Orde ruminated over this for some time, sipping slowly between puffs at his cigar.

"Why wouldn't it be better to take him out to California now?" he asked at length. "You'll be building your roads and flumes and railroad, getting your mill up, buying your machinery and all the rest of it. That ought to be good experience for him—to see the thing right from the beginning."

"Bob is going to be a lumberman, and that isn't lumbering; it's construction. Once it's up, it will never have to be done again. The California timber will last out Bob's lifetime, and you know it. He'd better learn lumbering, which he'll do for the next fifty years, than to build a mill, which he'll never have to do again—unless it burns up," he added as a half-humorous afterthought.

"Correct," Orde agreed promptly to this. "You're a wonder. When I found a university with my ill-gotten gains, I'll give you a job as professor of—well, of Common Sense, by jiminy!"



XX

Bob managed to lose some money in his two years of apprenticeship. That is to say, the net income from the small operations under his charge was somewhat less than it would have been under Welton's supervision. Even at that, the balance sheet showed a profit. This was probably due more to the perfection of the organization than to any great ability on Bob's part. Nevertheless, he exercised a real control over the firm's destinies, and in one or two instances of sudden crisis threw its energies definitely into channels of his own choosing. Especially was this true in dealing with the riverman's arch-enemy, the mossback.

The mossback follows the axe. When the timber is cut, naturally the land remains. Either the company must pay taxes on it, sell it, or allow it to revert to the state. It may be very good land, but it is encumbered with old slashing, probably much of it needs drainage, a stubborn second-growth of scrub oak or red willows has already usurped the soil, and above all it is isolated. Far from the cities, far from the railroad, far even from the crossroad's general store, it is further cut off by the necessity of traversing atrocious and—in the wet season—bottomless roads to even the nearest neighbour. Naturally, then, in seeking purchasers for this cut-over land, the Company must address itself to a certain limited class. For, if a man has money, he will buy him a cleared farm in a settled country. The mossback pays in pennies and gives a mortgage. Then he addresses himself to clearing the land. It follows that he is poverty-stricken, lives frugally and is very tenacious of what property rights he may be able to coax or wring from a hard wilderness. He dwells in a shack, works in a swamp, and sees no farther than the rail fence he has split out to surround his farm.

Thus, while he possesses many of the sturdy pioneer virtues, he becomes by necessity the direct antithesis to the riverman. The purchase of a bit of harness, a vehicle, a necessary tool or implement is a matter of close economy, long figuring, and much work. Interest on the mortgage must be paid. And what can a backwoods farm produce worth money? And where can it find a market? Very little; and very far. A man must "play close to his chest" in order to accomplish that plain, primary, simple duty of making both ends meet. The extreme of this virtue means a defect, of course; it means narrowness of vision, conservatism that comes close to suspicion, illiberality. When these qualities meet the sometimes foolishly generous and lavish ideas of men trained in the reckless life of the river, almost inevitably are aroused suspicion on one side, contempt on the other and antagonism on both.

This is true even in casual and chance intercourse. But when, as often happens, the mossback's farm extends to the very river bank itself; when the legal rights of property clash with the vaguer but no less certain rights of custom, then there is room for endless bickering. When the river boss steps between his men and the backwoods farmer, he must, on the merits of the case and with due regard to the sort of man he has to deal with, decide at once whether he will persuade, argue, coerce, or fight. It may come to be a definite choice between present delay or a future lawsuit.

This kind of decision Bob was most frequently called upon to make. He knew little about law, but he had a very good feeling for the human side. Whatever mistakes he made, the series of squabbles nourished his sense of loyalty to the company. His woods training was gradually bringing him to the lumberman's point of view; and the lumberman's point of view means, primarily, timber and loyalty.

"By Jove, what a fine bunch of timber!" was his first thought on entering a particularly imposing grove.

Where another man would catch merely a general effect, his more practised eye would estimate heights, diameters, the growth of the limbs, the probable straightness of the grain. His eye almost unconsciously sought the possibilities of location—whether a road could be brought in easily, whether the grades could run right. A fine tree gave him the complicated pleasure that comes to any expert on analytical contemplation of any object. It meant timber, good or bad, as well as beauty.

Just so opposition meant antagonism. Bob was naturally of a partisan temperament. He played the game fairly, but he played it hard. Games imply rules, and any infraction of the rules is unfair and to be punished. Bob could not be expected to reflect that while rules are generally imposed by a third party on both contestants alike, in this game the rules with which he was acquainted had been made by his side; that perhaps the other fellow might have another set of rules. All he saw was that the antagonists were perpetrating a series of contemptible, petty, mean tricks or a succession of dastardly outrages. His loyalty and anger were both thoroughly aroused, and he plunged into his little fights with entire whole-heartedness. As his side of the question meant getting out the logs, the combination went far toward efficiency. When the drive was down in the spring, Bob looked back on his mossback campaign with a little grieved surprise that men could think it worth their self-respect to try to take such contemptible advantage of quibbles for the purpose of defeating what was certainly customary and fair, even if it might not be technically legal. What the mossbacks thought about it we can safely leave to the crossroad stores.

In other respects Bob had the good sense to depend absolutely on his subordinates.

"How long do you think it ought to take to cut the rest of Eight?" he would ask Tally.

"About two weeks."

Bob said nothing more, but next day he ruminated long in the snow-still forest at Eight, trying to apportion in his own mind the twelve days' work. If it did not go at a two weeks' gait, he speedily wanted to know why.

When the sleighs failed to return up the ice road with expected regularity, Bob tramped down to the "banks" to see what the trouble was. When he returned, he remarked casually to Jim Tally:

"I fired Powell off the job as foreman, and put in Downy."

"Why?" asked Tally. "I put Powell in there because I thought he was an almighty good worker."

"He is," said Bob; "too good. I found them a little short-handed down there, and getting discouraged. The sleighs were coming in on them faster than they could unload. The men couldn't see how they were going to catch up, so they'd slacked down a little, which made it worse. Powell had his jacket off and was working like the devil with a canthook. He does about the quickest and hardest yank with a canthook I ever saw," mused Bob.

"Well?" demanded Tally.

"Oh," said Bob, "I told him if that was the kind of a job he wanted, he could have it. And I told Downy to take charge. I don't pay a foreman's wages for canthook work; I hire him to keep the men busy, and he sure can't do it if he occupies his time and attention rolling logs."

"He was doing his best to straighten things out," said Tally.

"Well, I'm now paying him for his best," replied Bob, philosophically.

But if it had been a question of how most quickly to skid the logs brought in by the sleighs, Bob would never have dreamed of questioning Powell's opinion, although he might later have demanded expert corroboration from Tally.

The outdoor life, too, interested him and kept him in training, both physically and spiritually. He realized his mistakes, but they were now mistakes of judgment rather than of mechanical accuracy, and he did not worry over them once they were behind him.

When Welton returned from California toward the close of the season, he found the young man buoyant and happy, deeply absorbed, well liked, and in a fair way to learn something about the business.

Almost immediately after his return, the mill was closed down. The remaining lumber in the yards was shipped out as rapidly as possible. By the end of September the work was over.

Bob perforce accepted a vacation of some months while affairs were in preparation for the westward exodus.

Then he answered a summons to meet Mr. Welton at the Chicago offices.

He entered the little outer office he had left so down-heartedly three years before. Harvey and his two assistants sat on the high stools in front of the shelf-like desk. The same pictures of record loads, large trees, mill crews and logging camps hung on the walls. The same atmosphere of peace and immemorial quiet brooded over the place. Through the half-open door Bob could see Mr. Fox, his leg swung over the arm of his revolving chair, chatting in a leisurely fashion with some visitor.

No one had heard him enter. He stood for a moment staring at the three bent backs before him. He remembered the infinite details of the work he had left, the purchasings of innumerable little things, the regulation of outlays, the balancings of expenditures, the constantly shifting property values, the cost of tools, food, implements, wages, machinery, transportation, operation. And in addition he brought to mind the minute and vexatious mortgage and sale and rental business having to do with the old cut-over lands; the legal complications; the questions of arbitration and privilege. And beyond that his mind glimpsed dimly the extent of other interests, concerning which he knew little—investment interests, and silent interests in various manufacturing enterprises where the Company had occasionally invested a surplus by way of a flyer. In this quiet place all these things were correlated, compared, docketed, and filed away. In the brains of the four men before him all these infinite details were laid out in order. He knew that Harvey could answer specific questions as to any feature of any one of these activities. All the turmoil, the rush and roar of the river, the mills, the open lakes, the great wildernesses passed through this silent, dusty room. The problems that kept a dozen men busy in the solving came here also, together with a hundred others. Bob recalled his sight of the hurried, wholesale shipping clerk he had admired when, discouraged and discredited, he had left the office three years before. He had thought that individual busy, and had contrasted his activity with the somnolence of this office. Busy! Why, he, Bob, had over and over again been ten times as busy. At the thought he chuckled aloud. Harvey and his assistants turned to the sound.

