke of Wellington. is hair was thick and iron gray and had a tenden: tot cv‘utlflin a torwudu dlnc:.(on just in front o s ears. e wore a top- i!lt of gray, with a wide brim and a frock coat, lhml d.u.rrled a cane with a yellowed ivory heat As a young man it had been his ambi- tion to );e resent his native State—North Carolina—in the TUnited States Senate. Calhoun w':.l his ‘“‘great hm::.; but din two successive campaigns he been de- career checked In this direc- fiftl n_an timate friend of such men as Terry, Broderick, General Bukier” Lick, Alvar: A P gl Wil G uni ::;.“Cmoe he had been put forward as Democratic candidate for Governor, gfi failed of el:cflan. A!mn{hu. had definitely abandoned ';;m’fl and had etz ol e e Tt Cors interest at a small profit—iust in QEICO chance of becoming a multi-mil- is multi. in_the Comstock was g o vlu:‘tiln omcwty. e it ic abruptness, gave a new matter for re. -ness in that part of the count: flection to the thinking men of the new West. California suddenly leaped unher- alded into the world’s market as a com- petitor in wheat production. In a few years her output of wheat exceeded the value of her output of gold, and when, later on, the Pacific and Southwestern Rallroad threw open to settlers the rich lands of Tulare County—conceded to th corporation by the Government as a bon- us for the construction of the road—Mag- nus had been quick to seize the oppor- tunity and had taken up ten thousand acres of Los Muertos. Wherever he had gone Magnus had taken his family with him. Lyman had been born at Sacra- mento during the turmoil and excitement of Derrick’s campaign for Governor, and Harran at Shingle Springs, in El Dorado County, six years later. But yuuuu- was _in evegy sense the “prominent man.” In whatever circle moved he was the chief figure. Instinc- tively other men looked to him as the leader. He himself was proud of this dis- tinction; he assumed the grand mum;r very easily and carried It well. As '1’“1;' lic speaker he was one of the last of tH o followers of the old school of orators. : even carried the diction and mnewd the rostrum into private life. It was of him that his most colloquial conver- sation 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 pre- side, to dominate. In his humor there was something Jovian. When an- gry everybody around him trembled. But he had not the genius for detail, was not patient. The certain grandiose lavishness of his disposition occupled itself more with results than with means. He was always ready to take chances, to hazard everything on the hopes of colossal re- turns. 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 tun- neling’ In_violation of expert theory and finding “pay” in every case. Without knowing it, he allowed himself to work his ranch much as if he was still work- ing his mine. The old-time spirit of '49, haphazard, unscientific, persisted in his mind. Everything was a gamble—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, Hebralc, ungenérous. Magnus ciimbed into the buggy, helpin himself with Harran's outstretched han: which he still held. e two were im- mensely fond of each other, proud of each other. They were constantly together and Magnus kept no secrets from his fa- vorite son. “Well, boy.” “Well, governor.” “I am very pleased you came yourself, Harran. I feared that you might be too bul!y and send Phelps. It was thought- ful.” Harran was about to reply, but at that moment Magnus caught sight of the thres flatcars loaded with bright painted farm- ing machines which still remained on the siding above the station. He laid his hands on the reins and Harran checked the team. ‘“Harran,” observed Magnus, fixing the machinery) with a judicial frown, ‘“Har- ran, those look singularly like our plows. Drive over, boy.” The train had by this time gone on its way and Harran brought the team up to the siding. “Ah, I was right,” said the goyernor. ‘“‘Magnus Derrick, Los Muertos, Bonne- ville, - from Ditson &. Co., Rochester. These are ours, boy. Harran breathed a sigh of rellef. ““At last,” he answered, “and just in time, too. Well, 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 bl}l‘ldeslnnlns t;édgy." o agnus nodded a grave approval. “That was shrewd, boy. xl to the rain, I think you are well informed: we will have an early season. The plows have arrived -at a happy moment. 5 “It means money to us, governor,” re- marked Harran. But as he turned the horses to allow his father to get into the buggy again, the two were surprised to hear a thiek, throaty volce wishing them good-morn- ing, and turning about were aware of S. Behrman, who had come up: while they were examining the plows. Harran's eyes flashed on the instant and through his nostrils he drew a sharp, quick breath, while a certain rigor of carriage stif- fened the set of Magnus Derrick’s shoul. ders and bacl 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. Behr- man came around to the other side of the buggy and faced Magnus. He was a large, fat man, with a great stomach; his cheek and the upper t of his thick neck ran together to form a great tremulous jowl, shaven and blue- gray in color; a roll of fat, sprinkled with sparse hair, moist with