"When we're married, Donna," he told her, when there came to him for the first time a realization of the hunger in the girl's heart for a change from the drab, lifeless, unchanging vistas of the open desert, "we'll take horses and pack-animals and go up into that wonderful country on our honeymoon."

She turned to him with glistening eyes, seized his hand and pressed it to her cheek.

"How soon?" she murmured.

He was silent, wishing he had not spoken. He was a little subdued as he answered.

"As soon as my ship comes in, Donna. Just at present it seems quite a long way off, although if nothing happens to upset a little scheme of mine, it will not be more than a year. Things are very uncertain right now." He smiled sheepishly as he thought of his profitless wanderings. "You know, Donna, I've been a rolling stone, and I haven't gathered very much moss."

"We can wait. I haven't thought much about the future, either, Bob. I'm just content to know I've got you, and the problem of keeping you hasn't presented itself as yet."

They were silent, listening to the zephyr whistling around the Hat Ranch.

"Do you know," she told him presently, "I haven't stopped to gather up the hats since the night you came. Bob, dear, I'm afraid you're ruining my business."

He stared at her amazed. "I don't understand" he said.

"I don't gather moss," she taunted him; "my specialty is hats," and then she explained for the first time the peculiar side-line in which she was engaged. It was their first discussion of any subject dealing with the practical side of her life, and Bob was keenly interested. He laughed as Donna related some homely little anecdote of the hat trade, and later, after plying her with questions regarding her life, past and present, the mood for a mutual exchange of confidences seized him and he told her something of his own checkered career.

Bob McGraw's father had been a mining engineer who had never accomplished anything more remarkable than proving himself a failure in his profession. He was of a roving, adventurous disposition, the kind of a man to whom the fields just ahead always look greenest, and as a result his life had been a remarkable series of ups and downs—mostly downs. Bob's mother had been an artist of more or less ability— probably less—who, having met and fallen in love with McGraw senior in New York during one of his prosperous periods, had continued to love him when the fortune vanished. Bob had been born in a mining camp in Tuolumne county. He had never seen his mother. She died bringing him into the world. His father had drifted from camp to camp, each successive camp being a little lonelier, less lively and less profitable than its predecessor. He had managed to keep his son by him until Bob was about ten years old, when he sent him to a military academy in southern California. At eighteen, Bob had graduated from the academy, and at his father's desire he entered the state university to study law.

Long before he had waded half-way through the first book of Blackstone, Bob had become fully convinced that he was his father's son, and that mining engineering would be vastly more to his liking. It was a profession, however, upon which his father frowned. Like most men who have made a failure of their vocation, he dreaded to see his son follow in his father's footsteps. He was insistent upon Bob following the law; so to please him young Bob had managed to struggle through the course and by dint of much groaning and burning of midnight oil, eventually he was admitted to practice before the Superior Court. Unknown to his father, however, he had been attending the courses in geology and mining engineering, in which he had made really creditable progress. He was unfortunate enough to pass his law examinations, however, whereupon his father declared that he must make his own way in the world thereafter. He secured for his son a position in the office of an old friend, a corporation lawyer named Henry Dunstan, where Bob while not actively engaged upon some minor detail of Dunstan's large practice had the privilege of going down into the police courts for a little practical experience in the gentle art of pleading.

A month later, McGraw, pere, while ascending the shaft of the mine where he was employed as superintendent, was met by an ore bucket coming down. Bob closed his office, went up country to the mine and saw to it that his father was decently buried. Fortunately there was sufficient money on hand to do this, Bob's parent having received his pay check only the day before.

There had been no estate for Bob to probate, and his few briefless weeks scouting around the police courts and acting as a messenger boy for Henry Dunstan had given him a thorough disgust for the profession of the law. He left his position with Dunstan and went to work on a morning paper at fifteen dollars a week. At the end of two months he was getting twenty—also he was very shabby and in debt. It was his ambition to gather together sufficient money to enable him to complete his mining course and secure his degree.

He hated the city; it was not in his nature to battle and grub with his fellows for a few paltry dollars, and the call of his father's blood was strong in his veins. Bob was the kind of fellow who likes to make a heap of his winnings, when he has any, and stake it all on the turning of a card; if this metaphor may be employed to designate Bob McGraw's nature without creating the impression that he had, inherited a penchant for the gaming table. It had been born in him to take a chance. And the gold fever, inherited from his father, still burned in his blood. He drifted to Nevada, where he did a number of things— including the assault on Mr. Hennage's faro bank, which, as we have already been informed, also resulted disastrously.

These adventures occupied the first two years of Bob McGraw's wanderings. For the next eighteen months he worked in various mines in various capacities, picking up, in actual experience, much of the mining wisdom which circumstances had denied that he should acquire in college. His Nevada experiences had given him a taste of the desert and he liked it. There was a broad strain of poetry in his make-up, inherited perhaps from his mother, and the desert appealed to that mystical sixth sense in him, arousing his imagination, taunting him with a desire that was almost pre-natal to investigate the formation on the other side of the sky-line. It pandered to the spirit of adventure in him, the purple distances lured him with promise of rich reward, and the day he made the remarkable discovery that he had saved enough money to purchase two burros, an automatic pistol, a box of dynamite and the usual prospector's outfit, he took the trail through Windy Gap and Hell's Bend into Death Valley.

Here Bob McGraw learned the true inwardness of a poem which he had once recited as a boy at school. "Afar In the Desert I Love to Ride." Only Bob walked. And after walking several hundred miles he found nothing. But he had seen lots of country, and the silence pleased him. Also he had met and talked with other desert wanderers, with whom he had shared his water and his grub, and in return they had infected him still further with the microbe of unrest. He heard tales of lost mines, of marvelous strikes, of fortunes made in a day, and that imaginative streak in him, inherited from his mother, fused with the wanderlust of his father, combined to make of him a Desert Rat at twenty-three.

He came out of the desert, on that first trip, at Coso Springs, and doubled north along the western edge of the White mountains up through Inyo county picking, prospecting, starving, thirsting cheerfully as he went. At the town of Bishop, his stomach warned him that it would be a wise move to sell his outfit and seek a job; which he accordingly did. He found employment with a cattle company and went up to Long valley in Mono county. Here he was almost happy. Life on a cow range suited him very well indeed, for it took him away from civilization and carried him through a mineral country. He rode with a prospector's pick on his saddle, and in addition the scenery just suited him. There was just enough of desert and bare volcanic hills, valley and meadow and snow- capped peaks to please the dreamer and lover of nature; there was always the chance that a "cow," scrambling down a hillside, would unearth for him a fortune.

Thus a few more years had slipped by. In the summer and fall Bob McGraw rode range. In the winter he quit his job, invested his savings in two burros and a prospector's outfit and roved until summer came again and the heat drove him back to the range once more. He was very happy, for the future was always rose-tinted and he had definitely located two lost mines. That is to say, he could say almost for a certainty that they lay within five miles of certain points. Somehow, his water had a habit of always giving out just when he got to those certain points, and when he had gone back after more water something had happened—a new strike here, a reported rush elsewhere, to lure him on until he was once more forced to abandon the trail and return to work for his grubstake in the fall.

This was the man who had ridden into San Pasqual and got as far as the Hat Ranch; when as usual, something had happened.

He told Donna his story simply, with boyish frankness, interlarding the narrative with humorous little anecdotes that robbed the tale of the stigma of failure and clothed it in the charm of achievement. She laughed in perfect understanding when he described how some desert wag had placed a sign beside the trail at Hell's Bend at the entrance to Death Valley. "Who enters here leaves hope behind."

"I saw that sign when I came by, Donna," he told her, "and I didn't like it. It sounded too blamed pessimistic for me, so when I broke camp next morning I changed the sign to read 'Soap' instead of 'Hope.'"

Donna's laughter awoke the echoes in the silent patio, and Bob McGraw, certain of his audience, rambled on. Ah, what a dreamer, what a lovable, careless, lazy optimist he was! And how Donna's whole nature went out in sympathy with his! She knew so well what drove him on; she envied him the prerogative of sex which denied to her these joyous, endless wanderings. "I love it" he told her presently. "I can't help it. It appeals to something in me, just like drink appeals to a drunkard. I'm never so happy as when gophering around in a barren prospect hole or coyoting on some rocky hillside. But it's only another form of the gambling fever, and I realize that whether my present plans mature or not I've got to give it up. It was all right a few years ago, but now the idea of wandering all my life over the mountains and desert, and in the end dying under a bush, like a jack-rabbit—no, I've got to give it up and follow something definite."

Again she patted his hand. She knew the resolution cost him a pang; it pleased her to learn that he had made it because he realized that he owed something to himself; not because of the fact of his love for her.

"It won't take you long, once you have made up your mind" she encouraged him.

"I don't want to be rich," he explained. "When I started out, Donna, I had that idea. I wanted money—in great big gobs, so I could throw it around with both hands and enjoy myself. I used to think a good deal about myself in those days, but five years in the desert and riding the range changes one. It takes the little, selfish foolish notions out of one's head and substitutes something bigger and nobler and—and—well, I can't exactly explain, dear, but I know a little verse that covers the subject very thoroughly:

The little cares that fretted me, I lost them yesterday Among the fields above the sea, Among the winds at play, Among the lowing of the herds, The rustling of the trees, Among the singing of the birds, The humming of the bees; The foolish fears of what might happen, I cast them all away Among the clover-scented grass, Among the new-mown hay, Among the hushing of the corn Where drowsy poppies nod, Where ill thoughts die and good are born, Out in the fields with God."

The hint of the desert sadness died out in the girl's eyes as he declaimed his gospel.

"Oh," she cried softly, "that's beautiful—beautiful."

"That's the Litany of a Pagan, Donna," he answered. "One has to believe to understand when he goes to church in a city, but if you're a Pagan like me, you only have to understand in order to believe."

"I am," she interrupted passionately, "I'm a Pagan and the daughter of a Pagan. My father was a Sun Worshiper—like you."