"Hullo, Harvey; hullo Archie!" cried the young man. "I'm certainly glad to see you. You're the only men I ever saw who could be really bang-up rushed and never show it."



PART TWO



I

On a wintry and blustering evening in the latter part of February, 1902, Welton and Bob boarded the Union Pacific train en route for California. They distributed their hand baggage, then promptly took their way forward to the buffet car, where they disposed themselves in the leather-and-wicker armchairs for a smoke. At this time of year the travel had fallen off somewhat in volume. The westward tourist rush had slackened, and the train was occupied only by those who had definite business in the Land of Promise, and by that class of wise ones who realize that an Eastern March and April are more to be avoided than the regulation winter months. The smoking car contained then but a half-dozen men.

Welton and Bob took their places and lit their cigars. The train swayed gently along, its rattle muffled by the storm. Polished black squares represented the windows across which drifted hazy lights and ghostlike suggestions of snowflakes. Bob watched this ebony nothingness in great idleness of spirit. Presently one of the half-dozen men arose from his place, walked the length of the car, and dropped into the next chair.

"You're Bob Orde, aren't you?" he remarked without preliminary.

Bob looked up. He saw before him a very heavy-set young man, of medium height, possessed of a full moon of a face, and alert brown eyes.

"I thought so," went on this young man in answer to Bob's assent. "I'm Baker of '93. You wouldn't know me; I was before your time. But I know you. Seen you play. Headed for the Sunshine and Flowers?"

"Yes," said Bob.

"Ever been there before?"

"No."

"Great country! If you listen to all the come-on stuff you may be disappointed—at first."

"How's that?" asked Bob, highly amused. "Isn't the place what it's cracked up to be?"

"It's more," asserted Baker, "but not the same stuff. The climate's bully—best little old climate they've made, up to date—but it's got to rain once in a while; and the wind's got to blow; and all that. If you believe the Weather in the Old Home column, you'll be sore. In two years you'll be sore, anyway, whenever it does anything but stand 55 at night, 72 at noon and shine like the spotlight on the illustrated songster. If a Californian sees a little white cloud about as big as a toy balloon down in the southeast corner he gets morose as a badger. If it starts to drizzle what you'd call a light fog he holes up. When it rains he hibernates like a bear, and the streets look like one of these populous and thriving Aztec metropoli you see down Sonora way. I guess every man is privileged to get just about so sore on the weather wherever he is—and does so."

"You been out there long?" asked Bob.

"Ever since I graduated," returned Baker promptly, "and I wouldn't live anywhere else. They're doing real things. Don't you run away with any notions of dolce far nientes or tropical languor. This California gang is strictly on the job. The bunch seated under the spreading banana tree aren't waiting for the ripe fruit to drop in their mouths. That's in the First Reader and maybe somewhere down among the Black and Tans—"

"Black and Tans?" interrupted Bob with a note of query.

"Yep. Oilers—greasers—Mexicans—hidalgos of all kinds from here to the equator," explained Baker. "No, sir, that gang under the banana tree are either waiting there to sandbag the next tourist and sell him some real estate before he comes to, or else they're figuring on uprooting said piffling shrub and putting up an office building. Which part of the country are you going to?"

"Near White Oaks," said Bob.

"No abalone shells for yours, eh?" remarked Baker cryptically. He glanced at Welton. "Where's your timber located?" he asked.

"Near Granite," replied Bob;—"why, how the devil did you know we were out for timber?"

"'How did the Master Mind solve that problem?'" asked Baker. "Ah, that's my secret!"

"No, that doesn't go," said Bob. "I insist on knowing; and what was that abalone shell remark?"

"Abalone shells—tourists," capitulated Baker; "also Mexican drawn work, bead belts, burned leather, fake turquoise and ostrich eggs. Sabe?"

"Sure. But why not a tourist?"

"Tourist—in White Oaks!" cried Baker. "Son, White Oaks raises raisins and peaches and apricots and figs and such things in quantities to stagger you. It is a nice, well-built city, and well conducted, and full of real estate boards and chambers of commerce. But it is not framed up for tourists, and it knows it. Not at 100 degrees Fahrenheit 'most all summer, and a chill and solemn land fog 'most all winter."

"Well, why timber?" demanded Bob.

"My dear Watson," said Baker, indicating Mr. Welton, who grinned. "Does your side partner resemble a raisin raiser? Has he the ear marks of a gentle agriculturist? Would you describe him as a typical sheepman, or as a daring and resolute bee-keeper?"

Bob shook his head, still unconvinced.

"Well, if you will uncover my dark methods," sighed Baker. He leaned over and deftly abstracted from the breast pocket of Bob's coat a long, narrow document. "You see the top of this stuck out in plain sight. To the intelligent eye instructed beyond the second grade of our excellent school system the inscription cannot be mistaken." He held it around for Bob to see. In plain typing the document was endorsed as follows:

"Granite County Timber Lands."

"My methods are very subtle," said Baker, laughing. "I find it difficult to explain them. Come around sometime and I'll pick it out for you on the piano."

"Where are you going?" asked Bob in his turn.

"Los Angeles, on business."

"On business?—or just buying abalone shells?"

"It takes a millionaire or an Iowa farmer to be a tourist," replied Baker.

"What are you doing?"

"Supporting an extravagant wife, I tell Mrs. Baker. You want to get down that way. The town's a marvel. It's grown from thirty thousand to two hundred thousand in twenty years; it has enough real estate subdivisions to accommodate eight million; it has invented the come-on house built by the real estate agents to show how building is looking up at Lonesomehurst; it has two thousand kinds of architecture—all different; it has more good stuff and more fake stuff than any place on earth—it's a wonder. Come on down and I'll show you the high buildings."

He chatted for a few moments, then rose abruptly and disappeared down the aisle toward the sleeping cars without the formality of a farewell.

Welton had been listening amusedly, and puffing away at his cigar in silence.

"Well," said he when Baker had gone. "How do you like your friend?"

"He's certainly amusing," laughed Bob, "and mighty good company. That sort of a fellow is lots of fun. I've seen them many times coming back at initiation or Commencement. They are great heroes to the kids."

"But not to any one else?" inquired Welton.

"Well—that's about it," Bob hesitated. "They're awfully good fellows, and see the joke, and jolly things up; but they somehow don't amount to much."

"Wouldn't think much of the scheme of trying Baker as woods foreman up in our timber, then?" suggested Welton.

"Him? Lord, no!" said Bob, surprised.

Welton threw back his head and laughed heartily, in great salvos.

"Ho! ho! ho!" he shouted. "Oh, Bobby, I wish any old Native Son could be here to enjoy this joke with me. Ho! ho! ho! ho!"

The coloured porter stuck his head in to see what this tremendous rolling noise might be, grinned sympathetically, and withdrew.

"What's the matter with you!" cried Bob, exasperated. "Shut up, and be sensible."

Welton wiped his eyes.

"That, son, is Carleton P. Baker. Just say Carleton P. Baker to a Californian."

"Well, I can't, for four days, anyway. Who is he?"

"Didn't find out from him, for all his talk, did you?" said Welton shrewdly. "Well, Baker, as he told you, graduated from college in '93. He came to California with about two thousand dollars of capital and no experience. He had the sense to go in for water rights, and here he is!"

"Marvellous!" cried Bob sarcastically. "But what is he now that he is here?"

"Head of three of the biggest power projects in California," said Welton impressively, "and controller of more potential water power than any other man or corporation in the state."

Welton enjoyed his joke hugely. After Bob had turned in, the big man parted the curtains to his berth.

"Oh, Bob," he called guardedly.

"What!" grunted the young man, half-asleep.

"Who do you think we'd better get for woods foreman just in case Baker shouldn't take the job?"



II

All next day the train puffed over the snow-blown plains. There was little in the prospect, save an inspiration to thankfulness that the cars were warm and comfortable. Bob and Welton spent the morning going over their plans for the new country. After lunch, which in the manner of trans-continental travellers they stretched over as long a period as possible, they again repaired to the smoking car. Baker hailed them jovially, waving a stubby forefinger at vacant seats.

