"That was why he had the whole Bar T outfit guessin' all the time. We all wanted to bet on him, and we was all scared to. Sometimes we'd make up a purse among us, and we'd go over to some social getherin' or other, and win a thousand dollars. Old Pinto could run all day; he can yet, for that matter. Didn't make no difference to him how often we raced him; and natural, after we'd won one hatful of money with him, we'd want to win another. That was where our judgment was weak.

"You never could tell whether Pinto was goin' to finish under the wire, or out in the landscape. His eyes seemed to be sort of moverble, but like enough they'd get sot when he went to runnin'. Then he'd run whichever way he was lookin' at the time, or happened to think he was lookin'; and dependin' additional on what he thought he saw. And law! A whole board of supervisors and school commissioners couldn't have looked that horse in the face, and guessed on their sacred honor whether he was goin' to jump the fence to the left, or take to the high sage on the outside of the track.

"Onct in a while we'd git Pinto's left eye set at a angle, and he'd come around the track and under the wire before she wobbled out of place. On them occasions we made money a heap easier than I ever did a-gettin' it from home. But, owin' to the looseness of them eyes, I don't reckon there never was no horse racin' as uncertain as this here; and like enough you may have observed it's uncertain enough even when things is fixed in the most comf'terble way possible."

A deep sigh greeted this, which showed that Curly's audience was in full sympathy.

"You always felt like puttin' the saddle on to Pinto hind end to, he was so cross-eyed," he resumed ruminatingly, "but still you couldn't help feelin' sorry for him, neither. Now, he had a right pained and grieved look in his face all the time. I reckon he thought this was a hard sort of a world to get along in. It is. A cross-eyed man has a hard enough time, but a cross-eyed horse—well, you don't know how much trouble he can be for hisself, and every one else around him.

"Now, here we was, fixed up like I told you. Mr. Allopath is over on Sweetwater creek, Mr. Homeopath is maybe in the last stages of starvation. Old Pinto looks plumb hopeless, and all us fellers is mostly hopeless too, owin' to his uncertain habits in a horse race, yet knowin' that it ain't perfessional for us not to back a Bar T horse that can run as fast as this one can.

"About then along comes Mr. Ostypath. This was just about thirty days before the county fair at Socorro, and there was money hung up for horse races over there that made us feel sick to think of. We knew we could go out of the cow-punchin' business for good if we could just only onct get Pinto over there, and get him to run the right way for a few brief moments.

"Was he game? I don't know. There never was no horse ever got clost enough to him in a horse race to tell whether he was game or not. He might not get back home in time for supper, but he would shore run industrious. Say, I talked in a telyphome onct. The book hung on the box said the telyphome was instantaneous. It ain't. But now this Pinto, he was a heap more instantaneous than a telyphome.

"As I was sayin', it was long about now Mr. Ostypath comes in. He talks with the boss about locatin' around in here. Boss studies him over a while, and as there ain't been anybody sick for over ten years he tries to break it to Mr. Ostypath gentle that the Bar T ain't a good place for a doctor. They have some conversation along in there, that-a-way, and Mr. Ostypath before long gets the boss interested deep and plenty. He says there ain't no such a thing as gettin' sick. We all knew that before; but he certainly floors the lot when he allows that the reason a feller don't feel good, so as he can eat tenpenny nails, and make a million dollars a year, is always because there is something wrong with his osshus structure.

"He says the only thing that makes a feller have rheumatism, or dyspepsia, or headache, or nosebleed, or red hair, or any other sickness, is that something is wrong with his nervous system. Now, it's this-a-way. He allows them nerves is like a bunch of garden hose. If you put your foot on the hose, the water can't run right free. If you take it off, everything's lovely. 'Now,' says Mr. Ostypath, 'if, owin' to some luxation, some leeshun, some temporary mechanical disarrangement of your osshus structure, due to a oversight of a All-wise Providence, or maybe a fall off'n a buckin' horse, one of them bones of yours gets to pressin' on a nerve, why, it ain't natural you ought to feel good. Now, is it?' says he.

"He goes on and shows how all up and down a feller's backbone there is plenty of soft spots, and he shows likewise that there is scattered around in different parts of a feller's territory something like two hundred and four and a half bones, any one of which is likely any minute to jar loose and go to pressin' on a soft spot; 'In which case,' says he, 'there is need of a ostypath immediate.'

"For instance,' he says to me, 'I could make quite a man out of you in a couple of years if I had the chanct.' I ast him what his price would be for that, and he said he was willin' to tackle it for about fifty dollars a month. That bein' just five dollars a month more than the boss was allowing me at the time, and me seein' I'd have to go about two years without anything to wear or eat—let alone anything to drink—I had to let this chanct go by. I been strugglin' along, as you know, ever since, just like this, some shopworn, but so's to set up. There was one while, I admit, when the Doc made me some nervous, when I thought of all them soft spots in my spine, and all them bones liable to get loose any minute and go to pressin' on them. But I had to take my chances, like any other cow puncher at forty-five a month."

"You ought to raise his wages, Mac," said Doc Tomlinson to McKinney, the ranch foreman, but the latter only grunted.

"Mr. Ostypath, he stayed around the Bar T quite a while," began Curly again, "and we got to talkin' to him a heap about modern science. Says he, one evenin', this-a-way to us fellers, says he, 'Why, a great many things goes wrong because the nervous system is interfered with, along of your osshus structure. You think your stomach is out of whack,' says he. 'It ain't. All it needs is more nerve supply. I git that by loosenin' up the bones in your back. Why, I've cured a heap of rheumatism, and paralysis, and cross eyes, and—'

"'What's that?' says Tom Redmond, right sudden.

"'You heard me, sir,' says the Doc, severe.

"Tom, he couldn't hardly wait, he was so bad struck with the idea he had. 'Come here, Doc,' says he. And then him and Doc walked off a little ways and begun to talk. When they come up toward us again, we heard the Doc sayin': 'Of course I could cure him. Straybismus is dead easy. I never did operate on no horse, but I've got to eat, and if this here is the only patient in this whole blamed country, why I'll have to go you, if it's only for the sake of science,' says he. Then we all bunched in together and drifted off toward the corral, where old Pinto was standin', lookin' hopeless and thoughtful. 'Is this the patient?' says the Doc, sort of sighin'.

"'It are,' says Tom Redmond.

"Doc he walks up to old Pinto, and has a look at him, frontways, sideways, and all around. Pinto raises his head up, snorts, and looks Doc full in the face; leastwise, if he'd 'a' been any other horse, he'd 'a' been lookin' him full in the face. Doc he stands thoughtful for quite a while, and then he goes and kind of runs his hand up and down along Pinto's spine. He growed plumb enthusiastic then, 'Beautiful subject,' says he. 'Be-yoo-tiful ostypathic subject! Whole osshus structure exposed!' And Pinto shore was a dream if bones was needful in the game."

Curly paused for another chew of tobacco, then went on again.

"Well, it's like this, you see; the backbone of a man or a horse is full of little humps—you can see that easy in the springtime. Now old Pinto's back, it looked like a topygraphical survey of the whole Rocky Mountain range.

"Doc he runs his hand up and down along this high divide, and says he, 'Just like I thought,' says he. 'The patient has suffered a distinct leeshun in the immediate vicinity of his vaseline motor centres.'"

"You mean the vaso-motor centres," suggested Dan Anderson.

"That's what I said," said Curly, aggressively.

"Now, when we all heard Doc say them words we knowed he was shore scientific, and we come up clost while the examination was progressin'.

"'Most extraordinary,' says Doc, feelin' some more. 'Now, here is a distant luxation in the lumber regions.' He talked like Pinto had a wooden leg.

"'I should diagnose great cerebral excitation, along with pernounced ocular hesitation,' says Doc at last.

"'Now look here, Doc,' says Tom Redmond to him then. 'You go careful. We all know there's something strange about this here horse; but now, if he's got any bone pressin' on him anywhere that makes him run the way he does, why, you be blamed careful not to monkey with that there particular bone. Don't you touch his runnin' bone, because that's all right the way it is.'

"'Don't you worry any,' says the Doc. 'All I should do would only be to increase his nerve supply. In time I could remedy his ocular defecks, too,' says he. He allows that if we will give him time, he can make Pinto's eyes straighten out so's he'll look like a new rockin' horse Christmas mornin' at a church festerval. Incidentally he suggests that we get a tall leather blinder and run it down Pinto's nose, right between his eyes.

"This last was what caught us most of all. 'This here blinder idea,' says Tom Redmond, 'is plumb scientific. The trouble with us cow punchers is we ain't got no brains—or we wouldn't be cow punchers! Now look here, Pinto's right eye looks off to the left, and his left eye looks off to the right. Like enough he sees all sorts of things on both sides of him, and gets 'em mixed. Now, you put this here harness leather between his eyes, and his right eye looks plumb into it on one side, and his left eye looks into it on the other. Result is, he can't see nothing at all! Now, if he'll only run when he's blind, why, we can skin them Socorro people till it seems like a shame.'

"Well, right then we all felt money in our pockets. We seemed most too good to be out ridin' sign, or pullin' old cows out of mudholes. 'You leave all that to me,' says Doc. 'By the time I've worked on this patient's nerve centres for a while, I'll make a new horse out of him. You watch me,' says he. That made us all feel cheerful. We thought this wasn't such a bad world, after all.

"We passed the hat in the interest of modern science, and we fenced off a place in the corral and set up a school of ostypathy in our midst. Doc, he done some things that seemed to us right strange at first. He gets Pinto up in one corner and takes him by the ear, and tries to break his neck, with his foot in the middle of his back. Then he goes around on the other side and does the same thing. He hammers him up one side and down the other, and works him and wiggles him till us cow punchers thought he was goin' to scatter him around worse than Cassybianca on the burnin' deck after the exploshun. My experience, though, is that it's right hard to shake a horse to pieces. Pinto, he stood it all right. And say, he got so gentle, with that tall blinder between his eyes, that he'd 'a' followed off a sheepherder.

"All this time we was throwin' oats a-plenty into Pinto, rubbin' his legs down, and gettin' him used to a saddle a little bit lighter than a regular cow saddle. Doc, he allows he can see his eyes straightenin' out every day. 'I ought to have a year on this job,' says he; 'but these here is urgent times.'