"Tell me about yourself and your people," he said, and Donna told him the story with which the reader is already familiar. He questioned her carefully about Sam Singer and the man who had murdered her father and despoiled him of his fortune.

"Who was this tenderfoot person?" he asked. "Didn't Sam Singer know his name?"

"No. We never knew the man's name. When my father left for the desert he merely told mother that he was going to meet an Eastern capitalist at Salton. Sam says the only name my father called the man was Boston."

"Boston?"

Donna nodded.

"That means he hailed from Boston, and your father called him that in sheer contempt. No wonder they fought."

He was silent, thinking over that strange tale of a lost mine which Sam Singer had told Donna's mother.

"Well, I'm not going to keep on desert ratting until somebody cracks me on the head and stows me on the shelf" he said presently.

He waved his arm toward the north. "Away up there, a hundred and fifty miles, I've cast my fortune—in the desert of Owens river valley. I've cut out for myself a job that will last me all my life, and win or lose, I'll fight the fight to a finish. I'm going to make thirty-two thousand acres of barren waste bloom and furnish clean, unsullied wealth for a few thousand poor, crushed devils that have been slaughtered and maimed under the Juggernaut of our Christian civilization. I'm going to plant them on ten-acre farms up there under the shadow of old Mt. Kearsarge, and convert them into Pagans. I'm going to create an Eden out of an abandoned Hell. I'm going to lay out a townsite and men will build me a town, so I can light it with my own electricity. It's a big Utopian dream, Donna dear, but what a crowning glory to the dreamer's life if it only comes true! Just think, Donna. A few thousand of the poor and lowly and hopeless brought out of the cities and given land and a chance for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; to know that their toil will bring them some return, that they can have a home and a hope for the future. That's what I want to do, and when that job is accomplished I will have lived my life and enjoyed it; when I pass away, I want them to bury me in Donnaville— that's to be the name of my colony—and for an epitaph I'd like Robert Louis Stevenson's "Requiem":

Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie,

Glad did I live and gladly die And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me; Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill."

He paused, a little flushed and exalted. Never before had Bob McGraw unburdened his heart of its innermost secrets, its hopes, its fears, its aspirations; for a moment now he almost quivered at the thought that Donna would look upon him as a dreamer, an idealist—perhaps a fool—he, a penniless desert wanderer assuming to hold in his sunburnt palm the destinies of the under dogs of civilization—the cripples too weak and hopeless to be anything more than wretched camp-followers in the Army of Labor.

He glanced down at her now, half expecting, dreading to meet, the look of gentle indulgence so common to the Unbeliever. But there was no patronizing smile, no tolerant note in her voice as she asked simply:

"And this great, beautiful Utopia of yours, Bob—what did you call it?"

"It doesn't exist yet," he explained hastily, "but it—it may. And when it does become a reality, I'm going to call it Donnaville."

"Why?"

"Because it sounds so much better than Bobville or Robertstown, and because it will be beautiful. It will be the green fields of God after centuries upon centuries of purgatory; because it will be the land I've been telling you about, where you'll find all the things your soul is hungry for; where we will own a big farm, you and I, with great fields of alfalfa with purple blossoms; and there'll be long rows of apple and pear trees and corn and—don't you understand, dear? It will be the most beautiful thing in the desert. And yet," he added a little sadly, "I may be beaten into the earth and all my life Donnaville will remain nothing but a dream, a desire, and so I—I—"

"Nobody can despoil you of your dreams," she interrupted, "and hence you'll never be beaten, Bob. The dreamers do the world's work. But tell me. How do you propose to establish Donnaville? Tell me all about it, dear. I want to—help."

He gave her a grateful glance. "I guess I must be wound up to-night," he began, "but it is good to talk it over after hugging it to myself so many years, and suffering and striving as I have suffered and striven since I came into this country.

"When I pulled out of Death Valley on my first trip I came into Inyo from the south and worked up along the base of the White mountains as far as Bishop. The Owens river valley runs north and south, with the White mountains flanking it on the east and the high Sierra on the west. It is from ten to fifteen miles wide, that valley, with the Owens river running down the eastern side most of the way until it empties into Owens lake just above Keeler. The lake is salty, bitter, filled with alkali, boras and soda, and for nearly forty miles above its mouth the river itself is pretty brackish and alkaline. Away up the valley the river water is sweet but as it approaches the lake it gathers alkali and borax from the formation through which it flows. This renders it unfit for irrigating purposes and at first glance the lower end of the valley seemed doomed to remain undeveloped unless somebody led pure water from above down the valley in a big cement-lined canal and the cost of such a canal would thus render the project prohibitive, unless the water company which might tackle the job also owned the land.

"The valley is pure desert, although there are a great many brilliant green streaks in it, where streams of melted snow water flow down from the mountains and either disappear in the sands or just manage to reach the river or the lake. The valley looks harsh and desolate, but once you climb the mountains and look down into it, it's beautiful. I know it looked beautiful to me and I wished that I might have a farm there and settle down. For the next few years, every time I drifted up or down that valley I used to dream about my farm, and finally I picked out a bully stretch of desert below Independence, and made up my mind to file a desert claim of three hundred and twenty acres, provided I could see my way clear to a water-right that would insure sufficient water for irrigation.

"There wasn't any alkali in the land that I imagined would be my farm some day—when I found the water. Of course I didn't want the river water at this point, on account of the alkali in it, and from the formation I judged that I wouldn't have much success putting in artesian wells. Besides, I didn't care to be a lone rancher out in that desert. I've always been a sociable chap, when I could meet the right kind of people, and unless I could have neighbors on that desert I didn't want any farm.

"I scouted for the water all one summer, but didn't find any. However, just at a time when I was getting ready to come out of the mountains and hustle for next year's grubstake, I found a 'freeze-out' in the granite up on the slope of old Kearsarge, and it netted me nineteen hundred dollars.

"That water question always bothered me. I knew the land was rich—a pure marle, with lots of volcanic ash mixed with it, and that it would grow anything—with water. You ought to see that land, Donna. Why, the sage grows six feet tall in spots, and any desert land that will grow big sage will produce more fortunes than most gold mines—if you can only get the water. There the land lay, thousands of acres of it, but good water wasn't available, so the land was worthless.

"However, Donna, I had wandered around in the desert long enough to observe that wherever Nature appears to have created a paradox, there's always a reason. If Nature makes a mistake here, she places a compensating offset over there. Here was a valley that with irrigation could be made marvelously fertile at this point, only the river had to go brackish and alkaline just where it was needed most. I couldn't develop an irrigation system from any of the little streams that flowed down the Sierra, because there wasn't enough water, and there was no place to impound it, even if there had been sufficient water.

"While I was pondering this peculiar situation, a very strange thing occurred. The lower portion of the valley, including the stretch of desert on which I had my eye, was suddenly withdrawn from entry and thrown into a Forest Reserve by the Department of the Interior. It was a queer proceeding that—including a desert timbered with sage-brush and greasewood in a Forest Reserve. Withdrawing from entry lands that would not even remotely interest settlers!

"I thought this over a great deal, and by and by I began to see the light. I had suspected from observation and personal experience that there was a powerful private influence at work in the state land office, and by reason of their seeming control of the office were engaged in looting the state of its school lands which were timbered. In the congressional investigation into certain land frauds in California, it was discovered that the men accused of the frauds had been aided by corrupt minor officials in the General Land Office— clerks and chiefs of certain bureaus, whom the land-grabbers kept on their private pay-rolls. This was a matter of public record. Fortunately for the government, however, it has generally managed to secure for the head of the Land Department able and incorruptible men to whom no taint of suspicion attached—men whom the land-grabbers dare not attempt to corrupt.

"At the outset, I strongly suspected that the corrupt influence, which presumably had been exposed and punished in former investigations, was nevertheless still at work. The suspicion that grossly erroneous reports, intentionally furnished the General Land Office by officials of the Forestry Department in California, was responsible for the inclusion of the desert in the Forest Reserve, strengthened into belief the more I thought it over. I thought I could detect in this hoodwinking of the Department of the Interior, through the agency of some local official, who had been 'reached' by the land ring, the first move in a well-planned raid on the public domain, through the state land office.

"I quietly investigated the surveyor-general of the state, who is also ex-officio Registrar of the State Land Office. I discovered that he was a man of unimpeachable public and private life. I discovered also that he was in ill health, and had been during the greater portion of his tenure in office; that he rarely spent more than two hours each day in his office; that frequently he was away from his office for a month at a time, ill, and that the office practically was dominated by his deputy. The surveyor-general was a quiet, easy-going man, advanced in years and inclined to take things easy, and the upshot of my investigations confirmed me in the belief that he was taking things easy—too easy—and that his wide-awake deputy was doing business with the land ring, by virtue of his unhampered control of the office and the implicit confidence reposed in him by the surveyor-general.

"There could be but two reasons for this ridiculous action by the Department of the Interior in thus including a desert in a Forest Reserve. Either an error had been made by the local forestry officials in defining the boundaries of the reserve, and thus reporting to the General Land Office, or the job was intentional. If the former, the error would be discovered and the boundaries rectified.

"Well, a year passed and the boundaries were not rectified, despite the fact that I wrote half a dozen complaining letters to the General Land Office. The answer was easy. The land-grabbers had subsidized somebody and my letters never got to headquarters. So I knew a big job was about to be pulled off. I guessed that the land-grabbers had solved the water problem further up the valley and were scheming to get control of the lower valley and lead the water to it, and while developing their water supply they wanted the land denied to the public. There was always the chance that some smart nester would come, file on a half-section and start boring artesian wells. If he struck water, the news would travel and other settlers would come in and take a chance, and before long there might be a hundred settlers in there. There would be no reason to fear that they would stay forever, unless they got a big artesian flow on every forty acres, and knew they could get water in sufficient quantity. But they would have found water and it would have taken say three years for them to discover that their claims could not support them, Nesters are a dogged breed of human. It takes a nester a long time to wake up to the fact that he's licked, and until they woke up, the nesters would be liable to block the water wheels of a private reclamation scheme.