"Say, do Populists grow whiskers, or do whiskers make Populists?" he demanded.

"Give it up," replied Welton promptly. "Why?"

"Because if whiskers make Populists, I don't blame this state for going Pop. A fellow'd have to grow some kind of natural chest protector in self-defence. Look at that snow! And thirty dollars will take you out where there's none of it, and the soil's better, and you can see something around you besides fresh air. Why, any one of these poor pinhead farmers could come out our way, get twenty acres of irrigated land, and in five years—"

"Hold on!" cried Bob, "you haven't by any chance some of that real estate for sale—or a sandbag?"

Baker laughed.

"Everybody gets that way," said he. "I'll bet the first five men you meet will fill you up on statistics."

He knew the country well, and pointed out in turn the first low rises of the prairie swell, and the distant Rockies like a faint blue and white cloud close down along the horizon. Bob had never seen any real mountains before, and so was much interested. The train laboured up the grades, steep to the engine, but insignificant to the eye; it passed through the canons to the broad central plateau. The country was broken and strange, with its wide, free sweeps, its sage brush, its stunted trees, but it was not mountainous as Bob had conceived mountains. Baker grinned at him.

"Snowclad peaks not up to specifications?" he inquired. "Chromos much better? Mountain grandeur somewhat on the blink? Where'd you expect them to put a railroad—out where the scenery is? Never mind. Wait till you slide off 'Cape Horn' into California."

The cold weather followed them to the top of the Sierras. Snow, dull clouds, mists and cold enveloped the train. Miles of snowsheds necessitated keeping the artificial light burning even at midday. Winter held them in its grip.

Then one morning they rounded the bold corner of a high mountain. Far below them dropped away the lesser peaks, down a breathless descent. And from beneath, so distant as to draw over themselves a tender veil of pearl gray, flowed out foothills and green plains. The engine coughed, shut off the roar of her exhaust. The train glided silently forward.

"Now come to the rear platform," Baker advised.

They sat in the open air while the train rushed downward. From the great drifts they ran to the soft, melting snow, then to the mud and freshness of early spring. Small boys crowded early wild-flowers on them whenever they stopped at the small towns built on the red clay. The air became indescribably soft and balmy, full of a gentle caress. At the next station the children brought oranges. A little farther the foothill ranches began to show the brightness of flowers. The most dilapidated hovel was glorified by splendid sprays of red roses big as cabbages. Dooryards of the tiniest shacks blazed with red and yellow. Trees and plants new to Bob's experience and strangely and delightfully exotic in suggestion began to usurp the landscape. To the far Northerner, brought up in only a common-school knowledge of olive trees, palms, eucalyptus, oranges, banana trees, pomegranates and the ordinary semi-tropical fruits, there is something delightful and wonderful in the first sight of them living and flourishing in the open. When closer investigation reveals a whole series of which he probably does not remember ever to have heard, he feels indeed an explorer in a new and wonderful land. After a few months these things become old stories. They take their places in his cosmos as accustomed things. He is then at some pains to understand his visitor's extravagant interest and delight over loquats, chiramoyas, alligator pears, tamarinds, guavas, the blooming of century plants, the fruits of chollas and the like. Baker pointed out some of these things to Bob.

"Winter to summer in two jumps and a hop," said he. "The come-on stuff rings the bell in this respect, anyway. Smell the air: it's real air. 'Listen to the mocking bird.'"

"Seriously or figuratively?" asked Bob. "I mean, is that a real mocking bird?"

"Surest thing you know," replied Baker as the train moved on, leaving the songster to his ecstasies. "They sing all night out here. Sounds fine when you haven't a grouch. Then you want to collect a brick and drive the darn fowl off the reservation."

"I never saw one before outside a cage," said Bob.

"There's lots of things you haven't seen that you're going to see, now you've got out to the Real Thing," said Baker. "Why, right in your own line: you don't know what big pine is. Wait till you see the woods out here. We've got the biggest trees, and the biggest mountains, and the biggest crops and the biggest—."

"Liars," broke in Bob, laughing. "Don't forget them."

"Yes, the biggest liars, too," agreed Baker. "A man's got to lie big out here to keep in practice so he can tell the plain truth without straining himself."

Before they changed cars to the Valley line, Baker had a suggestion to make.

"Look here," said he, "why don't you come and look at the tall buildings? You can't do anything in the mountains yet, and when you get going you'll be too busy to see California. Come, make a pasear. Glad to show you the sights. Get reckless. Take a chance. Peruse carefully your copy of Rules for Rubes and try it on."

"Go ahead," said Welton, unexpectedly.



III

Bob went on to Los Angeles with the sprightly Baker. At first glance the city seemed to him like any other. Then, as he wandered its streets, the marvel and vigour and humour of the place seized on him.

"Don't you suppose I see the joke?" complained Baker at the end of one of their long trolley rides. "Just get onto that house; it looks like a mission-style switch engine. And the one next to it, built to shed snow. Funny! sure it's funny. But you ain't talking to me! It's alive! Those fellows wanted something different from anybody else—so does everybody. After they'd used up the regular styles, they had to make 'em up out of the fresh air. But anyway, they weren't satisfied just to copy Si Golosh's idea of a Noah's Ark chicken coop."

They stopped opposite very elaborate and impressive iron gates opening across a graded street. These gates were supported by a pair of stone towers crowned with tiles. A smaller pair of towers and gates guarded the concrete sidewalk. As a matter of fact, all these barriers enclosed nothing, for even in the remote possibility that the inquiring visitor should find them shut, an insignificant detour would circumvent their fenceless flanks.

"Maudsley Court," Bob read sculptured on one of the towers.

"That makes this particular subdivision mighty exclusive," grinned Baker. "Now if you were a homeseeker wouldn't you love to bring your dinner pail back to the cawstle every night?"

Bob peered down the single street. It was graded, guttered and sidewalked. A small sentry box labelled "office," and inscribed with glowing eulogiums, occupied a strategic position near the gates. From this house Bob immediately became aware of close scrutiny by a man half concealed by the indoor dimness.

"The spider," said Baker. "He's onto us big as a house. He can spot a yap at four hundred yards' range, and you bet they don't get much nearer than that alone."

A huge sign shrieked of Maudsley Court. "Get a grin!" was its first advice.

"They all try for a catchword—every one of 'em," explained Baker. "You'll see all kinds in the ads; some pretty good, most of 'em rotten."

"They seem to have made a start, anyway," observed Bob, indicating a new cottage half way down the street. It was a super-artistic structure, exhibiting the ends of huge brown beams at all points. Baker laughed.

"That's what it's intended to seem," said he. "That's the come-on house. It's built by the spider. It's stick-um for the flies. 'This is going to be a high-brow proposition,' says the intending purchaser; 'look at the beautiful house already up. I must join this young and thriving colony.' Hence this settled look."

He waved his hand abroad. Dotted over the low, rounded hills of the charming landscapes were new and modern bungalows. They were spaced widely, and each was flanked by an advertising board and guarded by a pair of gates shutting their private thoroughfares from the country highways. Between them showed green the new crops.

"Nine out of ten come-on houses," said Baker, "and all exclusive. If you can't afford iron gates, you can at least put up a pair of shingled pillars. It's the game."

"Will these lots ever be sold?" asked Bob.

"Out here, yes," replied Baker. "That's part of the joke. The methods are on the blink, but the goods insist on delivering themselves. Most of these fellows are just bunks or optimists. All hands are surprised when things turn out right. But if all the lots are ever sold, Los Angeles will have a population of five million."

They boarded an inward-bound trolley. Bob read the devices as they flashed past. "Hill-top Acres," he read near a street plastered against an apparently perpendicular hill. "Buy before the rise!" advised this man's rival at its foot. The true suburbs strung by in a panorama of strange little houses—imitation Swiss chalets jostling bastard Moorish, cobblestones elbowing plaster—a bewildering succession of forced effects. Baker caught Bob's expression.

"These are workingmen's and small clerks' houses," he said quietly. "Pretty bad, eh? But they're trying. Remember what they lived in back East."

Bob recalled the square, painted, ugly, featureless boxes built all after the same pattern of dreariness. He looked on this gay bewilderment of bad taste with more interest.

"At least they're taking notice," said Baker, lighting his pipe. "And every fellow raises some kind of posies."

A few moments later they plunged into the vortex of the city and the smiling country, the far plains toward the sea, and the circle of the mountains were lost. Only remained overhead the blue of the California sky.