"I should say they was urgent. The time for the county fair at Socorro was comin' right clost.

"At last we takes the old Hasenberg Pinto over to Socorro to the fair, and there we enters him in everything from the front to the back of the racin' book. My friends, you would 'a' shed tears of pity to see them folks fall down over theirselves tryin' to hand us their money against old Pinto. There was horses there from Montanny to Arizony, all kinds of fancy riders, and money—oh, law! Us Bar T fellers, we took everything offered—put up everything we had, down to our spurs. Then we'd go off by ourselves and look at each other solemn. We was gettin' rich so quick we felt almost scared.

"There come nigh to bein' a little shootin' just before the horses was gettin' ready for the first race, which was for a mile and a half. We led old Pinto out, and some feller standin' by, he says, sarcastic like, 'What's that I see comin'; a snow-plough?' Him alludin' to the single blinder on Pinto's nose.

"'I reckon you'll think it's been snowin' when we get through,' says Tom Redmond to him, scornful. 'The best thing you can do is to shut up, unless you've got a little money you want to contribute to the Bar T festerval.' But about then they hollered for the horses to go to the post, and there wasn't no more talk.

"Pinto he acted meek and humble, just like a glass-eyed angel, and the starter didn't have no trouble with him at all. At last he got them all off, so clost together one saddle blanket would have done for the whole bunch. Say, man, that was a fine start.

"Along with oats and ostypathy, old Pinto he'd come out on the track that day just standin' on the edges of his feet, he was feelin' that fine. We put Jose Santa Maria Trujillo, one of our lightest boys, up on Pinto for to ride him. Now a Greaser ain't got no sense. It was that fool boy Jose that busted up modern science on the Bar T.

"I was tellin' you that there horse was ostypathed, so to speak, plumb to a razor edge, and I was sayin' that he went off on a even start. Then what did he do? Run? No, he didn't run. He just sort of passed away from the place where he started at. Our Greaser, he sees the race is all over, and like any fool cow puncher, he must get frisky. Comin' down the homestretch, only needin' about one more jump—for it ain't above a quarter of a mile—Jose, he stands up in his stirrups and pulls off his hat, and just whangs old Pinto over the head with it, friendly like, to show him there ain't no coldness.

"We never did rightly know what happened at that time. The Greaser admits he may have busted off the fastenin' of that single blinder down Pinto's nose. Anyhow, Pinto runs a few short jumps, and then stops, lookin' troubled. The next minute he hides his face on the Greaser and there is a glimpse of bright, glad sunlight on the bottom of Jose's moccasins. Next minute after that Pinto is up in the grandstand among the ladies, and there he sits down in the lap of the Governor's wife, which was among them present.

"There was time, even then, to lead him down and over the line, but before we could think of that he falls to buckin' sincere and conscientious, up there among the benches, and if he didn't jar his osshus structure a heap then, it wasn't no fault of his'n. We all run up in front of the grandstand, and stood lookin' up at Pinto, and him the maddest, scaredest, cross-eyedest horse I ever did see in all my life. His single blinder was swingin' loose under his neck. His eyes was right mean and white, and the Mexican saints only knows which way he was a-lookin'.

"So there we was," went on Curly, with another sigh, "all Socorro sayin' bright and cheerful things to the Bar T, and us plumb broke, and far, far from home.

"We roped Pinto, and led him home behind the wagon, forty miles over the sand, by the soft, silver light of the moon. There wasn't a horse or saddle left in our rodeo, and we had to ride on the grub wagon, which you know is a disgrace to any gentleman that wears spurs. Pinto, he was the gayest one in the lot. I reckon he allowed he'd been Queen of the May. Every time he saw a jack rabbit or a bunch of sage brush, he'd snort and take a pasear sideways as far as the rope would let him go.

"'The patient seems to be still laborin' under great cerebral excitation,' says the Doc, which was likewise on the wagon. 'I ought to have had a year on him,' says he, despondent like.

"'Shut up,' says Tom Redmond to the Doc. 'I'd shoot up your own osshus structure plenty,' says he, 'if I hadn't bet my gun on that horse race.'

"Well, we got home, the wagon-load of us, in the mornin' sometime, every one of us ashamed to look the cook in the face, and hopin' the boss was away from home. But he wasn't. He looks at us, and says he;—

"'Is this a sheep outfit I see before me, or is it the remnants of the former cow camp on the Bar T?' He was right sarcastic. 'Doc,' says he, 'explain this here to me.' But the Doc, he couldn't. Says the boss to him at last, 'The right time to do the explainin' is before the hoss race is over, and not after,' says he. 'That's the only kind of science that goes hereafter on the Bar T,' says he.

"I reckon the boss was feelin' a little riled, because he had two hundred on Pinto hisself. A cross-eyed horse shore can make a sight of trouble," Curly sighed in conclusion; "yet I bought Pinto for four dollars, and—sometimes, anyway—he's the best horse in my string down at Carrizosy, ain't he, Mac?"

In the thoughtful silence following this tale, Tom Osby knocked his pipe reflectively against a cedar log. "That's the way with the railroad," he said. "It's goin' to come in herewith one eye on the gold mines and the other on the town—and there won't be no blind-bridle up in front of old Mr. Ingine, neither. If we got as much sense as the Bar T feller, we'll do our explainin' before, and not after the hoss race is over. Before I leave for Vegas, I want to see one of you ostypothetic lawyers about that there railroad outfit."



CHAPTER XVI

THE PARTITION OF HEARTS DESIRE

Concerning Real Estate, Love, Friendship, and Other Good and Valuable Considerations

"You see, it's just this-a-way," began Tom Osby, the morning after Curly's osteopathic horse saga; "I've got to go on up to Vegas after a load of stuff, and I'll be gone a couple of weeks. Now, you know, from what we heard down at Sky Top about this railroad, a heap of things can happen in two weeks. Them fellers ain't showin' their hands any, but for all we know their ingineers may come in any day, and start in to doin' things."

"They've got to make arrangements first," replied Dan Anderson.

"That's all right; and so ought we to make arrangements. We seen this place first. Now, Dan—" and he extended a gnarled and hairy hand—"you've always done like you said you would. You took care of me down there to Sky Top. I want you to keep on a-takin' care of me, whether I'm here or not. Now, there's my house and yard, right at the head of the canon, where they've got to come if they get in. That little old place, and my little old team, is about all I've got in the world. If old Mr. Railroad comes up this arroyo, what happens to me? You tell 'em to go somewheres else, because I seen this place first, and I like it. Ain't that the law in this country? Ain't it always been the law?"

Dan Anderson nodded. He held out his hand to Tom Osby and looked him straight in the eye. "I'll take care of you, Tom," he promised.

"Then that'll be about all," said Tom; "giddup, boys!"

In some way news of the early advent of the railroad had gotten about in Heart's Desire, and Dan Anderson found talk of it on every tongue, talk very similar to that of Tom Osby. Uncle Jim Brothers, owner of the one-story hotel and restaurant, the father and the feeder of all Heart's Desire when the latter was in financial stress, was the next to come to him; and Uncle Jim was grave of face.

"See here, man," said he, "how about this here new railroad? Do we want it, or do we? Seems to me like we always got along here pretty well the way things was."

Dan Anderson nodded again. Uncle Jim shifted from one large foot to the other, and thrust a great hand into the pocket of one trouser leg.

"All I was going to say to you, Dan," he went on, "is, if it comes to takin' any sides, we all know which side you're on. You're with us. Now, there's my place down there, where you've et many a time with the rest of the boys. You've helped me build the tables in the dining room—done a lot of things which makes me feel obliged to you." (Ah! lovable liar, Uncle Jim, who could feed a man broke and hungry, and still let him feel that the operation was a favor to the feeder!) "Now, I just wanted to say, Dan, I was sure, in case any railroad ever did come cavortin' around here, you'd sort of look after the old place. Will you do that?"

"Of course he will," broke in Doc Tomlinson, who had strolled down the street and overheard the conversation. "Dan Anderson, he's our lawyer. We've got him retained permanent, ain't we, Dan? Now, there's my old drug store—ain't much in it, but it's where I settled when I first driv into the valley, and I like the place. Ain't no railroad going to boost me out without a scrap."

Dan Anderson turned away, sick at heart. For three days he kept to his cabin on the far side of the arroyo.

But if hesitation sat on the soul of any man of the community, if doubt or questionings harassed the minds of any, there was no uncertainty on the part of the management of the railroad, whose coming was causing this uneasiness. One day Dan Anderson was startled to hear a knock at his door, and to see the dusty figure of Porter Barkley, general counsel of the A. P. and S. E., just from a long buckboard ride from the head of the rails. With him came Grayson, chief engineer. Dan Anderson invited them in.

"Well, Mr. Anderson," said Barkley, "here we are, close after you. We're following up the right-of-way matters sharp and hard now. We can't hold back our graders, and before the line gets abreast of this canon, we've got to know what we can do here. Now, what can you tell us by this time?"

"I can tell you, as I said, the status of every town lot and every mining claim in this valley," replied Dan Anderson. "It's all simple so far as that is concerned."

"How about that town site? Grayson, here, is ready to go ahead with the new plat. If you never had any town site filed, how were real-estate transfers made?"

"There never were any transfers made. There has not been a town lot sold in ten years."

"Real estate just a little dull?" laughed Barkley, sarcastically.

"We hadn't noticed it," said Dan Anderson, simply.

"But how about your courts? Next thing you'll be telling me there wasn't any court."

"There never was, except when we acquitted a man for shooting a pig. I was his counsel, by the way."

"Nor any town election?"

"Why should there be?"

"No government—no nothing? for five years?"

"Over twelve years altogether, to be exact. I'm rather a newcomer myself."

"No organization—no government—" Barkley summed it up. "Good God! what kind of a place is this?"

"It's Heart's Desire," said Dan Anderson. No man of that valley was ever able to say more, or indeed thought it needful to say more.

Porter Barkley gave a contemptuous whistle, as he turned on his heel, hands in pockets, his bulky form filling the doorway as he looked out. "So you were a lawyer here," he said. "You must have had rather more leisure than law practice, I should think."