"Then, too, if it should become bruited abroad, while the valley was open for entry, that water for irrigation was being developed up the valley, settlers could have flocked in down the valley—and waited for the water. A nester is patient. His life is spent in waiting. Under the desert land laws one can file on three hundred and twenty acres, or a half-section, pay twenty-five cents per acre down and then wait four years before being compelled to file with the land office the proof of reclamation that will entitle him to final patent to his land. The land ring, of course, knew this, and by their corrupt influence had so maneuvered to hoodwink the General Land Office that the valley had been withdrawn from entry. When they had protected themselves from prospective settlers, it would be safe for them to develop their water away up the valley. When they were ready, it would be easy enough, to suddenly discover that a desert valley had, by some stupid error, been included in a Forest Reserve, the boundaries would be readjusted immediately, the valley once more thrown open for entry and—dummy entrymen, Johnny-on-the-spot, to file on the land for the water company! Within the statutory limit of four years the water company would have had time to extend its canals and laterals, the dummy entrymen would have been able to show proof of reclamation and secure their patents, and after waiting a year, perhaps to preserve appearances, they would, for a consideration, gradually transfer their holdings to the water company, Within five years, the water company would have owned the entire valley, would have reorganized, called themselves a land and irrigation company and gone into the real estate business, selling five to twenty acre farms, with a perpetual water right, at prices ranging from three to five hundred dollars per acre.

"I didn't, of course, know who was behind the game, but I knew the rules by which it would be played. I'm more or less of a mining engineer, Donna, and it's part of a mining engineer's business to know the laws relating to the public domain. I could see that unless I developed water first and filed on the land first, I would never get my farm in the valley without paying dearly to the thieves who had stolen from me my constitutional right to it.

"Hence, for the past two summers, Donna, I've been up in the Sierra looking for water. It seemed to me that with so many mountain lakes up there below the snow-line, I must find one that I could tap and bring the water down into my valley. If Nature made a mistake in the valley, she would compensate for it up in the mountains, and I had an abiding faith that if I searched long enough I'd find the water.

"I circled around mountain lakes where in all probability no human foot but mine had ever trod. I crawled along the brink of a chasm three thousand feet deep, and crossed a glacier crevice on a rawhide riata. I camped three nights on a peak with so much iron ore in it that when an electrical storm came up it attracted the lightning and struck around me for hours. I crawled and crept and climbed; I fell; I was cut and bruised and hungry and cold; but all the time I was up there in the mountains I could look on the valley—my valley—and it was beautiful and I didn't mind.

"A big thought that had been in the back of my brain for a long time came to me with renewed force while I was up there in those Inyo Alps— the thought that if I could find the water it would be riches enough for me. But I wanted the land, too—not merely a half-section for myself, but the whole valley—only I didn't want it for myself. It would only be mine in trust, a sacred heritage that belonged to the lowly of the earth, and I wanted to save it for them. I could see them all at that moment, the roustabouts, the laborers and muckers, the unskilled toilers of the world. It was the hewers of wood and the drawers of water that I wanted that valley to bloom for; the poor, poor devils whose only hope is the land that gave them birth and life and would receive them in its bosom when they perished. Ten acres of that lonely thirsty land, waiting there for me to reclaim it from the ruin of ages—ten acres of my desert valley and some water and an equal chance—that's what I wanted for each of my fellow-Pagans, and I made up my mind to get it for them from the robber-barons that planned to steal it.

"It comforted me a whole lot, that thought. It gave zest to the battle, and made the prize seem worth fighting for. And I guess the God of a Square Deal was with me that day, for I found the water. I discovered a lake a mile wide and nearly five miles long, fed by countless streams from the melting snow on the peaks above. I walked around it, but I couldn't find any outlet, and yet the lake never seemed to have risen higher than a certain point. This puzzled me until I discovered a sandstone ledge half-way around its eastern edge, and through a gigantic crevice in this sandstone the water escaped. When the lake rose to the edge of this crevice, during the summer when the snow was melting up on the face of old Mount Kearsarge, the surplus flowed off into some subterranean outlet, probably emerging at the head of some canyon miles away on the other side of the range. This lake was hemmed in by hills, and between two of these hills a canyon dropped away sheer to the desert two thousand feet below. I made careful estimates and discovered that by shooting a tunnel three hundred feet through the country rock at the head of this canyon I would come out on the other side of the place where the two hills met, and pierce the lake below this sandstone crevice. I could drain the lake until the surface of the water gradually came down to the intake, when I could put in a concrete pier with an iron head-gate and regulate the flow. Even in winter when the lake was frozen over I would have a steady flow of water, for my tunnel would tap the lake below the ice.

"Having found the water, my next move was to go down into the valley, into the great, hot, panting hungry heart of Inyo to protect the land for my Pagans. At the land office in Independence I registered my filing and turned to leave, just as a clerk came out and tacked a notice on the bulletin board. I read it. It was the customary notice to settlers that the lower valley had been withdrawn from the Forest Reserve and would be thrown open to entry at the expiration of sixty days from date.

"I went to the feed corral, where I had kept Friar Tuck all summer, while I was up in the mountains. I paid my livery bill, threw the saddle on Friar Tuck and headed south, for I knew that if I was to turn robber baron and steal the valley for my Pagans I'd have to hustle. I got to San Pasqual one night three weeks ago—and here I am."

Donna was silent. For perhaps a minute she gazed into his tense, eager face.

"What will it cost to drive that tunnel?" she queried finally.

"With me superintending the job and swinging a pick and drill myself, I estimate the cost at about five thousand dollars."

"And how long does your right hold good before commencing operations?"

"The law allows me a year."

"And you have five weeks left in which to plan your campaign to acquire the land?"

"Five weeks. And I'm about to attempt an illegal procedure, only I'm going to do it legally. I want to tie up fifty sections on that valley —aggregating 32,000 acres. I have money enough in bank at Bakersfield after paying my expenses here, to accomplish that. If I can tie that land up, my water-right is worth millions. If the other fellows get the land, they will buy my water-right at their own figures, or starve me out and acquire the right when I am forced to abandon it by reason of my inability to develop it; or failing that they will proceed on their original plan and lead their own water down the valley in canals. Without the water the land is worthless, and without the land my water- right is practically worthless—to me. To control that 32,000 acres of desert I will have to put up the purchase price of $40,000 for the men I induce to file on the land, and after paying the filing fee of $5 and the initial payment of $20 on each of the fifty applications for the land, I'll be in luck if I'm not left stranded at the State Land Office."

"But can you accomplish this in opposition to the land ring, if you secure all the money you will require?"

"No" he answered. "The plan I have outlined is a mere contingency. In order to carry it out, I must get my filings into the land office before theirs—and they control the land office."

"Then, how can you hope to succeed?"

Bob smiled. "Hope doesn't cost anything, Donna. It's about the only thing I know of that can't be monopolized. A man can hope till he's licked, at least, and despite the fact that I have neither money nor corrupt influence, I have a long chance to win. I have one grand asset, at least."

"What may that be?" queried Donna.

"All anybody ever needs—a bright idea."



CHAPTER IX

Bob McGraw threw back his red head and chuckled. "A bright idea, sweetheart," he repeated, "and if it works out and I am enabled to file first, the problem of getting back to the desert will be a minor one. The real problem is the acquisition of four or five thousand dollars to drive my tunnel, and after that I must scrape together thirty-nine thousand dollars to advance to my poor Pagans, in order that they may pay for the land on which I shall have induced them to file. In the meantime I do not anticipate any diminution in the appetites of myself and Friar Tuck.

"Well, after I have my tunnel driven and the head-gates in and my Pagans have the land, I have only started. The land must be cleared of sage and greasewood, which in turn must be piled and burned. Then I must build several miles of concrete aqueduct, with laterals to carry the water for irrigation, and I must install a hydro-electric power- plant, purchase telegraph poles, string power lines, build roads, houses, barns and fences. I think I shall even have to build one hundred and fifty miles of railroad into Donnaville and equip it with rolling stock."

He thrust both arms out, as if delving into the treasures of his future. "Whew-w-w!" he sighed. "I'll need oodles of money. I'm going to be as busy as a woodpecker in the acorn season."

Donna drew his arm within hers and they walked slowly—up and down the brick-lined patio.

"It means a fight to the finish, Bobby dear—and you're terribly handicapped. If your suspicions are well founded you will find yourself opposed by men with the power of wealth and political influence behind them."

His whimsical exalted mood passed. In the presence of the girl he loved and whom he hoped to marry he suddenly realized that he stood face to face with a gigantic sacrifice. To carry through to a conclusion, successful or unsuccessful, this great work to which he had set his hand meant that until the finish came he must renounce his hope of marriage with Donna. True, he might win—but it would take years to demonstrate that victory was even in sight; if he lost, he felt that he could never have the heart to ask her to share with him his poverty and his failures.

An intuitive understanding of his thoughts came to Donna at that moment; she realized that under that gay, careless exterior there beat the great warm heart of a man and a master, on whom, for all his youth and strength and optimism, a great load of care was already resting— the destiny of his people. She realized that he needed help; she thought of her insignificant savings (some six hundred dollars) reposing in the strong-box of the eating-house safe, and the first impulse of her generous heart was to offer him these hard-earned dollars. In the task that Bob McGraw had set himself, moral support was a kindly thing to offer, but dollars were the things that counted!

However, to offer him financial aid now, no matter how badly he required money, would not avail. The dictates of his manhood would not permit him to accept, and until God and man had given her the right to make the offer she must remain silent.

"I can wait here until you're ready to come for me, Bob," she said bravely. "It's a big task—a man's work—that you're going to do, and win or lose, I want you to fight the good fight. I know the kind of man I want to marry. If he starts anything that's big and noble and worthy of him, I want him to finish it—if he wants to marry me. Success or failure counts but little with men like you; it is only the fight that matters, and there are some defeats that are more glorious than victories. Remember that little jingle, dearie:

The harder you're hit, the higher you bounce, Be proud of your blackened eye. It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts, But how did you fight—and why?"