perspiration, pro- truded over the back of his collar. He wore a heavy black mustache. On his head was a round-topped hat of stiff brown straw, highly varnished. A light brown linen vest, stamped with Innumer- able interlocked horseshoes, covered protuberant stomach, upon which a heavy watch chain of hollow lnks rose and fell with his difficult breathing, clink- ing against the vest buttons of imitation mother-of-pearl. S. Behrman was the bariker of Bonne- But besides this he was many other _ He was a real estate agent. ville. more important than all this, he was the representative of the Paclfic and South- western Rallrogd in that section of Tu- lare County. The railroad did little.busi- that 8. Behrman did not supervise, from the consignment of a shipment of wheat to “the management of a age suit, or even the repair and main- tenance of the right of way. Dur- ing 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 Franecisco court- rooms and the lobby of the Legislature in Sacramento. He had returned to Bonne- ville only recently, a decision adverse to the ranchers belng foreseen. . The }mfl tion he occupied the salary list of o Pacific and Southwestern could not read- ily be defined, for he was nelther freight agent, passenger agent, attorney, real es- tate broker nor political servant, though his influence in all these offices was un- doubted 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 Oster- man, Broderson, Annixter and Derrick S. Behrman was the railroad. “Mr. Derrick, good morning,” he cried, as he came up. “Good morning, Harran. Glad to see you back, Mr. Derrick.” He held out a thick hand. Magnus, head and shoulders above the other, -tall, thin, erect, loocked down upon 8. Behrman, inclining his head, failing to see his extended hand. " morning, sir,” he observed, and waited for S. Behrman’s further h. “Well, Mr. Derrick,” continued 8. Behr- man, wiping the back of his neck with his handkerchief, I saw in the city pa- pers yesterday morning that our case had gone ‘against you.” “I guess it wasn’t any great news to ou,” .commented Harran, his face scar- et. “I guess you knew which way Ul- steen was going to jump after your very rst interview with him. You don't like to be surprised in this sort of thing, Behrman.” “Now, you know better than that, Har- ran,” remonstrated S. Behrman, blandly. %] know what you mean to imply, but I aln't going to let you make me get mad. I wanted to say to your governor—I wanted to say to' you, T. rrick—as one man to another—letting alone for the minute that ‘we were on opposite sides of the case— that I'm sorry you didn’t win. Your side made a good flfl!. but it was in a mis- taken cause. at’s the whole trouble. ‘Why, you could have figured out before you ever went Into the case that such Tates are conflscation of property. You mt_:flow us—you must allow the rail- You don’t want us to go int - Derrick or fixed ing of & surplus left then the P. and 8. W. ever Nddiv?l‘on:l."n R “The lowest rates,” continued 8. Behr- can mfi“mtflu must be such as secure us a fair in- terest on our investment.” ‘“Well, what's standard? Come, let's hear it ‘s to say what's & fair rate? The rallroad has its own no- tions of falrness sometimes.” “The laws of the State,” returned 8. Behrman, “fix the rate of interest at 7 per cent.’ That's a good enough stand: 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 Droml:lori note—7 per cent. By a Plying your schedule of rates we would ot earn a cent; we would be bankrupt.” “Interest on your Investment!” cried Harran, furfous. “It's fine to talk about fair Interest. I know and you know that the total earnings of the P. and S. W.— their main, branch and leased lines for last year was between nineteen and twen- ty millions of dollars. Do you mean to say that twenty million dollars is 7 per cent of the original cost of the road?” 8. Behrman spread out his hands, smil. “That was the gross, not the net fig- ure—and how can you tell what was the o cost of the road?” b that's just it!" shouted Harran, emphasizing each word with a blow of his fist upon his knee, his eyes sparkling. “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 eighty-seven thou- sand. It makes a difference, S. Behrman, on which of these two figures you are bas- ing your 7 per cent.” ““That all may show obstinacy, Harran,’ observed S. Behrman, vaguely, “but ¢ don’t show common sense.” ‘“We are threshing out old straw, I be lleve, gentlemen,”” remarked us. “The question was thoroughly sifted in the courts.” “Quite right’” assented S. Behrman. ‘“The best way is that the railroad and the farmer understand each other and &et along peaceably. We are both md’ ent on each other. Your plows, I e, Mr. Derrick.” g M"They are consigned to me,” admitted us. zfinloekl a trifle like rain,” observed & Behrman, easing his neck and jowl in his Hmp collar. “I suppose you will want to begin plowing next week.” “Possibly,” sald Magnus. “I'll see that your plows 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.” “What do you mean?’ demanded Hase ran. “The plows are here. We have nothe ing mere to do with the railroad. I am going to have my wagons down here this afternoon.” “T am sorry ‘“‘but the cars are ,oln' north, not, as thought, coming from the north. have not been to San Francisco yet.” Magnus made a slight movement of the head, as one who remembers a fact hith. erto forgotten. But Harran was as yet unenlightened. “To San Francisco!” he answered, “we want them here. What are you talking lboul?'l' ““Well, you know, of course, the regula- tlons,” answered S. Behrman. “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.” Harran did remember now, but never before had the matter so struck ho: He leaned back in his seat in duml amazement for the instant. Even Magnus had turned a little pale. Then, abruptly, Harran broke out violent and ng. ‘“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 har- ness, hold us up with' a shotgun? Yes, ‘Stand_and deliver: your money or your life.” Here we bring our plows from the East over your lines, but you are mot 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 Fran- cisco and return. Think of it! Here' load of stuff for Bonneville that can't stop at Bonneville, where it is consigned, but has got to go up to San Franciseco first by way of Bonneville, at 40 cents per ton and then be reshipped from San cisco back to Bonneville again at 51 cents per ton, the short-haul rate. And we have to pay it all or go without. Here are the plows right here, in sight of the land they have got to be used on, the sea- son just ready for them, and we can’t touch them. Oh, he exclaimed in deep disgust, “isn’t it a pretty mess! Isn't it a farce—the whole dirty business' 8. Behrman listened to him unmoved, %.l little eyes blinking under his fat fore. ad, the gold chain of hollow links click- ing against the pearl buttons of his walst- coat as he breathed. “It don’t do any good to let loose lke that, Harran,” he sald at length. “I amy willing to do what I can for you. I'll hurry the plows through, but I can't change the freight regulation of the road.” “What's_your blackmalil for this? vo- ciferated Harran. “How much do you ‘want to let us go? How much have we got to pay.you to be allowed to use our Dlot"!—whlt'l your figure? Come, "® out.” ’- “T see You are trying to_make me an- gry, Harran,” returned S. Behrman, “but you won’t succeed. Better give up B my boy. As I sald, the best way to have the railroad and the farmer get along amicably. It is the only way we can do business. Well, o o?, Governor, I must trot along. S'long, Harran.” He took himself off. But before leaving Guadalajars Magnus dropped into the town’s small runv store to purchase a box of cigars of & cer~ tain Mexican brand, unprocurable else~ where. Harran remained in the buggy. ‘While he waited Dyke ap the end of the street, and, mm%l younger son, came over to shake hands with_him. He explained his affalr with the P. and S. W., and asked the answered 8. man what he thought of the “‘Hops ought to be a good thing,” Har. ran tdld him. “The crop in Germany the last three years, and so many people have gone out of the business that there's vance In the price, ey ought to to a dollar next year. Suryor ;-fi .3 be a good thing. How's old “Why, fairly well, thank you, Hi They're up to Sacramento just now t But I had a letter from him this morn- ing. He may not be able to meet me on on hand. If he pulls out—and he prol will-I'll have to money and mine we would have to pull off the affair without mo: 8. Behrman.' “T'll be cursed if I wouldl™ exclaimed rise in the price of hops. in New York has been a dead failure likely to be a sho e and a stiff ad- Sidney, Dyke?" Sa"with my broiner Inte the hoy badlsess this proposition. He’'s got oth have to borrow. I had anything. As itis, I guessI'll have to ses 11, 8. Behrman is ted the engineer, “and he his boots; but business is he would have to stand by a contract in black and white, and this chance in is too good to let slide. it on, Harran. I can ?t a that knows all about O‘Dll if the deal ys—well, Sid to a seminary ug in Francisco. ““Well, mortgage the crops, but don’t mortgage the homestead, Dyke,” sald Harran. “And, by the way, have you looked up the freight rates on oy ‘No, I haven't yi answ Dyhaz I had better be sure of that, hadn’ I hear that the rate is reasonable, though.” - “You be sure to have a clear under- standing with the rallroad first about the rate,” Harran warned him. ‘When Magnus came out of the store and once more seated himself in the ‘buggy he said to Harran: “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 belleve, and I should like to bhave Annixter as well.” Muertos’ doors invariably stood open all the Derricks’ bors, and once in 80 often Magnus a few of his inti- mates to dinner. and his father drove along the road toward Annixter’s ranch house Magnus asked about what had happened du his absence. He inquired after his wife and ranch, commenting upon the work on the irriga ditch. Harran gave him the news of the past week—Dyke’'s discharge, his resolve to raise a crop of hops; Van- amee’s return, the killing of the sheep and tion to remain upon the it upon the instant. .""!on know more about it than he said, “and whatever you think shall be done.” N ‘were not yet at Annixter’s, anxious to get back to the to supervise the bluestoning of his seed. “By the way, governor,” he demanded N