"It left me all the more time for my reading," said Dan Anderson, gravely. "You've no idea how much a law practice interferes with one's legal studies." Barkley looked at him, but could discover no sign of levity.

"Well, there is one thing mighty sure," said he, shutting his heavy jaws tight; "this valley is, or was, open to settlement under the United States land laws."

"Certainly," assented Dan Anderson. "The first men in here were mining men from every corner of the Rockies, and they knew their business. All these mountains were platted, and 'adversed,' and litigated. Then, before the second discoveries, and before any coal veins were located on the other side of the valley, the gold veins pinched out. Everybody got broke, and nearly everybody got up and walked away. Meantime, the courts had only been sitting over at Lincoln once in a while—when Billy the Kid allowed it. I'll have to admit that things were a trifle tangled as to title."

"Well, I should say so!" Barkley was irritable, Grayson, the engineer, silent and smiling.

"There was so much room after the mining boom broke, that nobody cared for a town lot. Every fellow just picked out the place he liked, built where he liked, and went in as his own butler, chambermaid, and cook.

"You are seeing this country now, gentlemen," he went on, "pretty much as God made it, and as Coronado saw it three hundred years ago. I deprecate any undue haste on your part. We've been three hundred years in getting this far along. We've done very well without either a town site or a city council."

Barkley was utterly unable to comprehend either Dan Anderson or Heart's Desire. "This is the absolute limit!" he rapped out. "At least we'll end this now. Come on, Grayson, we three'll go out and have a look at the place, and see what is the best way to lay out the streets. I suppose, Anderson, you can tell us how we can get title under government patent—mineral lands—coal lands—desert lands—homestead—whatever we can dig out the quickest?"

"Oh, yes," said Dan Anderson, "but don't dig too deep, or you may run against a land grant from Ferdinand and Isabella to some well-beloved hidalgo whose descendants may now be herding sheep on the Pecos, or owning the earth along the Rio Grande. Cabeza de Vaca may own this valley, for all I know. Maybe Coronado owns it. Quien sabe? We only borrowed the place. We thought that probably Charles IV, or Philip II, or whoever it was, wouldn't mind very much, seeing that he's dead anyhow, in case we returned the valley in good condition, reasonable wear and tear excepted, after we were dead ourselves. Of course, this railroad coming in complicates matters a good deal. Do I make all this clear to you, gentlemen? I never did see a place just like this, myself."

"No?" snapped Barkley.

"So we called it Heart's Desire."

"We'll call it Coalville now," retorted Barkley.

They passed out into the bright sunlit street of Heart's Desire. Stern-browed Carrizo, guardian through centuries of calm and secrecy, gazed down on them unwinking. Dan Anderson looked up at the grim sentinel of the valley, and mockery left his speech. He looked about at the wide and vacant spaces of the little settlement, lying content, secure, and set apart, and a horror came upon his soul. He was about to be a traitor, a traitor to Heart's Desire! Law—title—security—what more of these could these men bring to Heart's Desire than it had long had already? What wrong here had ever been left unrighted? Truth, and justice, and fairness, and sincerity, those priceless things—why, he had known them here for years. Were they now to be made more obvious, or more strong? He had believed his friends, had had friends to believe; would these walking at his side be better friends? These men of Heart's Desire, these simple children who had left the smother of civilization to seek out for themselves a place of strength and simplicity, these strong and fearless giants, these friends of his—had he not promised them that they would be safe in his hands? Hitherto there had never been a traitor among all the men of Heart's Desire. Was he, their accepted friend, to be the first? Dan Anderson passed his hand over a forehead suddenly grown moist. He dared not look up at the chiding front of old Carrizo.

"I was saying," said Porter Barkley, turning from the taciturn engineer as they walked along the hillside, "that this place seems to have been laid off with a circular saw. I can't see any idea of streets at all."

"There is a sort of a street along the arroyo," said Dan Anderson, dully. "There never were any cross streets. The boys just built where they felt like it."

"And great builders they were! I didn't know men ever lived in such places. What's that joint there?" He pointed out a ruined jacal of upright mud-chinked logs, now leaning slantwise far to one side. "Was that a house, too? It hasn't even a chimney,"

"That was the residence and law office of a former supreme judge of the State of Kansas," replied Dan Anderson. "He didn't need any chimney. You've no idea how useless a chimney really is. He never stopped to cut any wood, but just fed a log in through the front door into the fire, and let the smoke go out the window. He had a pet wildcat that shared his legal studies—oh, I admit that some of our ways may seem strange to you, just fresh from New York."

"But didn't you live in New York once yourself?"

"Yes, once."

"What made you come away?"

"Objected to, as irrelevant, immaterial, and incompetent; and objection sustained," replied Dan Anderson. "The first thing I learned in this country was not to inquire about any man's past. That's a useful thing for you to learn, too."

Porter Barkley, accustomed to dominating those around him, flushed red, but managed to suppress his rising choler for the time. "And by the way, what's that old shell over there, across the ditch?" he asked.

"I regret your irreverence," said Dan Anderson. "That's the New Jersey Gold Mills. Eighty thousand of Eastern Capital went in there at one time. They didn't understand the ways of the country."

"Humph! Well, it's a more practical layout you've got in here this time. You can gamble that Ellsworth and our gang are not going to sink their roll here, by a long ways, unless they get something for it."

"You'll get a run for your money, in all likelihood," remarked Dan Anderson.

"As I said, now, Grayson, don't pay any attention to this gully here," went on Barkley. "We'll fill this ditch and put in drains at the crossings, and run the main street north and south. We'll take the ramshorn crooks out of this town in about two days, when we get started."

"I see no reason why we could not run the cross streets at right angles," said Grayson, the constructive. "Of course, we'll catch a good many of these buildings—" he hesitated, pointing at the time to Doc Tomlinson's drug store.

"The corner of this fence would be inside the line of the main street," he went on, sighting along his lead pencil to the angle of Whiteman's corral. It was the very spot where Dan Anderson had sat in council with his cronies many a time. He bit his lip now as he followed the gaze of the engineer.

"How about the stone house down the arroyo?" asked he of Grayson. This was Uncle Jim Brothers's hotel, sanctuary for the homeless of Heart's Desire, a temple of refuge, a place where the word "Friendship," unspoken, never written, was known and understood among men gathered from all corners of this unfriendly world.

"That would have to go," replied Grayson.

"As to that shanty down below, at the head of the canon," growled Barkley, pointing to Tom Osby's adobe, "that's going to be the first thing we'll tear down, street or no street. We need that place for our depot yard, and we're going to take it. Besides, there was something about that Osby fellow I didn't like when we met him over at Sky Top. He's too damned independent to suit me."

Dan Anderson straightened up as though smitten, his face a dull red. The dancing heat mist blurred before his eyes. He said nothing. They turned presently and strolled down toward the foot of the arroyo. Barkley pushed his hat back on his furrowed forehead.

"There is a lot in this thing for me, Andersen," said he, "and there'll be a lot in it for you. Have you got any claims of your own in here? Mineral, I mean?"

"Of course," Dan Anderson replied. "We all have claims. This is the only valley in the West, so far as I know, where there is good coal on one side, and paying gold quartz on the other. But that's the case here. We haven't overlooked it."

Barkley whistled. "I wouldn't ask a better show than you'll have here," said he, contemplatively. "The only wonder to me is that some one hasn't broken into this long ago."

"There might be some few difficulties," suggested Dan Anderson.

"Difficulties! What do you care about that? We'll wear 'em out, pound 'em out, break 'em up, I tell you. We're the first ones to find this country—"

"Except maybe Coronado, De Vaca and Company."

"Who were they?"

"The same as you and me," replied Dan Anderson, enigmatically. "Ask the mountains."

"Oh, rot!" said Barkley. "I'll tell you, once for all, I'm not interested in dreams or foolishness. Now, if you want to go in with us, that's one thing. If you don't, we want to find it out mighty quick."

"You might do worse," said Dan Anderson. "The other lawyer is worse than myself. At times I suspect him of being lazy."

"Well, well, let's get together," urged Barkley, impatiently. "Now, Grayson thinks it will take about three hundred and fifty acres for the first plat, without additions; we'll supersede the old Jack Wilson patent. He's dead, you say? Never left a will, or any heirs? Never did get his town site platted and filed? Well, he never will, now. You go with Grayson to-morrow and run out these lines quietly, and help him get an idea of the best mining claims on both sides of the valley, too. There'll be plenty for you to do."

Dan Anderson nodded, but made no comment. Many things were revolving in his mind.

"Meantime," concluded Barkley, "I've got to get back down the line to meet Mr. Ellsworth. We'll come up again. You can readily see that we've got to have a town meeting before very long. Get things in line for it. Will you attend to this?"

"Yes," replied Dan Anderson, slowly and musingly; "yes, I'll attend to it."

Barkley looked once more upon the impassive face of his local counsel, and departed more than ever puzzled and exasperated. He liked Dan Anderson as little as he understood him. "I'll handle him, though," he muttered to himself. "There's a way to handle every man, and I rather think that this one'll come to his feed before we get done with him."



CHAPTER XVII

TREASON AT HEART'S DESIRE

Showing the Dilemma of Dan Anderson, the Doubt of Leading Citizens, and the Artless Performance of a Pastoral Prevaricator

"Learned Counsel," said Dan Anderson on the morning following the preliminary survey of Heart's Desire, "I want you to take my case."

"What's up?" asked Learned Counsel. Dan Anderson pointed down the street, where a group stood talking among themselves, casting occasional side-long glances in his direction. "They're milling like a bunch of scared longhorns," he said. "Something's wrong, and I know it mighty well. I want you to take my case. Come along."

Contrary to the ancient custom of the forum at Whiteman's corral, the group did not move apart to admit them to the circle. "The gentleman from Kansas was addressing the meeting," said Dan Anderson. Doc Tomlinson continued speaking, but still the circle made no move.

"Say it!" burst out Dan Anderson. "Tell it out! What's on your minds, you fellows?"

"We don't like to believe it," McKinney began, facing toward him. "We hope it ain't true."