"You quoted your Pagan's Litany to me to-night, sweetheart. I want you to be true to it. I don't know a thing about desert land laws and riparian rights, but I do know that if you sold your Pagans into bondage for money to marry me, I'd be ashamed of you—and disappointed. Don't let your love for me weaken your defenses, Bob. If you win I want to live with you in Donnaville, but if you lose—I want you to make me a promise, Bob."

"You wonderful woman! What is it—you wonderful, wonderful woman?"

"I'm asking for a promise, dear."

"I'll grant it."

"If you lose, you'll come to me and we'll be married despite defeat and failure, and you'll live here, with me—at the Hat Ranch until—"

"Oh, Donnie, girl, I couldn't do that!"

"I understand your point of view. Perhaps you think me bold—or unconventional. But a woman has certain rights, Bob. She should be given the right to outline her own ideas of happiness, regardless of tradition and ancient usage, provided she conforms to all of the law, legal and moral. If you go forth to battle and they slaughter you, I claim the right to pick up your poor battered old heart and give it the only comfort—I mean, if I have to wait, I love you enough to work with you—and for you—when further waiting is useless—"

She pressed her face against his great breast and commenced to cry.

"I have never been really happy until you came" she sobbed. "We're young, Bob—and I do not want to wait—for happiness—until the capacity for it—is gone."

He patted the beautiful head, soothing her with tender words, and it was characteristic of the man that in that instant he made his decision.

"Within six weeks I shall know how long the fight is to last, Donna. If I can put through a scheme which I have evolved to secure that land without recourse to the desert land laws—if I can get my applications filed first in the State Land Office—I shall have won the first battle of the war. If I fail to do this I shall have lost the land, and without further ado I shall sell my water-right to the best possible advantage. The enemy may conclude to pay me a reasonable price for it, rather than declare war and delay the development of their land. The power possibilities of my water-right are tremendous and I think I can force a good price, for I can poke away at my tunnel and by doing the assessment work I can keep my title alive for a few years. Of course, in the event that I should, after the lapse of years, be financially unable to develop my water-right, or interest others in it, I should lose it and they would grab it, no doubt. But they will buy me out, I think, rather than brook delay."

She raised her face, transfigured through the tears.

"Then, win or lose—"

"Win or lose, if you desire it and I can scrape together the price of a marriage license, we'll be married in six weeks.

"I'm so tired of the desert, dear. I'm lonely."

"A little like Br'er B'ar, eh, darling! You want to see the other side of the mountain." He pressed her to him lovingly. "Of course" (with masculine inconsistency Bob was beginning to equivocate) "I may not be able to sell my water-right and the enemy may elect to play a waiting game and starve me out. In that case, it would not be fair to you to burden you with a husband whose sole assets are his dreams and his hopes."

"That makes no difference" she exclaimed passionately. "We're young. We'll fight the rest of the battle together."

"Well, there's strength in numbers, at any rate, beloved. You're my mascot and I'm bound to win." He placed his left hand under her chin and tilted her face upward. He was stooping to seal their compact with a true lover's kiss, when the sound of footsteps startled them. Both turned guiltily, to confront Mr. Harley P. Hennage.

"Hah-hah," puffed Mr. Hennage, "at it again, eh?" He stood at the corner of the house, with his three gold teeth flashing in the moonlight.

"Kill-joy!" hissed Bob McGraw. "His Royal Highness, Kill-joy the Thirteenth!"

Harley P. shook a fat forefinger at the lovers. "If I was a young feller, Bob McGraw—"

"Mr. Hennage, you're an old snooper, that's what you are!" cried Donna. "You're all the time snooping."

"Explain this unwarranted intrusion, Harley P. Hennage" Bob demanded, as he advanced with outstretched hand to greet the gambler. "I'll have you know that in approaching this ranch hereafter, you will be required to halt at the front gate and whistle, cough, stamp your feet, yell or fire six shots from a Colts revolver—"

"You mean a presidential salute o' twenty-one twelve-inch guns" retorted Harley P. "I ain't no snooper. I've wore corns on my hands a- bangin' that there iron gate to announce my approach, an' it wasn't no use; so I just made up my mind you was ready to receive me an' I come ramblin' in. Donnie, you know I ain't one o' the presumin' kind."

He held out a hand to Bob and another to Donna. "How?" he queried, and made swift appraisal of Bob McGraw from heels to hair. "You've filled out a whole lot since the last time I seen you standin' up. How's tricks?"

"Great. I'll be out in a day or two."

The gambler nodded his approval of this cheerful news. Donna brought out another chair and the trio sat in the secluded patio and talked generalities for ten minutes. Donna knew that Mr. Hennage must have some reason for calling other than a mere desire to pay his respects to Bob, and presently he unbosomed himself.

"Our mutual friend, Miss Pickett, has a notice pasted up on the wall o' the post-office, advertisin' a registered letter for one Robert McGraw." The gambler tittered foolishly. "Ain't a soul can tell Miss Pickett who the feller is or where he's at, except me an' Doc Taylor an' Miss Donna—an' we're all swore to secrecy, so I come down to scheme out a way to bell the cat—meanin' Miss Pickett" he added, apparently as an afterthought.

"A letter for me?" Bob was surprised. "Why, it's years since I have received a letter. I wonder who could know that I might be found in San Pasqual I didn't tell anybody I was headed this way, and as a matter of fact I hadn't intended staying here beyond that first night."

"Well, there's a letter there all right," reiterated Mr. Hennage, "an' if I was called on to give a guess who sent it I'd bet a stack o' blue chips I could hit the bull's eye first shot. A dry, purse-proud aristocrat, with gray chin whiskers an' a pair o' bespectacled blue lamps that'd charm a Gila monster, they're that shiny, lined up at the Silver Dollar bar the other day an' bought a drink for himself. Yes, he drank alone—which goes to prove that men with money ain't always got the best manners in the world. Well, after stowin' away his little jolt, he comes fussin' around among the boys, askin' which one of 'em is Mr. Robert McGraw. Of course he didn't get no information, an' wouldn't 'a got it if the boys had it. So he goes down to see Miss Pickett, an' bimeby me an' him meets up in front o' the eatin' house, an' he up an' asked me if I could tell him who owns that little roan cayuse kickin' up his heels over in the feed corral.

"Of course, I seen right off that Miss Pickett had her suspicions an' had sicked this stranger onto me; so when he informed me that he'd been told I knew the name o' the little hoss' owner, I told him I did—that the little roan hoss belonged to a Mexican friend o' mine by the name o' Enrique Maria Jose Sanchez Flavio Domingo Miramontes.

"He give me a sour look at that. 'Well, that don't correspond none with the initials on the saddle' he says.

"'Shucks,' I says,'that don't signify nothin'. Mexicans is the biggest hoss thieves living besides, I ain't feelin' disputatious to-night, so I'll just close up my game an' go get my scoffin's.'

"'But I must find this man' he says, 'It means a great deal to him—an' me.'

"'What do you call a great deal?'

"'Money' he says.

"I says: 'See here, pardner, don't you go givin' no money to no Mexican, because he'll only gamble it away on three-card monte.'

"'I don't mean your Mexican friend,' he says, like a snappin' turtle, 'I'm after a man named Robert McGraw,'

"'Oh,' I says, 'you mean that red-headed outlaw from up country? Why I didn't know he was wanted. What's it this time? He ain't got himself mixed up in more trouble, has he?'

"'I prefer to refrain from discussin' the details,' says this wealthy gent, 'with a perfect stranger.'

"'Oh, very well' I says. 'I didn't seek this interview, but when you mentioned the hoss I could tell by the look in your eye that McGraw's been robbin' you o' somethin'. Well, you might own that hoss, but you've got to prove property. McGraw sold the hoss to Enrique an' lit out for Bakersfield, an' I won the hoss from Enrique at faro. I been keepin' him in the corral in order to give the Mexican a chance to buy him back. But McGraw's not in town. He won't be here for a week or two yet.'

"'Thank you, my man,' says he, an' pulls a card, just about the time I was gettin' ready to pull his nose. 'If you should see Mr. McGraw, you might be good enough, to tell him he can learn of somethin' to his advantage by communicatin' with me right away.'

"'Well, my man,' I says, 'I do hope it's an alibi,' an' I took the card an' he went back to Miss Pickett. I want to tell you, children, that any time Miss Molly thinks she can spring a secret out o' me she's got to go some."

Mr. Hennage chuckled, produced a white square of cardboard and handed it to Bob. Donna, leaning over his shoulder, read:

MR. T. MORGAN CAREY PRESIDENT INYO LAND & IRRIGATION COMPANY, 414-422 SOUTHERN TRUST BUILDING, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

"I've heard of that fellow before," mused Bob, "and it strikes me his name is associated with some unpleasant memory, but I can't recall just what it is. However, I can hazard a good guess as to what he desires to see me about. I'm glad you didn't tell him where I might be found, Hennage. It was thoughtful of you. I do not care to meet T. Morgan Carey—yet."

"Well," said Mr. Hennage, "he's a smart man an' smells o' ready money. However, I wasn't goin' to give him no information until I'd talked with you first, although my main idea was to throw Miss Pickett off the scent. I'm goin' up to Bakersfield to-night, Bob, and just to keep up appearances, you give me an order for that registered letter, datin' the order from Bakersfield, to-morrow, an' I'll mail that order from Bakersfield to myself in San Pasqual. Then to-morrow night when I get back I'll go to the post-office for my mail. I ain't had a letter come to me in ten years. Miss Pickett'll give me the letter, I'll open it right in front o' her an' flash the order for the registered letter, an' the old gossip'll be annoyed to death to think she's lost the trail."

When presently Bob went into the house to write the desired order for Harley P., Donna and the gambler were left alone for a few minutes. Instantly Mr. Hennage became serious.