Baker led the way toward a blaring basement restaurant.

"I'm beginning to feel that I'll have to find some monkey-food somewhere, or cash in," said he.

They found a table and sat down.

"This is the place to see all the sights," proffered Baker, his broad face radiating satisfaction. "When they strike it rich on the desert, they hike right in here. That fat lady thug yonder is worth between three and four millions. Eight months ago she did washing at two bits a shirt while her husband drove a one-man prospect shaft. The other day she blew into the big jewelry store and wanted a thirty-thousand-dollar diamond necklace. The boss rolled over twice and wagged his tail. 'Yes, madam,' said he; 'what kind?' 'I dunno; just a thirty-thousand-dollar one.' That's all he could get out of her. 'But tell me how you want 'em set,' he begged. She looked bewildered. 'Oh, set 'em so they'll jingle,' says she."

After the meal they walked down the principal streets, watching the crowd. It was a large crowd, as though at busy midday, and variously apparelled, from fur coat to straw hat. Each extreme of costume seemed justified, either by the balmy summer-night effect of the California open air, or by the hint of chill that crept from the distant mountains. Either aspect could be welcomed or ignored by a very slight effort of the will. Electric signs blazed everywhere. Bob was struck by the numbers of clairvoyants, palm readers, Hindu frauds, crazy cults, fake healers, Chinese doctors, and the like thus lavishly advertised. The class that elsewhere is pressed by necessity to the inexpensive dinginess of back streets, here blossomed forth in truly tropical luxuriance. Street vendors with all sorts of things, from mechanical toys to spot eradicators, spread their portable lay-outs at every corner. Vacant lots were crowded with spielers of all sorts—religious or political fanatics, vendors of cure-alls, of universal tools, of marvelous axle grease, of anything and everything to catch the idle dollar. Brilliantly lighted shops called the passer-by to contemplate the latest wavemotor, flying machine, door check, or what-not. Stock in these enterprises was for sale—and was being sold! Other sidewalk booths, like those ordinarily used as dispensaries of hot doughnuts and coffee, offered wild-cat mining shares, oil stock and real estate in some highly speculative suburb. Great stores of curios lay open to the tourist trade. Here one could buy sheepskin Indian moccasins made in Massachusetts, or abalone shells, or burnt-leather pillows, or a whole collection of photographic views so minute that they could all be packed in a single walnut shell. Next door were shops of Japanese and Chinese goods presided over by suave, sleepy-eyed Orientals, in wonderful brocade, wearing the close cap with the red coral button atop. Shooting galleries spit spitefully. Gasolene torches flared.

Baker strolled along, his hands in his pockets, his hat on the back of his head. From time to time he cast an amused glance at his companion.

"Come in here," he said abruptly.

Bob found himself comfortably seated in a commodious open-air theatre, watching an excellent vaudeville performance. He enjoyed it thoroughly, for it was above the average. In fifteen minutes, however, the last soubrette disappeared in the wings to the accompaniment of a swirl of music. Her place was taken by a tall, facetious-looking, bald individual, clad in a loose frock coat. He held up his hand for silence.

"Ladies 'n' gentlemen," he drawled, "we hope you have enjoyed yourselves. If you find a better show than this in any theatre in town, barring the Orpheum, come and tell us about it and we will see what we can do to brace ours up. I don't believe you can. This show will be repeated every afternoon and evening, with complete change of programme twice a week. Go away and tell your friends about the great free show down on Spring Street. Just tell them about it."

Bob glanced startled at his companion. Baker was grinning.

"This show has cost us up to date," went on the leisurely drawl, "just twenty-eight hundred dollars. Go and tell your friends that. But"—he suddenly straightened his figure and his voice became more incisive—"that is not enough. We have decided to give you something real to talk about. We have decided to give every man, woman and child in this vast audience a first-night present of Two Silver Dollars!"

Bob could feel an electric thrill run through the crowd, and every one sat up a little straighter in his chair.

"Let me see," the orator went on, running his eye over the audience. He had resumed his quieter manner. "There are perhaps seven hundred people present. That would make fourteen hundred dollars. By the way, John," he addressed some one briskly. "Close the gates and lock them. We don't want anybody in on this who didn't have interest enough in our show to come in the first place." He winked humorously at the crowd, and several laughed.

"Pretty rotten, eh?" whispered Baker admiringly. "Fixed 'em so they won't bolt when the show's over and before he works off his dope."

"These Two Silver Dollars, which I want you all to get, are in these hampers. Six little boys will distribute them. Come up, boys, and get each a hatful of dollars." The six solemnly marched up on the stage and busied themselves with the hampers. "While we are waiting," went on the orator, "I will seize the opportunity to present to you the world-famed discoverer of that wonderful anaesthetic, Oxodyne, Painless Porter."

At the words a dapper little man in immaculately correct evening dress, and carrying a crush hat under his arm, stepped briskly from the wings. He was greeted by wild but presumably manufactured applause. He bowed rigidly from the hips, and at once began to speak in a high and nasal but extremely penetrating voice.

"As far as advertising is concerned," he began without preamble, "it is entirely unnecessary that I give this show. There is no man, woman or child in this marvellous commonwealth of ours who is not familiar with the name of Painless Porter, whether from the daily papers, the advertising boards, the street cars, or the elegant red brougham in which I traverse your streets. My work for you is my best advertisement. It is unnecessary from that point of view that I spend this money for this show, or that this extra money should be distributed among you by my colleague, Wizard Walker, the Medical Marvel of Modern Times."

The tall man paused from his business with the hampers and the six boys to bow in acknowledgment.

"No, ladies 'n' gentlemen, my purpose is higher. In the breast of each human being is implanted an instinctive fear of Pain. It sits on us like a nightmare, from the time we first come to consciousness of our surroundings. It is a curse of humanity, like drink, and he who can lighten that curse is as much of a philanthropist as George W. Childs or Andrew Carnegie. I want you to go away and talk about me. It don't matter what you say, just so you say something. You can call me quack, you may call me fakir, you may call me charlatan—but be sure to call me SOMETHING! Then slowly the news will spread abroad that Pain is banished, and I can smile in peace, knowing that my vast expenditures of time and money have not been in vain, and that I have been a benefit to humanity. Wizard Walker, the Medical Marvel of Modern Times, will now attend to the distribution, after which I will pull a few teeth gratis in order to demonstrate to you the wonderful merits of Oxodyne."

"A dentist!" gasped Bob.

"Yup," said Baker. "Not much gasoline-torch-on-the-back-lot in his, is there?"

Bob was hardly surprised, after much preamble and heightening of suspense, to find that the Two Silver Dollars turned out finally to be a pink ticket and a blue ticket, "good respectively at the luxurious offices for one dollar's worth of dental and medical attention FREE."

Nor was he more than slightly astounded when the back drop rose to show the stage set glitteringly with nickel-mounted dentist chairs and their appurtenances, with shining glass, white linen, and with a chorus of fascinating damsels dressed as trained nurses and standing rigidly at attention. Then entered Painless himself, in snowy shirt-sleeves and serious professional preoccupation. Volunteers came up two by two. Painless explained obscurely the scientific principles on which the marvelous Oxodyne worked—by severing temporarily but entirely all communication between the nerves and the brain. Then much business with a very glittering syringe.

"My lord," chuckled Baker, "if he fills that thing up, it'll drown her!"

In an impressive silence Painless flourished the forceps, planted himself square in front of his patient, heaved a moment, and triumphantly held up in full view an undoubted tooth. The trained nurses offered rinses. After a moment the patient, a roughly dressed country woman, arose to her feet. She was smiling broadly, and said something, which the audience could not hear. Painless smiled indulgently.

"Speak up so they can all hear you," he encouraged her.

"Never hurt a bit," the woman stammered.

Three more operations were conducted as expeditiously and as successfully. The audience was evidently impressed.

"How does he do it?" whispered Bob.

"Cappers," explained Baker briefly. "He only fakes pulling a tooth. Watch him next time and you'll see that he doesn't actually pull an ounce."

"Suppose a real toothache comes up?"

"I think that is one now. Watch him."

A young ranchman was making his way up the steps that led to the stage. His skin was tanned by long exposure to the California sun, and his cheek rounded into an unmistakable swelling.

"No fake about him," commented Baker.

He seated himself in the chair. Painless examined his jaw carefully. He started back, both hands spread in expostulation.