"What's not true?" he demanded, looking from one averted face to another. At length Doc Tomlinson resumed his office as spokesman. "They say you've sold us out. They say you're bought by the railroad to clean us out; that the scheme is to steal the town, and you're in the steal. Is that so?"

"Is it true?" asked McKinney.

"We want to know if it's true," insisted Doc Tomlinson. "You was all over town with them fellers. Now they've let it out they're goin' to grab the town site and make a re-survey."

"We know there wasn't ever any town site here," added Uncle Jim Brothers, "but what need was there? Wasn't there plenty of room for everybody?"

"You can't try any hurrah game on us fellers here," said McKinney, facing Dan Anderson squarely.

"Nor you with me," retorted Dan Anderson. "Don't any of you undertake that."

"Hold on there," called Learned Counsel, lifting his hand for attention. "This man is my client! You're not hearing both sides."

"Tell the other side, Dan," said Uncle Jim Brothers. Dan Anderson shook his head.

"Why can't you?" asked Uncle Jim.

"I can't!" broke from Dan Andersen's dry lips. "If you knew, you wouldn't ask me to."

"That's no argument," exclaimed Doc Tomlinson. "What we do know is that you were figurin' to run the street right past here, maybe through my store and Uncle Jim's place, maybe takin' Tom's place for depot yards. That outfit's been all over the hills lookin' for claims to jump. It's a case of gobble and steal. They say you're hired to help it on, and are gettin' a share of the steal. Now, if that's so, what would you do if you was in our place?"

"I'd run the fellow out of town," said Dan Anderson. "If there was that sort of a traitor here, by God! I'd kill him."

"We never did have no man go back on us here," Uncle Jim Brothers remarked.

"Don't say that to me!" Dan Andersen's voice was shaken. "You've fed me, Uncle Jim. Don't say that to me."

"Then what shall we say, man?" replied Uncle Jim. "We want to be fair with you. But let me tell you, you don't own this valley. We own it. There's other places in the world besides the States, and don't you forget that. We didn't think you'd ever try to bring States ways in here."

"To hell with the States!" said McKinney, tersely.

"And States ways with them!" added Doc Tomlinson. "I'd like to see any railroad, or any States, or any United States government, try to run this place." Unconsciously he slapped his hand upon the worn scabbard at his hip, and without thought others in the group eased their pistol belts. It was the Free State of Heart's Desire.

"Well, by God!" said Uncle Jim Brothers, snapping and throwing away the pinon twig which he had been fumbling, "if we don't want no railroad, we don't have it, and that goes!"

"Of course," broke in Learned Counsel. "We all know that. That's a small thing. The big question is whether or not we've been fair to my client. I've not had time yet to go fully into his case. We'll have to continue this trial. We've got to have fair play."

"That's right enough," assented McKinney, and the others nodded.

"Then wait a while. You can't settle this thing until my client has had time to talk with me. I'll find out what he ought to tell."

"All right for that, too," agreed Uncle Jim Brothers. "But about that railroad, we'll hold court right here. We'll send out a summons to them folks, and have a meetin' here, and we'll see which is which and what is what in this town."

"That's fair enough," assented Learned Counsel. "We'll try the railroad, and we'll try my client at the same time."

"Write out the summons," said Doc Tomlinson. "Send word down to them railroad folks to come up here and be tried. It's time we knew who was boss, them or us. Go ahead, you're a lawyer; fix it up."

They ignored Dan Anderson, their long-time leader in all matters of public interest! Eventually it was Doc Tomlinson himself who drafted the document, one of the most interesting of the Territorial records—a summons whereby civilization was called before the bar of primitive man. These presents being signed and sealed, a messenger was sought for their delivery. None better offered than a half-witted sheepherder commonly known as Willie, who chanced to be in town by buckboard from the lower country. This much accomplished, the meeting at Whiteman's corral broke up.

Learned Counsel took his client by the arm and led him away. "You need not say much to your lawyer," he remarked; "but while I don't ask you to incriminate yourself even with your counsel, I only want to say that a Girl is, in a great many decisions of the upper courts, held to be an extenuating circumstance." He watched the twitch of Dan Anderson's face, but the latter would not speak.

"I don't know just where the girl exists now in this case," went on Learned Counsel, "or how; but she's somewhere. It is not wholly necessary that you should specify."

"My God!" broke out Dan Anderson. "I wanted—I hoped so much? It was my opportunity, my first—"

"That's enough," said Learned Counsel. "You needn't say any more. Every fellow has something of that sort in his life. What brought McKinney here, and Doc Tomlinson, and all the rest?"

"Ribbons!" said Dan Anderson. "Tintypes!"

"Precisely. And who shall cast the first stone? If the boys knew—"

"But they don't know, they can't know. Do you think I'd uncover her name, even among my friends—make her affairs public? No."

"Then your only defence cannot be brought into court."

"No. So what do you advise?"

"What do you advise your counsel to advise you?" asked Learned Counsel, bitterly.

"Nothing. I'm done for, either way it goes."

Dan Anderson turned a drawn face. "What shall I do?" he asked at length again.

For once Learned Counsel was wise. "In this sort of crisis," said he, "one does not consult a lawyer. He decides for himself, and he lives or dies, succeeds or fails, wins or loses forever, for himself and by himself, without aid of counsel or benefit of clergy." He stood and watched the iron go home into the soul of a game man. Dan Anderson was white, but his reply came sharp and stern.

"You're right! Leave me alone. I'll take the case now myself."

They shook hands and separated, not to meet again for days; for Dan Anderson shut himself up in his cabin and denied himself to all. Gloom and uncertainty reigned among his friends. That a crisis of some sort was imminent now became generally understood. At length the crisis came.

There arrived in town, obedient to the summons of Heart's Desire, the dusty buckboard driven by Willie the sheepherder. Upon the front seat with him was Mr. Ellsworth; on the back seat sat Porter Barkley and Constance. The chief actors in the impending drama were now upon the stage, and all Heart's Desire knew that action of some sort must presently follow.

With due decorum, however, all Heart's Desire stood apart, while the three travellers, dusty and weary, buried themselves in the privacy of Uncle Jim Brothers's best spare rooms. Then Heart's Desire sought out Willie the sheepherder.

"Now, Willie," said Doc Tomlinson, "look here—you tell us the truth for once. There's a heap of trouble goin' on here, and we want to get at the bottom of it. Maybe you heard something. Now, say, is this here railroad figurin' on comin' in here, or not?"

"Shore it'll come," said Willie, sagely. "Them folks has got money to do just what they want. Railroad'll be here in a few days if they feel like it."

"Maybe we don't feel like it," said Doc Tomlinson, grimly. "We'll see about that to-night."

"The girl, she's the one," said Willie, vaguely.

"What's that you mean?" commanded Doc Tomlinson.

"The funniest thing," said Willie, "is how things is mixed. Lord John, he rides on the front seat; and Lord Peter Berkeley,—that's the lawyer for the railroad,—he rides on the back seat with her, and he sues for her hand, he does, all the way up from the Sacramentos. Says he to Lord John, says he, 'Gimme the hand of this fair daughter of thine, and the treasure shall be yours,' says he."

"Ah, ha!" said Doc Tomlinson. "I shore thought that girl was mixed up in this somehow. But I didn't understand. Wonder if Dan Anderson told us everything he knew?"

"They set on the back seat," continued Willie, glancing importantly at the listeners to his romance, "a-lookin' into each other's eyes. And says the bold juke, to her, says he, 'Constance!' like that. 'Constance,' says he, 'I've loved you these many years agone.'"

"What did she say then?"

"I didn't ketch what she said. But by'm by the proud earl—"

"You said the bold juke."

"It's the same thing. The proud earl laughs, scornful of restraint, like earls always is, and says he agin, 'Lord John, the treasure shall be thine, but the proudest treasure of me life is this fair daughter of thine that sets here by me side, Lord John,' says he. From that I thought maybe the Lady Constance had said something I didn't ketch. Of course, I was busy drivin' the coach."

The men of Heart's Desire looked from one to the other. "Well, I'll be damned!" said Doc Tomlinson.

Curly chewed tobacco vigorously. "To me," he said, "it looks like Dan was throwed down. That girl was over to my house, too; and I didn't think that of her."

"Throwed down hard," affirmed Uncle Jim Brothers; "but now, hold on till we get all this straight. Maybe Dan wouldn't work for this outfit if he knew all that's goin' on. Seems to me like, one way or another, the girl's kind of up at auction. If she's part of the railroad's comin' into Heart's Desire, why, then, we want to know about it. I wish 't Dan Anderson was here,"

But Dan Anderson was not there, neither was he to be found at his casita across the arroyo. As fate would have it, he had caught Willie in his wanderings and had done some questioning on his own account. Willie escaped alive, and presently left town. Whereafter Dan Anderson, half dazed, walked out into the foot-hills, seeking the court of old Carrizo, to try there his own case, as he had promised; and that of the woman as well.

At first his fairness, his fatal fairness, had its way with him. Resolutely he slurred over in his own mind the consequences to himself, and set himself to the old, old task of renunciation. Then, in his loneliness and bitterness, there came to him thoughts unworthy of him, conclusions unsupported by fair evidence.

Far up on the flank of Carrizo he sat and looked down upon the little straggling town in the valley below. These hills, he thought, with all their treasures, were to be sold and purchased for a price, for a treasure greater than all their worth,—the hand of the woman whom he loved. She had consented to the bargain. She had been true to the States, and not to Heart's Desire. She had been true to her class, and not to him, who had left her class. She had been true to her sex, and not to him, her unready lover. Ah, he had not deserved her remembrance; but still she ought to have remembered him! He had not been worthy of her, but still she ought to have loved him! He had offered her nothing, he had evaded her, shunned her, slighted her—but in spite of that she ought to have waited for him, and to have loved him through all, and believed in him in spite of all!

He sat, befooled and befuddled, arguing, accusing, denying, doubting, until he knew not where treachery began or faith had ended. It was late when he descended the mountain and walked dully down the street.

All this time Constance, in ignorance of everything except the absolute truth, sat in the meagre room of the little stone hotel. She wondered if there would ever be any change in her manner of life, if there would ever be anything but this continuous following of her father from one commercial battle into another. She wondered why Dan Anderson did not come. Surely he was here. Surely his business was with his employers; and more surely than all, and in spite of all, his place was here with her; because her heart cried out for him. In spite of all, he was her heart's desire. Why did he not come?