"Looky here. Miss Donnie," he said, "Bob McGraw's free, white an' twenty-one an' he can play his own hand. I ain't one of the presumin' kind an' I hate to tell any man his own business, but if twenty years o' gamblin' an' meetin' all kinds an' conditions o' men ain't made me as fly as a road-runner, then that there artesian well is spoutin' mint juleps. Say, Miss Donnie, if ever I see a cold-blooded, fishy, snaky, ornery man, it's this T. Morgan Carey—an' at that he's a dead ringer for a church deacon. That Carey man would steal a hot stove without burnin' himself. Now, this young Bob is an impulsive cuss, an' if he has any dealin's of a money nature with this sweet-scented porch- climber that's on his trail, you take a tip from Harley P. Hennage, Miss Donnie, an' act as lookout on Bob's game. Miss Donnie, I can tell a crook in the dark. Let a crook try to buck my game an' I have him spotted in a minute. I just feel 'em."

"Thank you, Mr. Hennage. I have great faith in your judgment."

"Well, generally speakin', I call the turn, if I do say so myself."

He sat there, his bow-legs spread apart, his hands folded across his ample abdomen, staring thoughtfully at the little white cross down at the end of the garden.

"You're a heap like your mother" he said presently, and sighed.

When Bob returned with the order for the registered letter, Mr. Hennage tucked it carefully in his side coat pocket; then from his rear hip pocket he produced Bob McGraw's automatic gun.

"I took charge o' this the night o' the mix-up" he explained as he returned it. He looked hard at Bob. "When you're ready to toddle about" he added, with a lightning wink and a slight movement of his fat thumb and forefinger, as if counting a stack of imaginary bills, "send Sam Singer up to let me know. Comprende, amigo?"

Bob smiled at this sinful philanthropist. "Not necessary, old man— if you'll drop in at the Kern County Bank and Trust Company in Bakersfield to-morrow and get me a check-book. I have owed you fifty for three years and I'd like to square up."

"Sure you ain't bluffin' on no pair?"

"Thank you, Harley. I have a small stake."

"Well, holler when you're hit." He waved his hand and departed with a "Buenas noches, children."

Scarcely had the gate slammed behind him when Bob turned to Donna with beaming face.

"They're after my water-right, sweetheart—they're after it already!" His exultant laugh rang through the patio, "I knew I was treading on somebody's toes when I filed on that water, Donna. By George, I must investigate T. Morgan Carey and ascertain the kind of man I have to fight."

"He came here looking for you a week after you arrived. Doesn't that seem strange? How did he discover you had a water-right, investigate it, ascertain its value and then, come seeking you, all in the course of one week?"

"That is very easily explained, Donna. It merely verifies my suspicions that there is a ring of land-grabbers operating in this state, which ring controls some official of the State Land Office and keeps on its pay-roll an employee in every United States land office in California. The moment I filed on that water, T. Morgan Carey was notified by his tool in the State Land Office that Robert McGraw (I gave my address as Independence, Inyo county) had filed on one hundred thousand miners' inches of water for power and irrigation. Now, there isn't that much non-alkaline water available anywhere in the valley—at least under the control of one man or one corporation, and of course it frightened Carey. He wired his field engineer, who was probably in Inyo county at the time, to investigate. The engineer found my location notices tacked to a cottonwood tree right where I'm going to drive my tunnel, and he immediately reported to Carey that the location was very valuable. Also he wired my name and general description and probably stated that the last seen of me I was headed south for the railroad on a roan bronco. They've traced me by my horse to San Pasqual, and now they're trying to find me with a registered letter; very probably acting under the advice of Miss Pickett, who, apparently, is an elderly bird and not to be caught with Harley P. Hennage's chaff.

"It's absurdly simple, dear. They want my water, for they must eliminate competition, and they want to tie me up before I have an opportunity to sell to somebody who realizes the value of my holdings. Up Inyo way they know me for a range rider, a desert rat, a ne'er-do- well, and it may be they are under the impression that I am like most of my kind—that I can be mesmerized by the sight of four or five thousand dollars."

"Harley P. will give me your letter to-morrow night and I'll bring it home with me. We'll know definitely, then, what to expect. In the meantime, Bob, I think you've dreamed enough for one night. You've been up all day and you've talked and it's time you went to bed."

"'Talk'" he echoed, "talk! That's what. I've been talking—talk. But when I clash with T. Morgan Carey's company I'll talk—turkey. If you'll kiss me good-night, Donna, I think I can manage to last until morning."

Late the following afternoon Harley P. Hennage returned from Bakersfield and at once went to the post-office and secured Bob's registered letter. He brought it over to Donna at the eating-house, delivering with it a pantomime of the inquisitive Miss Pickett when she discovered that the order for delivery of the registered letter to the gambler was dated and mailed from Bakersfield.

At dinner Bob read the letter and silently handed it over to Donna. It was from T. Morgan Carey. On behalf of the Inyo Land & Irrigation Company Carey requested the favor of an interview at an early date to take up with Bob the matter of purchasing his newly acquired water- right on Cottonwood lake, or submitting a proposition for consolidation with, certain rights held by his company. He begged for an early reply.

"Will you reply to his letter?" Donna queried.

"Yes. I shall write him that my location is not for sale."

"Then write it from Bakersfield" Donna suggested. "Harley P.'s reputation is bad enough, but you mustn't convict him of lying."

Three days later Bob's strength had so far returned that Doc Taylor told him he might leave San Pasqual whenever he pleased. Bob realized that a longer stay at the Hat Ranch, while inviting enough, would nevertheless prove expensive, by reason of the retention of his nurse, for Donna could not continue to entertain him unchaperoned, even in such a free-and-easy town as San Pasqual, and he was fearful that a longer stay, even under the prevailing conditions, might prove embarrassing to Donna, in case interest in his affairs should revive; hence he announced his determination of going up to San Francisco to recuperate and complete his plans for the acquisition of thirty-two thousand acres of the public domain in the desert of Owens river valley.

Donna did not endeavor to dissuade him. She realized that a longer stay was impossible, much as both desired it, and Bob had his work to do and not a great deal of time in which to do it. Accordingly Bob issued a check to Doc Taylor that evening in payment of his fee, dismissed his nurse and paid her off, and left with Donna another check, to be cashed by Harley P. Hennage and the proceeds applied to the care and maintenance of Friar Tuck until Bob's return to San Pasqual.

During the afternoon Bob dispatched Sam Singer to Harley P. Hennage with a request for a shaving outfit, a shirt, underwear, a necktie and a new suit of khaki. Armed with information respecting the physical dimensions of Mr. McGraw, the gambler had attended to Bob's shopping, and upon Donna's return to the Hat Ranch that night she discovered that during her absence a transformation had taken place. Bob was arrayed in his new habiliments, and paraded up and down the patio for the inspection of Donna and the nurse.

"Well, Donna" he called to her, "how do I look? Presentable? I know I'm feeling clean and respectable again, at any rate, and I've asked Sam Singer to bury that ruin of rags I wore into town."

"Your gun hangs below the tail of your khaki coat."

"Then I'll tuck it up under my arm."

Donna helped him remove the coat, after which he buckled the belt over his right shoulder, permitting the gun to hang securely in the holster under his left arm.

"Now, I don't look so confoundedly woolly and western" he said. "I do hate to go about looking like the hero of a dime novel. I suppose if a tourist saw that gun hanging down he'd think I was bloodthirsty. It would never occur to him that a gun comes in handy in the wilderness."

"Why not leave it here until your return?"

Bob grinned. "It's a good gun, Donna. I might be able to pawn it for enough to help out on my return trip. Of course I have a watch, but its hockable value is negative. When I was very young I was foolish enough to have my initials engraved on the case, but of course I know better now—by George, Donna girl, I haven't any hat!"

She flashed him one of her rare wonderful smiles. "I was waiting for you to make that discovery" she said. "You lost your hat the night you arrived in San Pasqual, but I haven't worried about it. I've been saving a splendid big sombrero for you, Bob."

She went to her room, returning presently with a "cowboy" hat that must have been the joy and pride of the tourist who sacrificed it to the San Pasqual zephyr. She pinched it to a peak and set it jauntily on his auburn head, then stood off and surveyed him critically.

"It's a dear" she announced.

"Looks dear, too" he replied whimsically. "Must have cost the original owner a month's board. Whew! That's a bird of a hat, Donna girl. Thank you. It's as good a hat as I'll ever own."

He sat down forthwith, turned back the sweat-band, moistened it slightly and with the stub of an indelible pencil wrote his name in full. He had ridden range long enough to acquire the habit of branding his property, and in that land of breeze and sunshine he knew the dangers that beset a maverick hat.

That night they walked together in the patio for the last time. Neither felt inclined to conversation, for the thoughts of each were occupied with dreams of the future, and the tragedy of that farewell lay heavy upon them. Lover-like, each exacted from the other a promise to write every day, and that important detail finally settled, Donna found it easy enough to be brave and let him go.

At eleven o'clock Sam Singer appeared in the patio to announce his willingness to trundle Bob up to San Pasqual on the same trackwalker's velocipede upon which Bob had arrived at the Hat Ranch. The nurse was not to leave until the next day, and being a discreet woman, and kindly withal, she had had the delicacy to bid her patient farewell in the patio. Donna accompanied him to the front gate, and there Bob with many a fervent promise to take good care of himself—and not to forget to write every day, took her in his arms, kissed her quickly before the tears should have a chance to rise, and was gone.

She watched him stride slowly through the gloom to the velocipede waiting on the tracks; she saw him climb aboard. Then the Indian's body bent over the levers and the machine glided away into the night. She stood at the gate and watched it until it vanished; she waited until Twenty-six came thundering by at eleven-thirty-five and heard the grind of the brakes as the long train pulled up at the station. Five minutes later she heard it pull out of San Pasqual, with many a short and labored gasp, casting a lurid gleam across the desert as it sped northward into Tehachapi Pass, carrying Bob McGraw forth to battle, to fight for his land and his Pagans.