"My dear friend!" he cried, "you can save that tooth! It would be a crime to pull that tooth! Come to my office at ten to-morrow morning and I will see what can be done." He turned to the audience and for ten minutes expounded the doctrine of modern dentistry as it stands for saving a tooth whenever possible. Incidentally he had much to say as to his skill in filling and bridge work and the marvellous painlessness thereof. The meeting broke up finally to the inspiring strains of a really good band. Bob and his friend, standing near the door, watched the audience file out. Some threw away their pink and blue tickets, but most stowed them carefully away.

"And every one that goes to the 'luxurious offices' for the free dollar's worth will leave ten round iron ones," said Baker.

After a moment the Painless One and the Wizard marched smartly out, serenely oblivious of the crowd. They stepped into a resplendent red brougham and were whisked rapidly away.

"It pays to advertise," quoted Baker philosophically.

They moved on up the street.

"There's the inventor of the Unlimited Life," said Baker suddenly, indicating a slender figure approaching. "I haven't seen him in three years—not since he got into this graft, anyway."

"Unlimited Life," echoed Bob, "what's that? A medicine?"

"No. A cult. Hullo, Sunny!"

The approaching figure swerved and stopped. Bob saw a very slender figure clad in a close-fitting, gray frock suit. To his surprise, from beneath the wide, black felt hat there peered at him the keenly nervous face of the more intelligent mulatto. The man's eyes were very bright and shrewd. His hair surrounded his face as an aureole of darkness, and swept low to his coat collar.

"Mr. Baker," he said, simply, his eyes inscrutable.

"Well, Sunny, this is my old friend Bob Orde. Bob, this is the world-famous Sunny Larue, apostle of the Unlimited Life of whom you've heard so much." He winked at Bob. "How's the Colony flourishing, Sunny?"

"More and more our people are growing to see the light," said the mulatto in low, musical tones. "The mighty but simple principles of Azamud are coming into their own. The poor and lowly, the humble and oppressed are learning that in me is their salvation—." He went on in his beautiful voice explaining the Colony of the Unlimited Life, addressing always Bob directly and paying little attention to Baker, who stood aside, his hands in his pockets, a smile on his fat, good-natured face. It seemed that the Colony lived in tents in a canon of the foothills. It paid Larue fifty dollars a head, and in return was supported for six months and instructed in the mysteries of the cult. It had its regimen. "At three we arise and break our fast, quite simply, with three or four dry prunes," breathed Larue, "and then, going forth to the high places for one hour, we hold steadfast the thought of Love."

"Say, Sunny," broke in Baker, "how many you got rounded up now?"

"There are at present twenty-one earnest proselytes."

"At fifty a head—and you've got to feed and keep 'em somehow—even three dried prunes cost you something in the long run"—ruminated Baker. He turned briskly to the mulatto: "Sunny, on the dead, where does the graft come in?"

The mulatto drew himself up in swift offence, scrutinized Bob closely for a moment, met Baker's grin. Abruptly his impressive manner dropped from him. He leaned toward them with a captivating flash of white teeth.

"You just leave that to me," he murmured, and glided away into the crowd.

Baker laughed and drew Bob's arm within his own.

"Out of twenty of the faithful there's sure to be one or two with life savings stowed away in a sock, and Sunny's the boy to make them produce the sock."

"What's his cult, anyway?" asked Bob. "I mean, what do they pretend to believe? I couldn't make out."

"A nigger's idea of Buddhism," replied Baker briefly. "But you can get any brand of psychic damfoolishness you think you need in your business. They do it all, here, from going barefoot, eating nuts, swilling olive oil, rolling down hill, adoring the Limitless Whichness, and all the works. It is now," he concluded, looking at his watch, "about ten o'clock. We will finish the evening by dropping in on the Fuzzies."

Together they boarded a street car, which shortly deposited them at an uptown corner. Large houses and spacious grounds indicated a district of some wealth. To one of these houses, brilliantly lighted, Baker directed his steps.

"But I don't know these people, and I'm not properly dressed," objected Bob.

"They know me. And as for dress, if you'd arrange to wear a chaste feather duster only, you'd make a hit."

A roomful of people were buzzing like a hive. Most were in conventional evening dress. Here and there, however, Bob caught hints of masculine long hair, of feminine psyche knots, bandeaux and other extremely artistic but unusual departures. One man with his dinner jacket wore a soft linen shirt perforated by a Mexican drawn-work pattern beneath which glowed a bright red silk undergarment. Women's gowns on the flowing and Grecian order were not uncommon. These were usually coupled with the incongruity of parted hair brought low and madonna-wise over the ears. As the two entered, a very powerful blond man was just finishing the declamation of a French poem. He was addressing it directly at two women seated on a sofa.

"Un r-r-reve d'amour!"

He concluded with much passion and clasped hands.

In the rustle ensuing after this effort, Baker led his friend down the room to a very fat woman upholstered in pink satin, to whom he introduced Bob. Mrs. Annis, for such proved to be her name, welcomed him effusively.

"I've heard so much about you!" she cried vivaciously, to Bob's vast astonishment. She tapped him on the arm with her fan. "I'm going to make a confession to you; I know it may be foolish, but I do like music so much better than I do pictures."

Bob, his brain whirling, muttered something.

"But I'm going to confess to you again, I like artists so much better than I do musicians."

A light dawned on Bob. "But I'm not an artist nor a musician," he blurted out.

The pink-upholstered lady, starting back with an agility remarkable in one of her size, clasped her hands.

"Don't tell me you write!" she cried dramatically.

"All right, I won't," protested poor Bob, "for I don't."

A slow expression of bewilderment overspread Mrs. Annis's face, and she glanced toward Baker with an arched brow of interrogation.

"I merely wanted Mr. Orde to meet you, Mrs. Annis," he said impressively, "and to feel that another time, when he is less exhausted by the strain of a long day, he may have the privilege of explaining to you the details of the great Psychic Movement he is inaugurating."

Mrs. Annis smiled on him graciously. "I am home every Sunday to my intimes," she murmured. "I should be so pleased."

Bob bowed mechanically.

"You infernal idiot!" he ground out savagely to Baker, as they moved away. "What do you mean? I'll punch your fool head when I get you out of here!"

But the plump young man merely smiled.

Halfway down the room a group of attractive-looking young men hailed them.

"Join in, Baker," said they. "Bring your friend along. We're just going to raid the commissary."

But Baker shook his head.

"I'm showing him life," he replied. "None but Fuzzies in his to-night!"

He grasped Bob firmly by the arm and led him away.

"That," he said, indicating a very pale young man, surrounded by women, "is Pickering, the celebrated submarine painter."

"The what?" demanded Bob.

"Submarine painter. He paints fish and green water and lobsters, and the bottom of the sea generally. He paints them on the skins of kind-faced little calves."

"What does he do that for?"

"He says it's the only surface that will express what he wants to. He has also invented a waterproof paint that he can use under water. He has a coral throne down on the bottom which he sits in, and paints as long as he can hold his breath."

"Oh, he does!" said Bob.

"Yes," said Baker.

"But a man can't see three feet in front of his face under water!" cried Bob.

"Pickering says he can. He paints submarinescapes, and knows all the fishes. He says fishes have individual expressions. He claims he can tell by a fish's expression whether he is polygamous or monogamous."

"Do you mean to tell me anybody swallows that rot!" demanded Bob indignantly.

"The women do—and a lot more I can't remember. The market for calf-skins with green swirls on them is booming. Also the women clubbed together and gave him money enough to build a house."

Bob surveyed the little white-faced man with a strong expression of disgust.

"The natural man never sits in chairs," the artist was expounding. "When humanity shall have come into its own we shall assume the graceful and hygienic postures of the oriental peoples. In society one must, to a certain extent, follow convention, but in my own house, the House Beautiful of my dreams, are no chairs. And even now a small group of the freer spirits are following my example. In time——"

"If you don't take me away, I'll run in circles!" whispered Bob fiercely to his friend.

They escaped into the open air.

"Phew!" said Bob, straightening his long form. "Is that what you call the good society here?"

"Good society is there," amended Baker. "That's the joke. There are lots of nice people in this little old town, people who lisp our language fluently. They are all mixed in with the Fuzzies."

They decided to walk home. Bob marvelled at the impressive and substantial buildings, at the atrocious streets. He spoke of the beautiful method of illuminating one of the thoroughfares—by globes of light gracefully supported in clusters on branched arms either side the roadway.

"They were originally bronze—and they went and painted them a mail-box green," commented Baker drily.