She arose, her hands clenched; she hated him, as much as she had longed for him.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE MEETING AT HEART'S DESIRE

How Benevolent Assimilation was checked by Unexpected Events

There are two problems in life, and only two: food and love. Civilization offers us no more, nor indeed does barbarism; for civilization and barbarism are not far apart. The great metropolis which sent its emissaries out to the little mountain hamlet never held within its teeming confines any greater or graver questions than those which were now to come before the town meeting of Heart's Desire.

Down at the stone hotel of Uncle Jim Brothers the tables had been cleared away to make room for this event, the first of its kind ever known in that valley. Heretofore there had been no covenant among these men, no law save that which lay in leather on each man's thigh. It was a land of the individual; and a sweeter land than that for a man was never known in all the world. Now these men were coming together to debate what we call a great question, but what is really a small question—that of an organization under the laws of what is denominated civilization; that compact which the world devised long ago, when first man's flocks and herds became of value, and against which the world has since then rebelled, and ever will rebel, until there is no longer any world remaining, nor any worth the name of man.

The long room, low and bare, was filled with silent, bearded men. Two or three smoky little lamps but served to emphasize the gloom. At the farther end, on chairs raised a few inches above the level of the floor, sat John Ellsworth and Porter Barkley. The latter was the first to address the meeting, and he made what might have been called an able effort.

Ignoring the fact that civilization had been summoned to the bar of Heart's Desire for trial, and assuming that barbarism was put upon its defensive, he pointed out to the men of Heart's Desire that they had long been living in a state of semi-savagery. To be sure, they had not yet had among them men of executive and organizing minds, but the fulness of years had now brought this latter privilege.

He paused, waiting a space for applause, but no applause came. He felt upon him scores of straight-forward eyes, unwavering, steady.

The town, in its new shape, he hurried on to explain, ought, of course, to wipe out and forget its past. Even the name, "Heart's Desire," was an absurd one, awkward, silly, meaning nothing. They had tremendous coal-fields directly at their doors. He suggested the name of Coalville as an eminently practical one for the reconstructed community. His suggestion brought out a stir, a shuffle, a sigh; but no more.

Mr. Barkley declared that there must be a fundamental revolution as to the old ideas of Heart's Desire. There had been no courts. There had been no government, no society. It was time that the old days of the mining camp and cow town were done, time that miner's law and no law at all should give way to the laws of the Territory, to the laws of the United States government, and to the greater law of industrial progress.

He additionally, and with a hardening of his voice, pointed out that, under the provisions of the laws of society and civilization, property belonged only to the man who held the legal title to it. The gentlemen representing this new railroad were the first to assume legal title to this town site; they had taken all necessary steps, and intended to hold this town site in the courts as their own. Their expenses would be very large, and they proposed to be repaid. They felt that their holdings in the valley would warrant them in going ahead rapidly with their plans of development. They had bought some few claims in the coal-fields, had filed on others for themselves, and had taken over other and abandoned claims on both sides of the valley. Their disposition was not to be hostile. They hoped, after the preliminary organization of the town government should have been completed, to have the unanimous ratification of all their actions. They felt most friendly, most friendly indeed, toward the hardy citizens of this remote community. They proposed to help them all they could. He felt it a distinguished privilege for himself to be the man to take the first steps for the organization of the new commercial metropolis of Coalville.

But it was distinctly to be understood by all that the gentlemen whom he represented did not propose to entertain, and would not tolerate, any interference with their plans. He begged, in conclusion, to present to them, with the request for a respectful and intelligent hearing, that able, that distinguished, that benevolent gentleman, well known in financial circles of the East, Mr. John Ellsworth of New York, who would now address them.

Barkley sat down, and, with customary gesture of the orator, passed his handkerchief across his brow. Then he gazed up, surprised. The applause was long in coming. He straightened in his chair. The applause did not come at all. The men of Heart's Desire sat hard and grim, each silent, each looking straight ahead, nor asking any counsel.

Ellsworth felt the chill which lay upon the audience, and understood its meaning. He stood before them, a rather portly figure, clean, ruddy, well clad, fully self-possessed, and now, by intent, conciliatory. With hands behind his back, he told a certain funny little story with which he had been wont to conquer, at least in social gatherings. No ripple came in response. The eyes of the men of Heart's Desire looked as intolerably keen and straight at him as they had at his predecessor. He could feel them plainly in the gloom beyond.

Unconsciously on the defensive now, he explained in detail the undeniable advantages which would accrue to Heart's Desire on the advent of this railroad and the carrying out of the plans that had been outlined. He did not deny that he considered the opinion of his counsel valid; that the valley was in effect open to settlement; that they had taken steps to put the first legal possession in their own names. Yet, he stated, although they had taken over a number of claims to which there seemed to be no legal title, they did not propose to interfere, if it could be avoided, with the holdings of any man then living in Heart's Desire. The re-survey of the town would naturally make some changes, but these should sit as lightly as possible upon those affected. Of course, the railroad company could condemn and confiscate, but it did not wish to confiscate. It desired to take the attitude of justice and fairness. The gentlemen should bear in mind that all these improvements ran into very considerable sums of money. A hundred miles of the railroad below them must pass over a barren plain, a cattle country and not an agricultural region, and hence offering relatively small support to a railroad enterprise. As yet, artesian water was unknown in that country, and might remain always a problem. No natural streams crossed that great dry table land which lay to the west, or the similar plateau to the east. All their hopes lay in this one valley and its resources, and while without doubt those resources were great, while the coal-fields upon the one side of the valley and the gold claims upon the other had been proved beyond a peradventure to be of value, the gentlemen should nevertheless remember that all this road building and mine developing cost money, a great deal of money. Of course, no capital could be invested except under the protection of a stable and adequate system of the law.

These gentlemen before him, Ellsworth said in conclusion, had chosen for their habitation one of the most delightful localities he had ever seen in all his travels. He congratulated them. He looked forward to seeing a prosperous city built up in this happy valley. The country was changing, and it must change, the line of the frontier passing steadily from the east to the west across the continent. They could not forever escape civilization. Indeed, it had now come to them. He hoped that they would receive it, and that they would receive him as their friend.

As he closed, Ellsworth found himself not dictating, but almost pleading. The stern gravity of his audience removed the edge of any arrogance he might have felt. He sat down and in turn passed his hand across his forehead, as perplexed as had been Barkley before him. Both grew uneasy. There was a shifting in the seats out in the half-lighted interior before them, but there came no sound of applause or comment. Ellsworth leaned over and whispered to his associate.

"There's something up," said he. "We haven't got them going. What's on their minds? Where's Anderson? He ought to be here. Get him, and let's nominate him for mayor, or something. This thing's going to split!"

"I'll go out and find him," whispered Barkley, and so slipped out of the room.

He did find him, aloof, alone, pacing slowly up and down the street, the one man needed by both divergent interests, and the one man absent. "Good God! Anderson," protested Barkley. "What are you doing out here by yourself? We need you in there. They're like bumps on a log. We can't get them started at all."

"That's funny," said Dan Anderson.

"Funny! I don't think it's very funny. You are the one supposed to understand these men, and we want you now to deliver the goods."

"If you will pardon me, sir," said Dan Anderson, facing him with his hands in his pockets, "I don't exactly like that expression."

"Like it or not," retorted Barkley, hotly. "You belong in there, and not out here in the moonlight studying over your maiden speech. What are you afraid of?"

"Of nothing," said Dan Anderson, simply. "Or, of nothing but myself."

"But we need another strong talk to stir them up."

"Go make it, then."

"What's that!" cried Barkley, sharply; "you'll not come in."

"No, I'm done with it."

"Why, damn your soul! man, you don't mean to tell me that you've flunked—that you've gone back on us?"

Dan Anderson bit his lip, but continued silent.

"You've taken our money!" exclaimed Barkley. "We've hired you, bought you! We won't stand for any foolishness, and we won't put up with any treachery, I want you to understand that. Your place is in there, at the meeting—and here you are standing around as though you were mooning over some girl."

"I hadn't noticed the moonlight," said Dan Anderson. "As to the rest of it, the street of this town has usually been free for a man to think as he pleased."

"You're a traitor and a squealer!" cried Barkley.

"You're a damned cad!" retorted Dan Anderson, calmly. He stepped close to the other now, although his hands remained in his pockets. "I dislike to make these remarks to an oiled and curled Assyrian ass," he went on, smiling, "but under the circumstances, I do; and it goes."

Porter Barkley, dominant, arrogant, aggressive, for years accustomed to having his own way with men, felt a queer sensation now—a replica, fourfold intensified, of that he had experienced before the silent audience he had left within. He was afraid. Dan Anderson stepped still closer to him, his face lowered, his lips smiling, his eyes looking straight into his own.

"It's just what I said," began Barkley, desperately, "I told Constance—"

The wonder was that Barkley lived, for the resort to weapons was the only remedy known in that land, and Dan Anderson knew the creed, as Barkley should have known it. His weapon leaped out in his hand as he drew back, his lean body bent in the curve of the fanged rattler about to strike. He did strike, but not with the point of flame. The heavy revolver came to a level, but the hooked finger did not press the trigger. Instead, the cylinder smote Porter Barkley full upon the temple, and he fell like a log. Dan Anderson checked himself, seeing the utter unconsciousness of the fallen man. For a moment he looked down upon him, then walked a few steps aside, standing as does the wild stag by its prostrate rival. The fierce heats of that land, still primitive, now flamed in his soul, gone swiftly and utterly savage. It was some moments before he thrust the heavy weapon back into its scabbard, and, turning, strode toward the door.

As he entered the crowded room he was recognized, and heard his name called again and again. The audience had wakened, was alive! Ellsworth, sitting, alone and anxious, looked up hopefully and beckoned Dan Anderson to his side. The latter seemed scarce to know him, as he walked to the end of the hall and, without preliminary, began to speak.

"Gentlemen," said he,—"boys—I am glad to answer you. I have twice been invited to speak at this meeting. Rather I should say that I am now invited by you. A moment ago I was commanded, ordered to speak, by a man who seemed to think he was my owner.