When the last dim flicker of the green tail lights had disappeared Donna retired to her room and cried herself to sleep. Once more she was left to battle alone with the world, and the days would be long until Bob McGraw came back.

Three hours after leaving Donna Corblay at the Hat Ranch, Bob McGraw alighted from the train at Bakersfield and went at once to a hotel. He arose late the next morning, breakfasted in the most appalling loneliness and later wended his way weakly to the bank where his meager funds were on deposit. Here he had his account balanced and discovered that his total fortune amounted to a trifle over sixteen hundred dollars, so he closed out his account and purchased a draft on San Francisco for the amount of his balance, less sufficient money to pay his current expenses.

This detail attended to, Mr. McGraw next proceeded to do what he had always done when in a civilized community—spend his money recklessly. He went back to the hotel, called Donna on the long-distance phone and frittered away two dollars in inconsequential conversation. However, he felt amply rewarded for the extravagance when Donna's voice—deep, throaty, almost a baritone—came to him over the wire; the delighted, almost childish cry of amazement which greeted his "Hello, Donna girl" was music to his soul.

Bob was the kind of man who always thinks of the little things. He knew Donna had gone to work that morning feeling blue and lonely, and the substitution of that mood for one of genuine happiness for the rest of the day Mr. McGraw would have considered cheap at the price of his great toe or a hastily plucked handful of his auburn locks. As for money—bah! Had it been his last two dollars it would have made no difference. He would have telephoned just the same and trusted to heaven to rain manna for his next meal.

But Bob McGraw was nothing if not an impetuous lover. Even in the case of one who, like himself, had plans afoot where every dollar counted, we might pardon readily the expenditure of two dollars on conversation, in view of the extraordinary circumstances; but Mr. McGraw's next move savors so strongly of the veal period of his existence that no amount of extenuating circumstances may be adduced in defense of it. While the promoter of Donnaville was a true son of the desert, he was college- bred, and with the sight now, for the first time in several years, of trolley cars, automobiles and people wearing clean linen, old memories surged up in Mr. McGraw's damaged breast, and despite the fact that his long legs were now weak and wobbly from the premature strain of his journey from the hotel to the bank and back again, he fared forth once more and pursued the uneven tenor of his way until he found himself in a florist's shop.

Here no less than six dozen red carnations caught Mr. McGraw's fancy, the purchase price of which, in addition to the express charges prepaid to San Pasqual, further denuded him of ten dollars. Into the heart of this cluster of fragrance he caused to be secreted a tiny envelope enclosing a card, upon which he had drawn a heart with a feathered arrow sticking through it; and for fear this symbolic declaration of undying devotion might not be sufficient, he scrawled beneath it: "Love from Bob."

Ah, if he could only have seen Donna's face when the express messenger next door brought that votive offering in to her! Red carnations were not frequent in San Pasqual. It was the first lover's bouquet Donna had ever received and she bent low behind the cash register and kissed the foolish little card, for the hand of her Bob had touched it! The carnations she bore home to the Hat Ranch in triumph, and two weeks later when Soft Wind, a stranger to romance, threw them out, Donna wept.

His mission of love finally accomplished, Bob returned to his hotel and went to bed. Late that afternoon he arose, much refreshed, dined and waited around the lobby until it was time for the bus to leave for the north-bound train.

By nine o'clock next morning he was in San Francisco. He found frugal lodgings in a third-class hotel, and after writing a letter to Donna, he went down town, purchased a suit of "store" clothes, and spent the balance of the day in the public law library.

By nightfall Bob had saturated his brain with legal lore bearing on every feature of the laws governing the acquisition of lands in the public domain, and was satisfied that the hazy plan which he had outlined was not only within the law, but really did have some vague elements of feasibility. The beauty of Bob's plan, however—the part that appealed to the sporting instinct in his ultra-sporty soul—lay in the fact that it would cost him only fifteen hundred dollars to try! Twelve hundred and seventy-five in preliminary payments, filing fees and notary's fees, and the balance in hotel bills, traveling expenses, etc.; but as an offset to his comparatively brilliant prospects of going hungry and ragged there was the dim, long chance that he might win millions, provided his venture should be attended with a fair percentage of supernatural luck. That was all Bob McGraw had to cheer him on to victory—a million-to-one chance; yet, such was his peculiar mental make-up, the terrific odds only proved an added attraction.



CHAPTER X

Now; in order to insure even perfunctory understanding of the procedure under which Bob McGraw planned to acquire his lands, and to give an inkling of the difficulties confronting him, it is necessary that the reader take a five-minute course in land law. This is regrettable, for it is a dry subject, even in the matter of swamp and overflow lands, so we shall endeavor to make the course as brief as possible.

Section sixteen and thirty-six in each township throughout the United States are commonly designated as "school lands," for the reason that the Federal government has ceded them to the various states, to be sold by the states for the use and benefit of their public school funds. School lands are open to purchase by any citizen of the United States, and in the case of California school lands the statutory price is one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre.

Now, frequently it happens that by reason of the inclusion of certain of these "school lands" in a Forest Reserve, a Reclamation District, an Indian Reservation, a National Park, a Government Military Reservation or an old Mexican grant (which latter condition obtains very frequently in California, where the titles to many huge grants still hold since the days of the Mexican occupation) they are lost to the state. In such cases, the Federal government reimburses the state suffering such loss of school lands, by extending to the state the privilege of selecting from the public lands within its borders an acreage corresponding to the acreage thus lost by reason of inclusion in a restricted area.

The lands thus selected from the public domain in exchange for school lands lost to the state, having been taken in lieu, thereof, are known as "state lieu lands," and the lands which were originally state school lands and which have been lost to the state by reason of their inclusion in some restricted area, are spoken of as the "basis" for the exchange.

If a citizen of the United States, duly qualified, desires to purchase state school lands at the statutory price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, he must file his application for a section, or such fraction thereof as he may desire, or be entitled to purchase, with the surveyor-general of the state, who is also ex-officio registrar of the State Land Office. If there are no school lands open for purchase at the time, naturally they cannot be purchased; but if, on the contrary, the state owns many sections of school lands which have been included in restricted areas, the surveyor-general will select for the applicant from the public domain such state lieu lands as the purchaser may desire. However, no such selection of lieu lands can be made by the surveyor-general unless there is a corresponding loss of school lands as the basis for the selection.

Now, this basis constituted the horns of a dilemma upon which Bob McGraw had once found himself impaled in an attempt to purchase three hundred and twenty acres of timbered land in the public domain—land which he knew would, in the course of a few years, become very valuable. Bob's restless nature would not permit of his taking up the claim under the homestead law, for that would entail residence on the property for more years than Bob could afford to remain away from his beloved desert; hence he decided to acquire it by purchase as state lieu land at a time when he knew there were no available school lands lying outside restricted areas. Mr. McGraw saw an attractive profit in purchasing at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre three hundred and twenty acres of timber worth fully fifty dollars per acre.

Thrilled, therefore, with most pleasurable anticipations, Mr. McGraw had duly filed his application for purchase of this particular half- section, under Section 3495 of the Political Code of the State of California. He knew that, owing to the recent extension of the Forest Reserve policy, thousands of acres of school lands had recently been lost to the state, and that therefore, under the law, there could be no legal hindrance to his purchase of lieu lands—particularly in view of the fact that there were several hundred thousand acres of government lands within the state from which to make his selection!

To Bob's surprise, his application for the purchase of lieu lands had been denied, under a ruling of the State Land Office—a ruling having absolutely no foundation under any section of legislative procedure— which stipulated that before the State Land Office could receive or grant an application for the purchase of lieu lands, the intending purchaser must first designate the basis of corresponding loss to the state of school lands.

"Bless my innocent soul," Mr. McGraw had murmured at the time, "what a curious rule! I had a notion that that was the surveyor-general's business, not mine. I had a notion that he was paid for compiling that information for the people, and not forcing them to compile it for themselves."

However, in no whit daunted by the prospect of a little research work, Bob had had recourse to the land maps in the office. To his surprise and chagrin he discovered that as fast as he brought to light a "basis" for his selection, he was informed, after some perfunctory investigation by the employees of the State Land Office that these bases had already been used! Eventually the light of reason began to sift through the fog of despair and suddenly Bob had a very brilliant idea.

"Euchred!" he muttered to himself. "I do not happen to possess the requisite amount of inside information and I have no means of obtaining it until I ascertain where it is for sale! The purpose of this ridiculous rule is to keep the rabble out of the public domain until some middleman gets a profit out of his information. I'll just give up for the time being and await results."

Bob did not have long to wait. Within a week he received a letter from an alleged land attorney, offering to locate him on state lieu lands worth fifty dollars per acre, in return for the trifling payment of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre to the state and the further trifling payment of ten dollars per acre to the purveyor of information respecting the necessary basis for the exchange!

At the time this procedure had struck Bob as rather humorous. He was an ardent admirer of genius wherever lie saw it, and even this exhibition of evil genius, which so adroitly deprived him of his constitutional right to the public domain without the payment of a middleman's profit, rather aroused his admiration. At the time he was not financially equipped to argue the matter calmly, clearly—and judicially, and he had no money to pay for "inside information." He only knew that the rule requiring applicants to designate the basis was an office-made rule and had no place in Mr. McGraw's copy of the Political Code of the State of California.

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the knave

caroled Bob, and charged the matter up to experience, not, however, without first storing the incident away in his nimble brain for future reference.

Now, while recovering from his wound at the Hat Ranch, Bob had brooded much over the difficulties which would without doubt assail him in his attempt to acquire his lands in Owens river valley; also he had figured out to his own satisfaction the exact method by which the land-grabber was enabled to grab; or, provided the grabber did not care to retain his grab, how he could nevertheless derive tremendous profits from his control of certain officials in the State Land Office. Therefore, after his day spent in the public law library in San Francisco, Bob's brain was primed with every detail of the land laws, and had confirmed his original interpretation of the land-grabbers' clever schemes to defraud. However, not satisfied with his own opinion, he decided to seek a little expert advice on the subject, and to that end he went the following morning to his father's old friend and his own former employer, Homer Dunstan, the corporation attorney, whom he knew to be an authority on land law.