At the hotel the night clerk, a young man, quietly dressed and with an engaging air, greeted them with just the right amount of cordiality as he handed them their keys. Bob paused to look about him.

"This is a good hotel," he remarked.

"It's one of the best-managed, the best-conducted, and the best-appointed hotels in the United States," said Baker with conviction.

The next morning Bob bought all the papers and glanced through them with considerable wonder and amusement. They were decidedly metropolitan in size, and carried a tremendous amount of advertising. Early in his perusal he caught the personal bias of the news. Without distortion to the point of literal inaccuracy, nevertheless by skilful use of headlines and by manipulation of the point of view, all items were made to subserve a purpose. In local affairs the most vulgar nicknaming, the most savage irony, vituperation, scorn and contempt were poured out full measure on certain individuals unpopular with the papers. Such epithets as "lickspittle," "toad," "carcass blown with the putrefying gas of its own importance," were read in the body of narration.

"These are the best-edited, most influential and powerful journals in the West," commented Baker. "They possess an influence inconceivable to an Easterner."

The advertising columns were filled to bursting with advertisements of patent medicines, sex remedies, quack doctors, miraculous healers, clairvoyants, palm readers, "philanthropists" with something "free" to bestow, cleverly worded offers of abortion; with full-page prospectuses of mines; of mushroom industrial concerns having to do with wave motors, water motors, solar motors, patent couplers, improved telephones and the like, all of whose stock now stood at $1.10, but which on April 10th, at 8.02 P.M., would go up to $1.15; with blaring, shrieking offers of real estate in this, that or the other addition, consisting, as Bob knew from yesterday, of farm acreage at front-foot figures. The proportion of this fake advertising was astounding. One in particular seemed incredible—a full page of the exponent of some Oriental method of healing and prophecy.

"Of course, a full-page costs money," replied Baker. "But this is the place to get it." He pushed back his chair. "Well, what do you think of our fair young city?" he grinned.

"It's got me going," admitted Bob.

"Took me some time to find out where to get off at," said Baker. "When I found it out, I didn't dare tell anybody. They mob you here and string you up by your pigtail, if you try to hint that this isn't the one best bet on terrestrial habitations. They like their little place, and they believe in it a whole lot, and they're dead right about it! They'd stand right up on their hind legs and paw the atmosphere if anybody were to tell them what they really are, but it's a fact. Same joyous slambang, same line of sharps hanging on the outskirts, same row, racket, and joy in life, same struggle; yes, and by golly! the same big hopes and big enterprises and big optimism and big energies! Wouldn't you like to be helping them do it?"

"What's the answer?" asked Bob, amused.

"Well, for all its big buildings and its electric lights, and trolleys, and police and size, it's nothing more nor less than a frontier town."

"A frontier town!" echoed Bob.

"You think it over," said Baker.



IV

But if Bob imagined for one moment that he had acquired even a notion of California in his experiences and observations down the San Joaquin and in Los Angeles, the next few stages of his Sentimental Journey very soon undeceived him. Baker's business interests soon took him away. Bob, armed with letters of introduction from his friend, visited in turn such places as Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Diego, Redlands and Pasadena. He could not but be struck by the absolute differences that existed, not only in the physical aspects but in the spirit and aims of the peoples. If these communities had been separated by thousands of miles of distance they could not have been more unlike.

At one place he found the semi-tropical luxuriance of flowers and trees and fruits, the soft, warm sunshine, the tepid, langourous, musical nights, the mellow haze of romance over mountain and velvet hill and soft sea, the low-shaded cottages, the leisurely attractive people one associates with the story-book conception of California. The place was charming in its surroundings and in its graces of life, but it was a cheerful, happy, out-at-the-heels, raggedy little town, whose bright gardens adorned its abyssmal streets, whose beautiful mountains palliated the naivete of its natural and atrocious roads. Bob mingled with its people with the pardonable amusement of a man fresh from the doing of big things. There seemed to be such long, grave and futile discussions over the undertaking of that which a more energetic community would do as a matter of course in the day's work. The liveryman from whom Bob hired his saddle horse proved to be a person of a leisurely and sardonic humour.

"Their chief asset here is tourists," said he. "That's the leading industry. They can't see it, and they don't want to. They have just one road through the county. It's a bum one. You'd think it was a dozen, to hear them talk about the immense undertaking of making it halfway decent. Any other place would do these things they've been talking about for ten years just on the side, as part of the get-ready. Lucky they didn't have to do anything in the way of getting those mountains set proper, or there'd be a hole there yet."

"Why don't you go East?" asked Bob.

"I did once. Didn't like it."

"What's the matter?"

"Well, I'll tell you. Back East when you don't do nothing, you feel kind of guilty. Out here when you don't do nothing, you don't give a damn!"

Nevertheless, Bob was very sorry when he had to leave this quiet and beautiful little town, with its happy, careless, charming people.

Thence he went directly to a town built in a half-circle of the mountains. The sunshine here was warm and grateful, but when its rays were withdrawn a stinging chill crept down from the snow. No sitting out on the verandah after dinner, but often a most grateful fire in the Club's fireplace. The mornings were crisp and enlivening. And again by the middle of the day the soft California warmth laid the land under its spell.

This was a place of orange-growers, young fellows from the East. Its University Club was large and prosperous. Its streets were wide. Flowers lined the curbs. There were few fences. The houses were in good taste. Even the telephone poles were painted green so as to be unobtrusive. Bob thought it one of the most attractive places he had ever seen, as indeed it should be, for it was built practically to order by people of intelligence.

Thence he drove through miles and miles of orange groves, so large that the numerous workmen go about their work on bicycles. Even here in the country, the roadsides were planted with palms and other ornamental trees, and gay with flowers. Abruptly he came upon a squalid village of the old regime, with ugly frame houses, littered streets, sagging sidewalks foul with puddles, old tin cans, rubbish; populous with children and women in back-yard dressing sacks—a distressing reminder of the worst from the older-established countries. And again, at the end of the week, he most unexpectedly found himself seated on a country-club verandah, having a very good time, indeed, with some charming specimens of the idle rich. He talked polo, golf, tennis and horses; he dined at several most elaborate "cottages"; he rode forth on glossy, bang-tailed horses, perfectly appointed; he drove in marvellously conceived traps in company with most engaging damsels. When, finally, he reached Los Angeles again he carried with him, as standing for California, not even the heterogeneous but fairly coherent idea one usually gains of a single commonwealth, but an impression of many climes and many peoples.

"Yes," said Baker, "and if you'd gone North to where I live, you'd have struck a different layout entirely."



V

There remained in Bob's initial Southern California experience one more episode that brought him an acquaintance, apparently casual, but which later was to influence him.

Of an afternoon he walked up Main Street idly and alone. The exhibit of a real estate office attracted him. Over the door, in place of a sign, hung a huge stretched canvas depicting not too rudely a wide country-side dotted with model farms of astounding prosperity. The window was filled with pumpkins, apples, oranges, sheaves of wheat, bottles full of soft fruits preserved in alcohol, and the like. As background was an oil painting in which the Lucky Lands occupied a spacious pervading foreground, while in clever perspectives the Coast Range, the foothills, and the other cities of the San Fernando Valley supplied a modest setting. This was usual enough.

At the door stood a very alert man with glasses. He scrutinized closely every passerby. Occasionally he hailed one or the other, conversed earnestly a brief instant, and passed them inside. Gradually it dawned on Bob that this man was acting in the capacity of "barker"—that with quite admirable perspicacity and accuracy, he was engaged in selecting from the countless throngs the few possible purchasers for Lucky Lands. Curious to see what attraction was offered to induce this unanimity of acquiescence to the barker's invitation, the young man approached.

"What's going on?" he asked.

The barker appraised him with one sweeping glance.

"Stereopticon lecture inside," he snapped, and turned his back.

Bob made his way into a dimly lighted hall. At one end was a slightly elevated platform above which the white screen was suspended. More agricultural products supplied the decorations. The body of the hall was filled with folding chairs, about half of which were occupied. Perhaps a dozen attendants tiptoed here and there. A successful attempt was everywhere made to endow with high importance all the proceedings and appurtenances of the Lucky Land Co.

Bob slipped into a chair. Immediately a small pasteboard ticket and a fountain pen were thrust into his hand.

"Sign your name and address on this," the man whispered.

Bob held it up, the better to see what it was.

"All these tickets are placed in a hat," explained the man, "and one is drawn. The lucky ticket gets a free ride to Lucky on one of our weekly homeseekers' excursions. Others pay one fare for round trip."