"He thought himself my owner by reason of this!" He drew from his pocket the roll of bills which had been untouched since he had received them at Sky Top. "Here's my first fee as a lawyer. It's a thousand dollars. I wanted the money. My business is that of the law. I am open to employment. You ought not to blame me—you shall not blame me." He held the money in his hand above his head.

The silent audience looked at him gravely, with eyes level and straight, as it had regarded the speakers preceding him.

"But—" and here he stiffened—"I did not know I was asked to help steal this town, to help rob my friends. These men have proposed to take what was not theirs. They have wanted no methods but their own. They have not asked, but ordered. If this is their way, they'll have to get some other man."

The men of Heart's Desire still looked at him gravely, silently.

"Now," said Dan Anderson, "I've had my chance to choose, and I've chosen. The choice has cost me much, but that has been my personal cost, with which you have nothing to do. I am throwing away my chance, my future, but I do throw them away!"

As he spoke he flung at Mr. Ellsworth's feet the roll of bills. "Sir," said he, "it is the sense of this meeting that the railroad shall not come into Heart's Desire. Is it so?" he asked of the eyes and the darkness; and a deep murmur said that it was so.

Dan Anderson stepped down from the little platform out into the room. Hands were thrust out to him, but he seemed not to see them. He pushed on out, haggard; and presently the assemblage followed, breaking apart awkwardly, and leaving Ellsworth standing alone at the rear of the room.

Ellsworth was now wondering what had become of Barkley, and in his discomfiture was turning around in search, when he heard a voice behind him, and passing back encountered Barkley, staggering and bloody, as he entered through a side door of the building.

"Great God! man, what's the matter?" exclaimed Ellsworth. "What's happened to you?"

"That fellow struck me with a gun. Let me in! Let me get fixed for him! By God! I'll kill him."

"Kill whom? Who did it? Wait! Wait, now!" expostulated Ellsworth, following him toward his room; but Barkley still fumed and threatened. "That fellow Anderson—" Ellsworth caught.

The sound of their voices reached other ears. Constance came running from her own room, questioning.

"Barkley's been hurt," explained her father, motioning her away. "Some mistake. He and Anderson have had trouble over this railroad business, some way."

"By God! I'll kill him!" shrieked Barkley again, in spite of her presence, perhaps because of it. "Where can I get a gun?"

"You forget—my daughter—" began Ellsworth. But Constance avenged the discourtesy for herself.

"Never mind, papa," she said coldly. "Mr. Barkley, you look ridiculous. Go wash your face; and then, if you want a gun, go get one in the front room. The wall's full of them." A glint of scorn was in her eyes, which carried no mercy for the vanquished, nor any concern for the victor. She drew her father with her into her own room.

"By the Lord! girl," exclaimed he, "things have come out different from what we expected. I never thought—"

"No," said Constance, "you never thought. You didn't know." She spoke bitterly.

Ellsworth sank down in a chair, his hands in his pockets. "Well, we're whipped," said he. "The game's up. That fellow Anderson did us up, after all,—and look here, here's the money he threw back, almost in my face. They went with him like so many lambs. Confound it all, I don't more'n half believe I ever understood that fellow."

"No, you never did," said Constance, slowly. She was sitting upon the edge of the bed, gazing at her father quietly. "And so he threw away his chance?"

"Just what he did. Said it meant a lot for him to throw away his future, but he was going to do it."

"Did he say that?" asked the girl.

"Sure he said it! There's not going to be any railroad at Heart's Desire; and incidentally Mr. Daniel Anderson isn't going to be mayor, or division counsel with a salary of ten thousand dollars a year. Oh, well, to-morrow we'll pull out of here."

Constance was deliberate with her reply. "One thing, dad, is sure," said she; "when we go, you and I go together. Let Porter Barkley take the stage to-morrow if he likes. You and I'll go back by way of Sky Top; and we'll go alone."

Ellsworth pursed his lips into a whistle, many things perplexing him. "He's lucky to get away at all," he remarked at length. "From what he said, it looks like there'd be more trouble."

"Trouble!" She flung out her hand in contempt. "There'll be no trouble if it waits for him to make it. If I know Porter Barkley, he'll know enough to stay right there in his room. If he does not—"

"By Jinks! Dolly," exclaimed her father, "you remind me all the time of your mother. I never could fool that woman; and no one ever could scare her!"

She looked at him without reply, and though he stroked her hair softly, he departed in discontent, his own head bowed in reflection.

Meanwhile, out in the long street of Heart's Desire, little groups of men gathered; but they held to the sides of the street, within the shelter of angles and doorways. In the centre of the street there paced slowly up and down, his hands behind his back and not fumbling his weapon, a tall figure, with head bent slightly forward as in thought, although with eyes keenly watching the door of the hotel. Uncle Jim Brothers himself had brought out word of Barkley's threatenings, and according to the only known creed there was but one issue possible. That issue was now awaited decently and in order. The street was free and fair. Let those concerned settle it for themselves. Incidentally, Heart's Desire was willing that its question should be settled at the same time. Here was its champion, waiting.

The watchers in the street grew restless, but nothing happened to interrupt their waiting. Upon the side of the house nearest them, lights shone from three windows. Presently one of these, that in the room of Constance Ellsworth, was extinguished. A second window blackened; Mr. Ellsworth had retired. The third light disappeared. Porter Barkley, not yet exactly of the proper drunkenness to find courage for his recently declared purpose, had concluded to go to sleep instead.

In the street Heart's Desire waited patiently, gazing at the darkened house, at the shaded door. Half an hour passed, an hour. Dan Anderson, without speech to any one, walked slowly up the street and across the arroyo. The light in his own casita flickered briefly and then vanished.

"I told you all along he was game!" said Curly, emerging from the corner of Whiteman's store and offering everybody a chew from his plug of tobacco. "They ain't runnin' him any, I reckon. Huh?"

"Shucks!" remarked Uncle Jim, disgustedly. "From the way that feller Barkley roared around, I shore thought he was a-goin' to tear up the earth. He's so yellow that in the mornin' I'm goin' to tell him to move on out of town. I've always kep' a respectable house before now, and I never did harbor a man who wouldn't shoot some!"

"In the mornin'," added Doc Tomlinson, as the group broke up, "I'm goin' to take Dan Anderson that saddle of mine that's layin' around in my store. Why, what does a man want of a saddle in a drug store? I just want to give the boy something."



CHAPTER XIX

COMMERCE AT HEART'S DESIRE

Showing Wonders of the Thirst of McGinnis, and the Faith of Whiteman the Jew

There was a barber at Heart's Desire, a patient though forgotten man, who had waited some years in the belief that eventually a patron would come into his shop in search of professional services. No one did come, but still the barber hoped. He was one of those who had clamored most loudly for Eastern Capital. After the town meeting the courage of the barber failed him. He declared himself as at length ready to abandon his faith in Heart's Desire, and to depart in search of a community offering conditions more encouraging. In this determination he was joined by Billy Hudgens of the Lone Star, a man also patient through long years of adversity, who now admitted that he might be obliged to close up and move to Arizona.

The news of these impending blows fell upon a community already gloomy and despondent. Some vague, intangible change had come over Heart's Desire. The illusion of the past was destroyed. Men rubbed their eyes, realizing that they had been asleep, that they had been dreaming. There dawned upon them the conviction that perhaps, after all, the old scheme of life had not been sufficient. The lotus plant was robbed of its potency.

It was at this time that McGinnis came to town. His advent was the most fortunate thing that could have happened. Certainly, it was hailed with joy and accepted as an omen; for, as was known of all men over a thousand miles of mining country in the Rockies, McGinnis was the image and emblem of good luck.

Not that this meant prosperity for McGinnis himself, for that gentleman continued in a very even condition as to worldly goods, being steadily and consistently broke,—a sad state of affairs for one who had brought so much happiness to others. History proved to the point of proverb that whenever McGinnis visited a camp,—and he had followed scores of strikes and stampedes in all the corners of the metalliferous world,—that camp was destined to witness a boom at no distant day.

McGinnis was not actually a newcomer at Heart's Desire, but upon the contrary one of the autochthones of that now decadent community. He was a friend and former bunk-mate of old Jack Wilson, discoverer of the Homestake mine. Five years ago, however, at the breaking of the Heart's Desire boom, he had silently stolen away, whether for Alaska or the Andes no one knew nor asked. Returning now as though from temporary absence, he punched an ancient and subdued burro into town, and unrolled his blankets behind Whiteman's corral, treating his return, as did every one else, entirely as a matter of course. Seeing these things, a renewed cheerfulness came to the lately despondent. Whiteman the Jew, ever a Greatheart, openly exulted, and voiced again his perennial confession of commercial faith in Heart's Desire.

"Keep your eye on Viteman," said he. "Der railroat may go, der barber may go, der saloon may go, but not Viteman. My chudgment is like it vas eight years ago. Dis stock of goots is right vere I put it. If no one don't buy it, I keeps it. I know my pizness. Should I put in twenty thousand dollars' vort of goots, and make a mistake of der blace vere a town should be? I guess not! Viteman stays. By and by der railroat comes to Viteman. You vatch. Keep your eye on Viteman."

He stood in the door of his long log store building, squat, stocky, bristling, blue shirted like the rest, and cast his eye down counters and shelves piled with clothing and hats, boots and gloves, pick-axes, long-handled shovels, saddles, spurs, wagon bows, flour, bacon, and all manner of things which come in tin cans. Dust was over all; but above the dust was expectancy and not despair. The Goddess of Progress had her choicest temple in the frontier store.

"I toll you poys years ago," Whiteman went on, "you should blat der town. Ve blat it oursellufs now. Ve don't act like childrens no more. Ve meet again. Ve holt a election. Ve make Viteman gounty dreasurer. Dan Anderson should be mayor, and McGinney glerk. Ve make a town gouncil, and ve go to vork like ve should ought to did. Ve move Nogales City over here and make dis der gounty seat. Ve bedition for a new gounty—ve don't vant to belong to dot Becos River gow outfit. Ve make a town for oursellufs. Viteman didn't put in dis stock of goots for noddings. You vatch Viteman."