He sent in his name by Dunstan's stenographer, and presently Dunstan appeared in the reception room. He welcomed his old friend's failure of a son in a manner which bespoke forced heartiness, for old sake's sake, and a preconceived impression that the ill-dressed, pale Bob McGraw had come to him to borrow money. They shook hands and stood for a moment looking at each other.

"Glad to see you again, Bobby, after all these years. You've grown. Where in the world have you been ranging since I saw you last?" Homer Dunstan was forcing an interest in Bob McGraw which he was far from feeling, and Bob was not insensible to this.

He grinned. "Drifting, Mr. Dunstan—just drifting. Mines and mining— mostly the latter; there's a difference, you know. It's my inheritance, Mr. Dunstan, despite all poor old dad did to make me follow in your footsteps. So I've quit bucking the inevitable and turned wanderer. Do you happen to be engaged with a client just now?"

"Well—no, not just this minute. Perhaps if you'll call—"

"No, I will not call later. My motto is 'Do it now.' Seeing that you're regularly in the business of dispensing legal advice, I'd like to take advantage of the ever-active present." He pulled from his hip pocket a tattered wallet and produced a hundred-dollar bill. "Mr. Dunstan, how much expert legal advice can you give me for that?"

Dunstan's manner underwent a swift metamorphosis. "Oh, put back your money, boy. I have an hour to spare this morning, and for your father's sake my advice to you will always be given gratis on Mondays and Fridays."

"Glad I called on Friday, even if it is an unlucky day. Your generosity knocks that superstition galley-west, so I'll take you at your word. Also I will gladly retain this century. To tell the truth I have urgent need of it for other things," and he followed Dunstan into the latter's private office. Dunstan indicated an easy chair and presented his ex- assistant with a fifty-cent cigar.

"Well, Bobby, my boy, what's on your soul this morning?"

"A very heavy weight, Mr. Dunstan. Desert land. Acres and acres of it."

"Any water?"

"Not yet."

"Any prospect?!"

"I have it bottled up, and it's all mine. Now I want the land."

"Well?"

"I want to acquire thirty-two thousand acres of state lieu land in Owens river valley, Mr. Dunstan."

"You cannot do it."

"Well, suppose there was a rule in the State Land Office which forced prospective purchasers of state lieu lands to first designate the basis of exchange before their applications would be received and filed. Suppose also that you wanted to turn crook and steal thirty-two thousand acres of lieu land, despite this rule. How would you go about it?"

The lawyer glanced at him keenly. "See here, son, I don't give that kind of advice to young fellows—or old fellows for that matter—even for money. I'm an honest corporation attorney, and stealing the public domain is illegal—and very, very risky."

"Don't worry, sir. When I have your advice, I will not follow it. Tell me how you would steal this land. It's a hypothetical question."

Dunstan smiled. "That's unfair—attacking a lawyer with a hypothetical question. It's rather hoisting him on his own petard, as it were. However, I'll answer it. In the first place, if I planned to go into the business of looting the public domain I would conspire with some prominent official of the State Land Office to institute such a rule."

"Good. Somebody conspired with a surveyor-general forty years ago and had such a rule instituted in the State Land Office. The state legislature, however, has never been asked to confirm that rule and spread it in black and white on the statute books."

"Well, having had such a rule instituted" continued Dunstan, "I would then have the public at a disadvantage. Through my friend in the land office I would have primary access to the field notes of the chief of staff in the field, and I would have advance information of where losses of school lands were soon to occur. In other words I would be in position to designate every basis of exchange of lost school lands for lieu lands, and the public would not. I'd give some weak brother say one hundred dollars to file on some lieu lands and use the basis which I would designate, and in the meantime I would hustle around, secure in the knowledge that I had the basis tied up. It would appear of record as used in the state land office. When I had secured a customer for the lieu land I had tied up with my dummy applicant, the dummy would abandon his filing in favor of my client, I would collect the difference between the statutory cost of the land and the price my client paid me for it, whack up with my friends in the land office and consider myself a smart business man."

Bob nodded. "I figured it out that way also. Now, suppose an outsider— myself, for instance—succeeded in getting his application filed without designating the basis for the exchange of lands, and the surveyor-general has issued me a receipt for my preliminary payment of twenty dollars on account of the purchase of the lieu land—what then? When he discovered I was an outsider, could he reject my application?"

"Well, he might try, Bob. But with his receipt in your possession, that would be bona-fide evidence of an implied contract of bargain and sale between you and the State of California. You could institute a mandamus suit and force him to make the selection of lieu lands for you."

"I figured it out that way" said Bob musingly. "The only rift in the surveyor-general's lute is the fact that while he has never yet bumped up against the right man, he is due to so bump in the very near future. However, Mr. Dunstan, I do not think our present surveyor-general is doing business with the land ring. I think the guilty man is one of his deputies through whom ninety-nine per cent of the office routine is transacted, and the land-grabbers have him under their thumbs."

"Then why not go direct to the surveyor-general with your troubles?" queried Dunstan.

Bob shook his head. "No hope in that direction. The office records show all bases used, and the deputy—the surveyor-general, in fact—can find defense for their arbitrary ruling in the matter of designation of the basis—by claiming that their office force is not large enough to permit of such extended search of the records; hence they turn their records over to the applicant of lieu lands and let him search for himself. The surveyor-general, being honest, will be hard to convince that his deputy is not—particularly since the deputy is probably an old friend."

"It's a peculiar condition" said Dunstan. "The worst that can happen to the deputy is to lose his job, the dummy entryman can abandon his filing at any time he may elect, and there is no law making it a felony to accept money in exchange for information—if you do not state where you acquired it. How are you going to stop this looting?"

"I'm not quite certain that I want it stopped—right away" said Bob, and grinned his lazy inscrutable smile. "I want to do a little grabbing myself, only I want to do it legally. I have a scheme worked out to do this, but I want you to confirm it. Just now you schemed out a plan to get public lands illegally, and you ought to be able to scheme a plan to get them legally, operating on the state lieu land basis. I want thirty-two thousand acres of desert land and the law only allows me a selection of six hundred and forty. I want to get this thirty-two thousand acres without corrupting any weakling in the employ of the state, without paying money to dummy entrymen, without designating the basis for the selection of my fifty sections, without antagonizing the land ring and without disturbing that rule of the State Land Office, can it be done?"

Dunstan frowned at his visitor. "Of course it cannot be done" he retorted sharply. "Why do you ask me such fool questions?"

"Because it might be done—with a little luck and some money."

Dunstan shook his head. "There is only one way for you to acquire desert land, Bob, without disturbing the rule in that land office. You'll have to file on a half-section only, under the Desert Land Law of the United States of America, paying twenty-five cents per acre down at the time of filing your application. Then you must place one-eighth of it under cultivation and produce a reasonably profitable crop. You must spend not less than, three dollars per acre in improvements, and convince the government that the entire tract, if not actually under irrigation, is at least susceptible to it. That accomplished, you can pay the balance of one dollar per acre due on the land, prove up and secure a patent. That's the only way you can secure desert lands without doing some of the things you wish to avoid doing."

Bob shook his head. "Too slow, too expensive and generally irritating. Why, I'd have to live on the land until I could prove up!"

"Well, then, Bobby boy, put your scruples behind you and pay somebody to live on it and prove up for you." "No use" mourned Bob. "I can see myself at the head of a long procession of desert-land enthusiasts, bound for McNeill's Island, and I'm too young to waste my youth making little rocks out of big ones. Even if the attorney-general didn't have me on the carpet, I'd have to ride herd on one hundred dummy entrymen with a Gatling gun, or else equip each one with an Oregon boot. My land lies in a devil's country and I don't think they'd stay. You see, Mr. Dunstan, were it not for that confounded rule I mentioned, I could purchase a full section of desert land in the public domain, under the provisions of the state lieu land law. Under that law the land would only cost me one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, while under the United Slates Desert Land Laws it would cost me not less than four dollars and a quarter per acre. Too much money for Bob McGraw. Now, Owens river valley is pure desert, Mr. Dunstan, and it lies, or will lie, very shortly, in the public domain. It is not agricultural land, neither is it coal-bearing nor timbered, so I can purchase it by the full section, which will only require fifty entrymen. Besides, there have never been any entries made heretofore in the section of the valley that I have my eye on, and I'd like to get my land in one strip without having it checker-boarded with adverse holdings."

Dunstan smiled a little wearily. "But we're not getting anywhere, Bob, my boy. You're simply wasting your breath. Just what nebulous idea for the acquisition of this desert land have you floating around in that red head of yours? Now, then, proposition Number One."

"I cannot oppose that rule. I must sneak my applications in and get them filed and secure a receipt, when I will be in position to force the attorney-general to make the selections for my clients."

"Oh, they're clients, eh?" said Dunstan. "I thought they were to be dummy entrymen."

"They are—but they don't know it—and not knowing it, they will not be committing a crime."

"Ignorance of the law excuses nobody, Robert. But proceed with proposition Number Two."

"My clients are to be paupers—so I must pay for the land which they will file upon. Hence I shall need money."

Homer Dunstan figured rapidly on a desk pad.

Notarial fees on fifty applications @ $ .50 $ 25.00 Filing fees " " " @ 5.00 250.00 First payment " " @ 20.00 1000.00 ___ Total, $1275.00

"It will take $1275 to start you off, Bob, presuming, for the sake of argument, that your filings are accepted—which, of course, they will not be."

"Oh, I have the twelve seventy-five, all right" said Bob confidently.

"Well, after your applications are passed to patent, you will have to put up $780 more for each section, or $39,000 in all. Have you provided for this additional sum?"

"Why, no sir. I was going to ask you to lend it to me."