"I see," said Bob, signing, "and in return you get the names and addresses of every one here."

He glanced up at his interlocutor with a quizzical expression that changed at once to one of puzzlement. Where had he seen the man before? He was, perhaps, fifty-five years old, tall and slender, slightly stooped, slightly awry. His lean gray face was deeply lined, his close-clipped moustache and hair were gray, and his eyes twinkled behind his glasses with a cold gray light. Something about these glasses struck faintly a chord of memory in Bob's experience, but he could not catch its modulations. The man, on his side, stared at Bob a trifle uncertainly. Then he held the card up to the dim light.

"You are interested in Lucky Lands—Mr. John Smith, of Reno?" he asked, stooping low to be heard.

"Sure!" grinned Bob.

The man said nothing more, but glided away, and in a moment the flare of light on the screen announced that the lecture was to begin.

The lecturer, was a glib, self-possessed youth, filled to the brim with statistics, with which he literally overwhelmed his auditors. His remarks were accompanied by a rapid-fire snapping of fingers to the time of which the operator changed his slides. A bewildering succession of coloured views flashed on the screen. They showed Lucky in all its glories—the blacksmith shop, the main street, the new hotel, the grocery, Brown's walnut ranch, the ditch, the Southern Pacific Depot, the Methodist Church and a hundred others. So quickly did they succeed each other that no one had time to reduce to the terms of experience the scenes depicted on these slides—for with the glamour of exaggerated colour, of unaccustomed presentation, and of skillful posing the most commonplace village street seems wonderful and attractive for the moment. The lecturer concluded by an alarming statement as to the rapidity with which this desirable ranching property was being snapped up. He urged early decisions as the only safe course; and, as usual with all real estate men, called attention to the contrast between the Riverside of twenty years ago and the Riverside of to-day.

The daylight was then admitted.

"Now, gentlemen," concluded the lecturer, still in his brisk, time-saving style, "the weekly excursion to Lucky will take place to-morrow. One fare both ways to homeseekers. Free carriages to the Lands. Grand free open-air lunch under the spreading sycamores and by the babbling brook. Train leaves at seven-thirty."

In full sight of all he threw the packet of tickets into a hat and drew one.

"Mr. John Smith, of Reno," he read. "Who is Mr. Smith?"

"Here," said Bob.

"Would you like to go to Lucky to-morrow?"

"Sure," said Bob.

One of the attendants immediately handed Bob a railroad ticket. The lecturer had already disappeared.

To his surprise Bob found the street door locked.

"This way," urged one of the salesmen. "You go out this way."

He and the rest of the audience were passed out another door in the rear, where they were forced to go through the main offices of the Company. Here were stationed the gray man and all his younger assistants. Bob paused by the door. He could not but admire the acumen of the barker in selecting his men. The audience was made up of just the type of those who come to California with agricultural desires and a few hundred dollars—slow plodders from Eastern farms, Italians with savings and ambitions, half invalids—all the element that crowds the tourist sleepers day in and day out, the people who are filling the odd corners of the greater valleys. As these debouched into the glare of the outer offices, they hesitated, making up their slow minds which way to turn. In that instant or so the gray man, like a captain, assigned his salesmen. The latter were of all sorts—fat and joking, thin and very serious-minded, intense, enthusiastic, cold and haughty. The gray man sized up his prospective customers and to each assigned a salesman to suit. Bob had no means of guessing how accurate these estimates might be, but they were evidently made intelligently, with some system compounded of theory or experience. After a moment Bob became conscious that he himself was being sharply scrutinized by the gray man, and in return watched covertly. He saw the gray man shake his head slightly. Bob passed out the door unaccosted by any of the salesmen.

At half-past seven the following morning he boarded the local train. In one car he found a score of "prospects" already seated, accompanied by half their number of the young men of the real estate office. The utmost jocularity and humour prevailed, except in one corner where a very earnest young man drove home the points of his argument with an impressive forefinger. Bob dropped unobtrusively into a seat, and prepared to enjoy his never-failing interest in the California landscape with its changing wonderful mountains; its alternations of sage brush and wide cultivation; its vineyards as far as the eye could distinguish the vines; its grainfields seeming to fill the whole cup of the valleys; its orchards wide as forests; and its desert stretches, bigger than them all, awaiting but the vivifying touch of water to burst into productiveness. He heard one of the salesmen expressing this.

"'Water is King,'" he was saying, quoting thus the catchword of this particular concern. He was talking in a half-joking way, asking one or the other how many inches of rainfall could be expected per annum back where they came from.

"Don't know, do you?" he answered himself. "Nobody pays any great and particular amount of attention to that—you get water enough, except in exceptional years. Out here it's different. Every one knows to the hundredth of an inch just how much rain has fallen, and how much ought to have fallen. It's vital. Water is King."

He gathered close the attention of his auditors.

"We have the water in California," he went on; "but it isn't always in the right place nor does it come at the right time. You can't grow crops in the high mountains where most of the precipitation occurs. But you can bring that water down to the plains. That's your answer: irrigation."

He looked from one to the other. Several nodded.

"But a man can't irrigate by himself. He can't build reservoirs, ditches all alone. That's where a concern like the Lucky Company makes good. We've brought the water to where you can use it. Under the influence of cultivation that apparently worthless land can produce—" he went on at great length detailing statistics of production. Even to Bob, who had no vital nor practical interest, it was all most novel and convincing.

So absorbed did he become that he was somewhat startled when a man sat down beside him. He looked, up to meet the steel gray eyes and glittering glasses of the chief. Again there swept over him a sense of familiarity, the feeling that somewhere, at some time, he had met this man before. It passed almost as quickly as it came, but left him puzzled.

"Of course your name is not Smith, nor do you come from Reno," said the man in gray abruptly. "I've seen you somewhere before, but I can't place you. Are you a newspaperman?"

"I've been thinking the same of you," returned Bob. "No, I'm just plain tourist."

"I don't imagine you're particularly interested in Lucky," said the gray man. "Why did you come?"

"Just idleness and curiosity," replied Bob frankly.

"Of course we try to get the most value in return for our expenditures on these excursions by taking men who are at least interested in the country," suggested the gray man.

"By Jove, I never thought of that!" cried Bob. "Of course, I'd no business to take that free ticket. I'll pay you my fare."

The gray man had been scrutinizing him intensely and keenly. At Bob's comically contrite expression, his own face cleared.

"No, you misunderstand me," he replied in his crisp fashion. "We give these excursions as an advertisement of what we have. The more people to know about Lucky, the better our chances. We made an offer of which you have taken advantage. You're perfectly welcome, and I hope you'll enjoy yourself. Here, Selwyn," he called to one of the salesman, "this is Mr.—what did you say your name is?"

"Orde," replied Bob.

The gray man seemed for an almost imperceptible instant to stiffen in his seat. The gray eyes glazed over; the gray lined face froze.

"Orde," he repeated harshly; "where from?"

"Michigan," Bob replied.

The gray man rose stiffly. "Well, Selwyn," said he, "this is Mr. Orde—of Michigan—and I want you to show him around."

He moved down the aisle to take a seat, distant, but facing the two young men. Bob felt himself the object of a furtive but minute scrutiny which lasted until the train slowed down at the outskirts of Lucky.

Selwyn proved to be an agreeable young man, keen-faced, clean-cut, full of energy and enthusiasm. He soon discovered that Bob did not contemplate going into ranching, and at once admitted that young man to his confidence.

"You just nail a seat in that surrey over there, while I chase out my two 'prospects.' We sell on commission and I've got to rustle."

They drove out of the sleepy little village on which had been grafted showy samples of the Company's progress. The day was beautiful with sunshine, with the mellow calls of meadow larks, with warmth and sweet odours. As the surrey took its zigzag way through the brush, as the quail paced away to right and left, as the delicate aroma of the sage rose to his nostrils, Bob began to be very glad he had come. Here and there the brush had been cleared, small shacks built, fences of wire strung, and the land ploughed over. At such places the surrey paused while Selwyn held forth to his two stolid "prospects" on how long these newcomers had been there and how well they were getting on. The country rose in a gradual slope to the slate-blue mountains. Ditches ran here and there. Everywhere were small square stakes painted white, indicating the boundaries of tracts yet unsold.

They visited the reservoir, which looked to Bob uncommonly like a muddy duck pond, but whose value Selwyn soon made very clear. They wandered through the Chiquito ranch, whence came the exhibition fruit and other products, and which formed the basis of most Lucky arguments. The owner had taken many medals for his fruit, and had spent twenty-five years in making the Chiquito a model.