This speech turned the tide, coming as it did with the arrival of McGinnis. Billy Hudgens decided to wait for a few more days, although for the time he was out of business for lack of liquids. It was fortunate that McGinnis did not know this latter fact.

The capital of McGinnis, aside from his freckles and his thirst, was somewhat limited. His blankets were thin and ragged, his pistol minus the most important portion of a revolver—to wit, the cylinder—and withal so rusted that even had it boasted all the component parts of a six-shooter, it could not have been fired by any human agency. He had a shovel, a skillet, and a quart tin cup. He had likewise a steel-headed and long-handled hammer, in good condition; this being, indeed, the only item of his outfit which seemed normal and in perfect repair. McGinnis was a skilled mechanic and a millwright and could use a hammer as could but few other men.

On the morning after his arrival McGinnis rolled early out of his blankets, ate his breakfast of flapjacks and water, and put his hammer in his hip pocket, where some men put a gun who do not know how to carry a gun. McGinnis spoke to no one in particular, but headed up into the mouth of the curving valley where stood the silent works of the New Jersey Gold Mills Company. He was not cast down because he found no one whom he could ask for work. He whistled as he walked through the open and barn-like building, looking about him with the eye of a man who had seen gold mills before that time.

"They've got their plates fixed at a lovely angle!" said he; "and there's about enough mercury on 'em to make calomel for a sick cat. There's been talent in this mill, me boy!"

He crawled up the ore chute into the bin, and cast a critical gaze upon the rock heaped up close to the crusher. Then he examined the battery of stamps with silent awe. "This," said McGinnis, softly to himself, "is the end of the whole and intire earth! Is it a confectionery shop they've got, I wonder? They do well to mash sugar with them lemon squeezers, to say nothing of the Homestake refractories."

He passed on about the mill in his tour of inspection, still whistling and still critical, until he came to the patent labor-saving ore crusher, which some inventor had sold to the former manager of the New Jersey Gold Mills Company, along with other things. McGinnis drifted to this instinctively, as does the born mechanician, to the gist of any problem in mechanics.

"Take shame to ye fer this, me man, whoivver ye were," said McGinnis, and the blood shot up under his freckles in indignation. "This is so bad it's not only unmechanical and unprofissional—it's absolutely unsportsmanlike!"

His ardor overcame him, and, hammer in hand, he swung down into the ore bin underneath the crusher. "Here's where it is," said he to himself. "With the jaw screwed that tight, how cud ye hope to handle this stuff—especially since the intilligent and discriminatin' mine-boss was sendin' down quartz that's more'n half porphyry! Yer little donkey injin, and yer little sugar mashers, and yer little lemon squeezer of a crusher—yah! It's a grocery store ye've got, and not a stamp mill. Loose off yer nut on the lower jaw, man; loose her off!"

McGinnis was a man of action. In a moment he was tapping at the clenched bolt with the head of his bright steel hammer. Slowly at first, and sullenly, for it had long been used to treatment that McGinnis called "unsportsmanlike"; then gently and kindly as it felt the hand of the master, the head of the bolt began to turn, until at length the workman was satisfied. Then he turned also the corresponding nut on the opposite face of the jaw, swung the great steel jaw back to the place where he fancied it, and made all fast again. "She's but a rat-trap," said he to himself, "but it's only fair to give the rat-trap its show."

McGinnis went out and sat down upon a pile of ore. It was a bright and cloudless morning, such as may be seen nowhere in the world but in Heart's Desire. The Patos Mountains, across the valley, seemed so close that one might lay his hand upon them. The sun was bright and unwinking, and all the air so golden sweet that McGinnis pushed back his hat and gloried simply that he was alive. He did not even note the cottontail that came out from behind a bush to peer at him, nor mark the sweeping shadow of a passing eagle that swung high above the little valley. His eye now and again fell upon the abandoned mill, gaunt, idle and silent; yet he regarded it lazily, the spell of the spot and the languor of the air filling all his soul.

But at last the sun grew more ardent, and McGinnis, knowing the secret of the dry Southwest, sought shade in order that he might be cool. He rose and strolled again into the mill, looking about him as before, idly and critically. "Av ye was all me own, it's quite a coffee mill I cud make of ye, me dear," said he, familiarly. And at this moment a thought seemed to strike him.

"It has always been me dream to be a captain of industhry," soliloquized McGinnis. "I've always longed to hear the busy hum of me own wheels, and to feel that I was the employer and not merely the employeed." He mused for a few moments, too lazy to think far at one flight.

"It wud be nice," he resumed later, "to see the smoke of your own facthory ascendin' to the sky, and to feel that yerself 'uz the whole affair, cook and captain bold, ore shoveller, head ingineer, amalgamator and main squeeze."

"All capital," continued McGinnis, "is too much depindent upon labor. The only real solution—" he paused to feel his pockets for a match—"the only real solution is to be both capital and labor. Then, av ye've anny kick, take it to yourself, and settle it fair fer both!" He paused again, and again the light of his idea showed upon his countenance. "This," said McGinnis, "is Accajyun!"

He wandered over to the little boiler which drove the engine, and took inventory of the pile of crooked pinon wood that lay heaped up near by. He sounded the tank on top of the engine house, and found that it was half full. Then, calmly and methodically, he took off his coat, folded it, and laid it across a bench. He picked up a piece of board, whittled a little pile of shavings, thrust them into the ashy grate, and piled some wood above them. Then he scraped a match, and turning a cock or so to satisfy himself that the boiler would not go out through the roof in case he did get up steam, sat down to await developments. "She'll steam for sure," he ruminated. "She'll steam as much as wud do for a peanut wagon, av ye give her time."

Before the morning was gone the little boiler began to thump and churn and threaten. McGinnis ran the belt on to the stamp shaft. He went up and connected the crusher and shovelled a few barrows of ore into the hopper. Not long afterwards there was a dull and creaking rumble. The shaft of the stamps turned half around, slipped and stopped with a rusty squeak. Then came further creaks, groans, and rumbles. McGinnis walked calmly from place to place, tightening, loosening, shaking, testing, shovelling, and watching.

"It's wonderful," said he to himself, softly. "It's just wonderful what human bein's can do! If I, hadn't ever seen this mill, I wuddn't have believed it! But I'll say at this point meself, that I'm not looking a gift mill in the mouth. Moreover, this runnin' of your own mill, not bein' beholden to any sordid capitalist, nor yet depindent on anny inefficient labor, is what I may call a truly ijeel situation in life. I'll stay here till the wood runs out. Not that I'll cut wood for annybody. Capital must draw the line somewhere!"

No one noticed the smoke from the abandoned gold mill. McGinnis ran it by himself and undisturbed until his woodpile waned. Then he disconnected, blew off, and set to work to scrape his plates, whereon to his experienced eye there now appeared a gratifying roughness in the coating. He got off a lump of amalgam as big as his fist, and was content. "It's ojus there's no retort here," said he, "but like enough I'll find some way to vollituize this mercury."

He crossed the arroyo, and went to the cabin which had once been the office of the assayer. The latter was now an emigre, but he had left his crucibles and his furnace behind him; because it is not convenient to carry such things when one is afoot. McGinnis found a retort, adjusted it, set it going, volatilized the mercury from his amalgam, and in time had his button of dirty but quite valid gold. It lay heavy in his hand and rested heavy in his pocket. "As a captain of industhry," said he, "I must see what I can do for poor sufferin' humanity." He chuckled, and passed out into the street.

"As capital," said McGinnis to himself, walking on in the moonlight, "I am entitled to the first drink meself, and after that to one or two as a laborer. Then, if there's anny left, after treatin' all round, I'll buy the town a public liberry, pervidin' the town'll make it sufficiently and generally understood that I'm a leadin' and public-minded citizen that has reached success by the grace of God and a extraordinary brain."

But McGinnis in his philanthropic intentions met difficulty. He wandered into the Lone Star, and placing his crude bullion upon the counter, swept about him a comprehensive hand. To his wonder there was no response. A few of the assembled populace shifted uneasily in their seats, but none arose. "Do you take this for a low-down placer camp?" asked Billy Hudgens, with a dull show of pride, when McGinnis demanded the gold scales.

"No," said McGinnis, "it's a quartz camp right enough, and all it needs is developin'. At this speakin', I'm capital and labor both, and crew of the Nancy Brig. What's the matter?"

A sigh escaped from the audience, as Billy Hudgens made reply. "Not a drop," said he; "all gone. Nothing till Tom Osby gets back from Vegas, and maybe not then. I owe Gross & Blackwell over two hundred now."

McGinnis's voice dropped into a low, intent whisper. "Do you mean to tell me that?" he said. "Me, with my thirst?" He laid a hand on Billy's shoulder. "Friend," said he, "I've walked two hundred miles. I've developed your place. I'm in a position to give this town a public liberry worth maybe forty dollars. Now, do you mean to say to me—do you mean—" He gulped, unable to proceed. Hudgens nodded. McGinnis let fall his hand from the counter, turned and silently left the place.

He moved up the street to the adobe where the barber had his shop. The barber was gloomily sitting inside, waiting. McGinnis entered, and looked about him with the ease of one revisiting familiar scenes.

In a case upon the wall were rows of shaving mugs, now dusty and abandoned, mute witnesses of a former era of glory. Indeed, they remained an historical record of earlier life in Heart's Desire.

Once there had been rivalry between McGinnis and Tom Redmond for the affections of a widow who kept a boarding-house in Heart's Desire, the same long since departed. There came by express one day, addressed to Tom Redmond, a shaving mug of great beauty and considerable size, whereon the name of Tom Redmond, handsomely emblazoned, led all the rest. The fame of this work of art so spread abroad that Tom Redmond, as befitted one who had attained social distinction, became the recipient of increased smiles from the widow aforesaid. McGinnis bided his time. Thirty days later, there arrived by stage for him a shaving mug of such stature and such exceeding art as cast that of Tom Redmond completely in the shade! Thenceforth the widow smiled upon McGinnis. Tom Redmond, unable to endure this humiliation, and in the limitation of things wholly unable to raise the McGinnis ante in shaving mugs, was obliged to leave the town. McGinnis hung upon the handle of the Redmond mug a goodly card bearing the legend, "Gone, but not forgotten." Shortly after that McGinnis himself left town. Alas! at the instance of the widow the barber hung upon the McGinnis mug a similar card; it having appeared that McGinnis had emigrated without paying either his board bill or his barber's bill.