"Indeed! Well, assume that I'm that soft-headed, Bobby, and proceed to proposition Number Three."

"Well, under the law, my applications must be acted upon within six months after filing. The surveyor-general must approve or disapprove them within six months, and if he approves them—"

"Which he will not" promptly interjected Dunstan.

"I'll sue him and make him. Well, when the applications are sent on to the Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington for his ratification of the exchange of the lieu lands, they may be hung up there a long time—years, perhaps—"

"Certainly. The land ring will see to that."

"Then, don't you see, Mr. Dunstan" said Bob, brightening, "I'll have lots of time to get that balance of $39,000 together."

"I'm so glad" said Homer Dunstan. "Then I won't have to lend you the money after all. Well, when you're an old man, Bobby, and that red head of yours is snowy white, your lands will be passed to patent and—"

"But the peculiar thing about this operation, Mr. Dunstan, lies in the fact that the land ring will readily ascertain my financial condition, and that of my clients—"

"In which event, my dear boy, your lands will be rushed to patent right away, you will be notified that they are waiting for you to pay the balance due on them within, thirty days, and if at the end of thirty days you do not pay that $39,000, your applications lapse automatically and your initial payment will be forfeited to the state as liquidated damages."

"I fear that is just what will happen. That is why I want to know if you are prepared to lend me $39,000 to call their bluff. I will assign you a half interest in a certain water-right which I possess, as security for the advance. My water-right is worth millions."

"It will have to be, if I am to consider your suggestion seriously. Get your fifty applications passed to patent first, however. Then see me, and I'll lend you the money you require, provided I find upon investigation that the security is ample. Is your water-right developed?"

"No, sir. I've just filed on it."

Dunstan permitted himself a very thin smile. "You're your father's son, Bob. You see visions and you'll die poor. I am firmly convinced that you're honest, but as firmly convinced that you're chasing a will-o'- the-wisp—so I hold out very little hope for you in the matter of that loan."

"But my water-right is good for ten times the amount" pleaded Bob desperately, and produced T. Morgan Carey's letter to bolster up his argument. "All I need is money to develop it."

"And in the meantime it's worth ten cents. Bob, you weary me."

"I'm sorry, sir. You're the only human being in this world that I can come to for help; and I never ask help of any man, unless I can pay him well for his trouble, And I think I can pay you well—I know I can."

Dunstan eyed him more kindly. "Your father was a visionary, Bob, only he looked the part. You do not. I have difficulty in convincing myself that you're insane; but surely, Bob, you must admit that no sane man would seriously consider your proposition. Tell me how you expect to induce fifty paupers to apply for land for you, to do it in good faith and be within the law, and yet hand the land over to you. Dang it, boy, the thing's impossible. You can't do it."

"I can" replied Bob McGraw doggedly. "I can."

"All right then, you do it. Put that trick over, Bob, and I'll take off my hat to you."

"You may keep your hat on your head. I want $39,000."

"Do the impossible and I'll give it to you—without security."

"Taken" said Bob McGraw. "I'll hold you to that, Mr. Dunstan. I'll simply round up fifty paupers, or their equivalent, with a constitutional right to purchase state lieu land and permit me to pay for it for them. Then after I have secured the land for them I will buy it back from them—"

Homer Dunstan roared with laughter. He pointed a bony finger at Bob McGraw.

"Young man, the right to purchase state lieu land is a strictly personal one and it is unlawful for one person to purchase for another. Of course you can buy it back, Bob, but the attorney-general will have a leg-iron on you before the ink is dry on your check. Transfer of title under such circumstances would be looked upon as bona-fide evidence of fraud, unless your clients could prove conclusively that they had parted with their lands for a valuable consideration—"

Bob McGraw in turn pointed his finger at Dunstan. "Ah, that's the weak point in the law, Mr. Dunstan" he exulted. "A valuable consideration. I can beat that. I'll give my clients ten dollars per acre for lands which cost them one dollar and a quarter, and there isn't a lawyer in the land—yourself included—who wouldn't consider that a valuable consideration."

"McGraw," said Dunstan rising impatiently, "you're a consummate ass! Where the devil do you expect to get $320,000 to buy their land from them? I suppose you think I'll help you with that, also. Your stupidity annoys me, Robert. Damme, sir, you're light in the upper story."

Bob McGraw laughed aloud. "I won't need it. All I shall ever ask of you is that first $39,000. The water I have bottled up in the Sierra will make the land worth three hundred dollars an acre. Don't you see where I can afford to pay ten dollars per acre for it?"

"You can't do business on gab, McGraw. Money makes the mare go, and you cannot induce fifty men to waste their constitutional right to lieu land on your bare word that your water-right will make a desert valuable. You'll have to take 'em down there, at your own expense, and show 'em—"

"Old maids in New England buy stocks in wild-cat prospect holes in Nevada. Do the promoters have to bring them out to see the holes?"

"Nobody but a fool or an idiot would listen to your crazy proposition, and fools and idiots are not qualified under the law to do anything except just live and try to avoid being run over by automobiles. But granted that you can do all these things, what are you going to do with your land when you get it?"

Bob McGraw stood up and leaned both brown hands on the edge of Homer Dunstan's desk. The genial mocking little smile was gone from his face now, for Dunstan's query had brought him back from the land of improbabilities into the realm of his most ardent day-dream. He raised his hand in unconscious imitation of every zealot that had preceded him down the ages; the light of the visionary who already sees the fulfillment of his dreams blazed in his big kind brown eyes.

"I'm going to give it to the lowly of the earth" he said. "I'm going to subdivide it into ten-acre farms, with a perpetual water-right with every farm. I'm going to build a town with a business block up each side of the main street. I'm going to install a hydro-electric plant that will carry a load of juice sufficient to light a city of a million inhabitants. I'm going to reclaim the desert and make it beautiful, and I'm going to have free light and free fuel and free local telephone service and free water and, by God! free people to live in my free country. I'm going to gather up a few thousand of the lowly and the hopeless in the sweat-shops of the big cities and bring them back to the land! Back to my land and my water that I'm going to hold in trust for them, the poor devils! Back where there won't be any poverty—where ten acres of Inyo desert with Inyo water on it will mean a fortune to every poor family I plant in my desert."

"Why?" demanded Homer Dunstan smiling.

"Why?" Bob McGraw echoed the attorney's query. He gazed at Dunstan stupidly. "Why, what a damn-fool question for you to ask, Mr. Dunstan! Isn't it right that we should look to the comfort of our helpless fellow-man? Isn't it right that we strong men should give of our strength to the weak? What in blue blazes are we living for in this enlightened day and generation if it isn't to do something that's worth while, and to leave behind us at the last something that hasn't got the American eagle stamped on it with the motto 'In God We Trust.' Ugh! How the good Lord must hate us for that copyrighted chunk of sophistry I It's a wonder He doesn't send His angels down to make us tend to business."

"Well, I'm not going to worry about it" retorted Dunstan crisply. "I'm too busy, and you're Johnny McGraw's boy Bob, so we won't quarrel about it. Good luck to you, old man. Get all the fun out of life that you possibly can—in your own way—and when you get your land and can show me, I'll take a $39,000 mortgage on it, at eight per cent. Now, good-by and get out. I'm a busy man."

Bob McGraw took up his big wide hat, shook hands with his father's old friend, and with heightened color withdrew. Out in the hall he paused long enough to swear; then, as suddenly, the old mocking cheerful inscrutable smile came sneaking back to his sun-tanned face, and he was at peace again. He had suddenly remembered that he was Bob McGraw, and he had faith in himself. He thought of Donna, waiting for him in lonely San Pasqual; he raised his hard brown fist, and in unconscious imitation of Paul Jones he cried aloud:

"I have not yet begun to fight!"



CHAPTER XI

It must have been a sublime faith in that homely adage that there are more ways of killing a cat than by choking him with butter which moved Bob McGraw to cudgel his nimble brain until he had discovered exactly how it would be possible for him to accomplish legally what every freebooter with an appraising eye on the public domain is troubled to accomplish illegally. The sole difference between Bob's projected course and that of his competitors' would be a slightly lessened profit; but after inventorying a free and easy conscience and posting it to the credit side of his profit and loss account, Bob knew that this apparent difference would dwindle until it would be scarcely perceptible.

Immediately after breakfast on the morning of the day following his interview with Homer Dunstan, Bob set to work to draw up the circular letter and contract form, to be submitted later to his prospective clients. In about fifteen minutes he had outlined the following:

THE PROPOSITION IS THIS

I have information of some state lieu lands which I believe can be taken up under the State laws at $1.25 per acre. The right to buy them will very probably have to be established and enforced by legal proceedings.

Now, this right to purchase state lieu lands is a limited personal right. (See Political Code, Section 3495, et seq.) I am willing to try to make YOUR right good to a tract of this land, under the conditions of the contract herewith. I am willing to stand the expenses of suit to enforce your right, and to advance for you the legal fees and the first preliminary payment to the state, on the chance of being able to secure you something sufficiently valuable to justify you in paying me the fee provided for in the contract. Read the contract carefully and note that you retain the right to cancel it and relieve yourself of all obligation in the matter by abandoning your claim to the land.

READ THE CONTRACT CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU SIGN IT. BE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND JUST WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

ROBERT MCGRAW.

"That looks like fair warning" mused Mr. McGraw, as he reread this document. "I defy any man to look between the lines and scent my hocus- pocus game."

Bob next proceeded to draw up the contract. It was a simple contract, framed in language that could not fail of comprehension by the dullest mind. For and in consideration of the sum of one dollar, the receipt whereof was duly acknowledged, Bob McGraw agreed to furnish, his applicants for land with certain valuable information, whereby the applicant would be enabled to file, or tender his application for, certain state lieu lands, "bounded and particularly described as follows:" (Here he left a space sufficient for the insertion, at a later date, of the exact description of the lands he desired; the descriptions he would glean from maps of the valley on sale in the United States Land Office in San Francisco.)