This evidence of his early delinquency now confronted McGinnis as he stepped into the shop for the first time in these years. He regarded it with displeasure. "Take it off," said he to the barber, sternly. "I paid the widdy in Butte, two years ago. As for yourself, I have come six hundred miles to pay my bill to you. Take it out of that." He presented his heavy button of gold.

The barber protested that he could not make change on this basis, but cheerfully extended the credit. He was glad to see McGinnis back again, for he was most promisingly hairy.

"I am back, but I'll not be stayin' long," said McGinnis. "Have ye annything to drink?"

The barber mournfully shook his head, even as had Billy Hudgens. McGinnis, refusing to believe such heavy news, walked up to the mantle, picked up a tall bottle labelled "Hair tonic," smelled of it, and without asking leave, raised it to his lips and drained it to the bottom.

"For industhrial purposes, friend," said he. In twenty minutes he was lying in a deep and dreamless sleep.

"In some ways this fellow has talent," said Billy Hudgens, as he looked in on McGinnis later; "but like enough he's come to a show-down now."

Until noon the next day McGinnis slept soundly. Then he sat up on the floor. "How're you feelin' now, man?" asked Billy Hudgens.

"Friend," said McGinnis, "I'm feelin' some dark and hairy inwardly; but I'm a livin' example of how a man can thriumph over circumstances." Wherewith he smiled gently, sank back, and slept again till dark.

"It wud have been too bad," said McGinnis to the barber when he awoke, "if you had left this town before I came. What ye've all been needin' is some one to give ye a lesson in not gettin' discouraged.

"As for combinin' hair tonic and strong drink into one ingradyint, if anny one tells you it's a good thing, you may say for me the report lacks confirmashun. But we'll not despair. Aside from the proverb about the will and the way, 'tis well known that no disgrace can come to a real captain of industhry through a timporary change in the industhrial conditions. I'm sayin' to you, get in a new chair, and get ready for the boom."



CHAPTER XX

MEDICINE AT HEART'S DESIRE

How the Girl from the States kept the Set of Twins from being broken

Even as the stouter-hearted captains of Heart's Desire began to voice their confidence, a sudden sense of helplessness, of personal inadequacy, came upon Porter Barkley, erstwhile leader of the forces of the A. P. and S. E. Railway Company. With emotions of chagrin and humiliation he found himself obliged wholly to readjust his estimate of himself and his powers. He had come hither full of confidence, accustomed to success, animated by a genial condescension toward these benighted men; and now, how quickly had the situation been reversed! Nay, worse than reversed. He, Porter Barkley, a man who had bought a legislature in his time, was ignored, forgotten by these strangers, as though he did not exist! More than that, Ellsworth was reticent with him; and worst of all, when he met Constance at the table she gave him no more than a curt nod and a polite forgetfulness of his presence.

Porter Barkley wished nothing so much as speedily to get away from the scene of his twofold defeat, although he knew that farewell meant dismissal. He knew also that he could restore himself to the respect of Heart's Desire in only one way; but he did not go out on the street in search of that way, although the Socorro stage was a full day late in its departure, and he was obliged to remain a prisoner indoors.

Indeed, Constance and her father were little better than prisoners as well, for no possible means of locomotion offered whereby they could get out of town; and all Heart's Desire remained aloof from them, not even the Littlest Girl coming across the arroyo to call on Constance at the hotel.

"I'd like to have her come over to see the twins," said Curly to his spouse, "but I reckon like enough she's sore."

"I'd be mighty glad to have a good square talk with some woman from the States," rejoined the Littlest Girl, hesitatingly. "I'd sort of like to know what folks is wearin' back there now. Besides that—"

"Besides what?"

"I don't more'n half believe her and Dan Anderson is gettin' along very well, someway."

"That so? Well, I don't see how they can, the way he throwed the spurs into her pa the other night."

"He just worships the ground that girl walks on."

"You oughtn't to talk so much. That ain't our business—but how do you know?"

"Well, because I do know," responded the Littlest Girl, warmly. "Don't you suppose I can see? I've talked with Dan every time he come up here to buy a pie—talked about that girl. He buys more pies now than he used to. I reckon I know."

"That may all be. Question is, how's she a-feelin' toward him these days?"

"Curly," after a little silence, "I'm going to put on my bonnet and go over there and see that girl. She's all alone. I'll take her a pie. I always did think she was nice."

"Well, all right. There's Bill Godfrey drivin' the stage out of his barn now. I'll go over to the post-office and help the old man with the mail. May ride out as far as the ranch with Bill and see if Mac has anything special to do. There was talk of that Nogal sheep outfit gettin' in on the lower end of our range. If they do, something'll pop for sure. You go on over to the hotel if you want to. Ma'll take care of the twins."

The departure of the stage for Socorro occurred once a week or so, if all went well, and the event was always one of importance. Even Mr. Ellsworth and Constance found themselves joining the groups which wandered now toward the post-office, next door to Whiteman's store, in front of which Bill Godfrey regularly made his first stop preparatory to leaving town. As they two passed up the street from the hotel, they missed the Littlest Girl, who crossed the arroyo above them by a quarter of a mile; Heart's Desire being, in view of its population, a city of magnificent distances.

The man from Leavenworth, postmaster, had nearly finished the solemn performance of locking up the emaciated mail-bag for Socorro, and Bill Godfrey was looking intently at his watch—which had not gone for six months—when all at once the assemblage in and around the post-office was startled by shrieks, screams, and calls of the most alarming nature. These rapidly approached from the direction of the arroyo, beyond which lay the residence portion of Heart's Desire. Presently there was to be distinguished the voice of a woman, raised in terrified lamentations, accompanied with the broken screams of a child in evident distress. There appeared, hastening toward the group in front of the store, Curly's mother-in-law, wife of the postmaster of Heart's Desire, and guardian as well of the twins of Heart's Desire. It was one of these twins, Arabella, whom she now hurried along with her, at such speed that the child's feet scarce touched the ground. When this latter did happen, Arabella seemed synchronously to catch her breath, becoming thus able to emit one more spasmodic wail. There was pain and fright in the cries, and the whole attitude of the woman from Kansas was such that all knew some tragedy had occurred or was impending.

"Good Lord!" cried Curly, "I'll bet a thousand dollars the kid's got my strychnine bottle this time! I left it in the window. There was enough to poison a thousand coyotes!"

He sprang forward to catch the other arm of the sobbing child. The man from Kansas, postmaster of Heart's Desire, hastened to join his wife in the street, wagging his gray beard in wild queries. In half a moment all the population was massed in front of Whiteman's store, incoherent, frightened, utterly helpless.

"She's dyin'!" cried the woman from Kansas. "Poison! Oh, Willyam, what shall we do?" But the postmaster was unable to offer any aid or counsel.

"I just left it there in the window," explained Curly, excitedly; "I was goin' to put out some baits around a water hole, about to-morrow."

"Oh, it's awful!" sobbed the woman from Kansas. "What shall we do? What shall we do?"

"Doc," said Curly to Doc Tomlinson, "you run the drug store—ain't you got no anecdote for this?" Doc Tomlinson could only shake his head mournfully. A ring of bearded, beweaponed men gathered about the little sufferer, hopeless, at their wits' end.

Constance and her father, hurrying to learn the cause of the commotion, received but incoherent answers to their questions. "Good Lord! girl, that child's hurt!" cried Ellsworth, helpless as the others. "What'll we do?"

Constance did not even reply to him. Without his assistance, indeed without looking to right or left, she made straight through the circle of men, who gave way to admit her.

"What's the trouble here? What's wrong?" she demanded sharply, catching the weeping woman by the arm, even as she reached out a hand toward the suffering Arabella.

"Poison!" wailed the woman from Kansas again. "She's goin' to die! There ain't no way to help it."

"What poison—what has the child taken?" asked Constance.

"It was strychnine, ma'am, like enough," ventured Curly. "There was some—"

"Nonsense! It's not strychnine," cried the girl. In an instant her eye had caught what every other individual present had overlooked, although it was certainly the most obvious object in all the landscape,—the half-empty can which still remained tightly clutched in Arabella's free hand.

"Why, here it is!" she exclaimed. "The child has eaten concentrated lye. Quick! Get her in somewhere. What are you standing around here for—get out of the way, you men!"

They scattered, and Constance glanced about her. "Where's some grease—some lard? Quick!" she called out to Whiteman, who was looking on.

"In here, lady—dis vay," he answered eagerly; but she outfooted him to the rear of the store, carrying Arabella in her arms. Spying a lard tin, she thrust off the cover, and plunged in a hand. Immediately the sobs of Arabella changed to sputterings, for the physician in charge had covered her face, lips, and a goodly portion of the interior of her mouth and throat with the ameliorating unguent! At this act of first aid, the wails of the woman from Kansas ceased also, and a vast sigh of relief arose from the confederated helplessness of Heart's Desire.

"Is she going to die?" gasped the woman from Kansas.

"No," said Constance, scornfully. "I've seen much worse burns. The lye has perhaps lost a little of its strength, too. The burns are all well in the front of the mouth and tongue, and I don't think she swallowed any of it. Lard is as good as anything to stop the burn. Why didn't you think of it?"

"I don't know, ma'am," confessed the woman from Kansas.

A sudden loquacity now seized upon all those recently perturbed and silent.

"Now," said Curly, "it's this-a-way; the women they must have left that can of lye settin' around. It's mighty careless of 'em. I needed my strychnine, but there ain't no sense in leavin' lye settin' around. Them twins was due to eat it, shore. Why, they was broke to eat anything that comes in tin cans!"

Constance gathered Arabella in her arms. The tailored gown was ruined now. One hand remained gloved, but both were grease-laden to the wrists. She was unconscious of all this. Her gaze, frowning, solicitous, maternal, bent itself upon the face of her patient. The men of Heart's Desire looked on, silent, relieved, adoring. A few began to edge toward the open air.