"Any man can do likewise in this land of promise," said Selwyn.

They ended finally in a beautiful little canon among the foothills. It was grown thick with twisted, mottled sycamores just budding into leaf, with vines and greenery of the luxurious California varieties. Birds sang everywhere and a brook babbled and bubbled down a stony bed.

Under the largest of the sycamores a tent had been pitched and a table spread. Affairs seemed to be in charge of a very competent countrywoman whose fuzzy horse and ramshackle buggy stood securely tethered below. The surries drove up and deposited their burdens. Bob took his place at table to be served with an abundant, hot and well-cooked meal.

The ice had been broken. Everybody laughed and joked. Some of the men removed their coats in order to be more comfortable. The young salesmen had laboured successfully to bring these strangers to a feeling of partnership in at least the aims of the Company, of partisanship against the claims of other less-favoured valleys than Lucky. During a pause in the fun, one of the "prospects," an elderly, white-whiskered farmer of the more prosperous type, nodded toward the brook.

"That sounds good," said he.

"It's the supply for the Lucky Lands," replied Selwyn. "It ought to sound good."

"There's mighty few flowing creeks in California this far out from the mountains," interposed another salesman. "You know out here, except in the rainy season, the rivers all flow bottom-up."

They all guffawed at this ancient and mild joke. The old farmer wagged his head.

"Water is King," said he solemnly, as though voicing an original and profound thought.

A look of satisfaction overspread the countenance of the particular salesman who had the old farmer in charge. When you can get your "prospect" to adopt your catchword and enunciate it with conviction, he is yours!

After the meal Bob, unnoticed, wandered off up the canon. He had ascertained that the excursionists would not leave the spot for two hours yet, and he welcomed the chance for exercise. Accordingly he set himself to follow the creek, the one stream of pure and limpid water that did not flow bottom-up. At first this was easy enough, but after a while the canon narrowed, and Bob found himself compelled to clamber over rocks and boulders, to push his way through thickets of brush and clinging vines, finally even to scale a precipitous and tangled side hill over which the stream fell in a series of waterfalls. Once past this obstruction, however, the country widened again. Bob stood in the bed of a broad, flat wash flanked by low hills. Before him, and still some miles distant, rose the mountains in which the stream found its source.

Bob stood still for a moment, his hat in his hand, enjoying the tepid odours, the warm sun and the calls of innumerable birds. Then he became aware of a faint and intermittent throb—put-put (pause) put (pause), put-put-put!

"Gasoline engine," said he to himself.

He tramped a few hundred yards up the dry wash, rounded a bend, and came to a small wooden shack from which emanated the sound of the gas explosions. A steady stream of water gushed from a pump operated by the gasoline engine. Above, the stream bed was dry. Here was the origin of the "beautiful mountain stream."

Chair-tilted in front of the shack sat a man smoking a pipe. He looked up as Bob approached.

"Hullo," said he; "show over?"

He disappeared inside and shut off the gasoline engine. Immediately the flow ceased; the stream dried up as though scorched. Presently the man emerged, thrusting his hands into the armholes of an old coat. Shrugging the garment into place, he snapped shut the padlock on the door.

"Come on," said he. "My rig's over behind that grease-wood. You're a new one, ain't ye?"

Bob nodded.

"That horse is branded pretty thick," he said by way of diversion.

The man chuckled.

"Have to turn his skin other side out to get another one on," he agreed.

They drove down an old dim road that avoided the difficulties of the canon. At camp they found the surries just loading up. Bob took his place. Before the rigs started back, the gray man, catching sight of the pump man, drew him aside and said several things very vigorously. The pump man answered with some indignation, pointing finally to Bob. Instantly the gray man whirled to inspect the young fellow. Then he shot a last remark, turned and climbed grumpily into his vehicle.

At the station Bob tried to draw Selwyn aside for a conversation.

"I'll be with you when the train starts, old man," replied Selwyn, "but I've got to stick close to these prospects. There's a gang of knockers hanging around here always, just waiting for a chance to lip in."

When the train started, however, Selwyn came back to drop into Bob's seat with a wearied sigh.

"Gosh! I get sick of handing out dope to these yaps," said he. "I was afraid for a while it was going to blow. Looked like it."

"What of it?" asked Bob.

"When it blows up here, it'd lift the feathers off a chicken and the chicken off the earth," explained Selwyn. "I've seen more than one good prospect ruined by a bad day."

"How'd you come out?" inquired Bob.

"Got one. He handed over his first payment on the spot. Funny how these yahoos almost always bring their cash right with 'em. Other's no good. I get so I can spot that kind the first three words. They're always too blame enthusiastic about the country and the Company. Seems like they try to pay for their entertainment by jollying us along. Don't fool me any. When a man begins to object to things, you know he's thinking of buying."

Bob listened to this wisdom with some amusement. "How'd you explain when the stream stopped?" he asked.

"Why," said Selwyn, looking straight ahead, "didn't you hear Mr. Oldham? They turned the water into the Upper Ditch to irrigate the Foothill Tracts."

Bob laughed. "You're not much of a liar, Selwyn," he said pleasantly. "Failure of gasoline would hit it nearer."

"Oh, that's where you went," said Selwyn. "I ought to have kept my eye on you closer."

He fell silent, and Bob eyed him speculatively. He liked the young fellow's clear, frank cast of countenance.

"Look here, Selwyn," he broke out, "do you like this bunco game?"

"I don't like the methods," replied Selwyn promptly; "but you are mistaken when you think it's a bunco game. The land is good; there's plenty of artesian water to be had; and we don't sell at a fancy price. We've located over eight hundred families up there at Lucky Lands, and three out of four are making good. The fourth simply hadn't the capital to hold out until returns came in. It's as good a small-ranch proposition as they could find. If I didn't think so, I wouldn't be in it for a minute."

"How about that stream?"

"Nobody said the stream was a natural one. And the water exists, no matter where it comes from. You can't impress an Eastern farmer with a pump proposition: that's a matter of education. They come to see its value after they've tried it."

"But your—".

"I told you I didn't like the methods. I won't have anything to do with the dirty work, and Oldham knows it."

"Why all the bluff, then?" asked Bob.

"There are thousands of real estate firms in Los Angeles trying to sell millions of acres," said Selwyn, "and this is about the only concern that succeeds in colonizing on a large scale. Oldham developed this system, and it seems to work."

"The law'll get him some day."

"I think not," replied Selwyn. "You may find him close to the edge of the law, but he never steps over. He's a mighty bright business man, and he's made a heap of money."

When nearing the Arcade depot, Oldham himself stepped forward.

"Stopping in California long?" he asked, with some approach to geniality.

"Permanently, I think," replied Bob.

"You are going to manufacture your timber?"

Bob looked up astonished.

"You're the Orde interested in Granite County timber, aren't you?"

"I'm employed by Welton, that's all," said Bob. "He owns the timber. But how did you know I am with Welton?" he asked.

"With Welton!" echoed Oldham. "Oh, yes—well, I heard from Michigan business acquaintances you were with him. Welton's lands are in Granite County?"

"Yes," said Bob.

"Well," said Oldham vaguely, "I hope you have enjoyed your little outing." He turned away.

"Now, how the deuce should anybody know about me, or that I am with Welton, or take the trouble to write about it?"

He mulled over this for some time. For lack of a better reason, he ascribed to his former football prominence the fact that Oldham's Michigan correspondent had thought him worth mention. Yet that seemed absurdly inadequate.



PART THREE



I

Two weeks later a light buckboard bearing Welton and Bob dashed in the early morning across the plains, wormed its way ingeniously through gaps in the foothills, and slowed to a walk as it felt the grades of the first long low slopes. The air was warm with the sun imprisoned in the pockets of the hills. High chaparral, scrub oaks, and scattered, unkempt digger pines threw their thicket up to the very right of way. It was in general dense, almost impenetrable, yet it had a way of breaking unexpectedly into spacious parks, into broad natural pastures, into bold, rocky points prophetic of the mountains yet to come. Every once in a while the road drew one side to pause at a cabin nestling among fruit trees, bowered beneath vines, bright with the most vivid of the commoner flowers. They were crazily picturesque with their rough stone chimneys, their roofs of shakes, their broad low verandahs, and their split-picket fences. On these verandahs sat patriarchal-looking men with sweeping white beards, who smoked pipes and gazed across with dim eyes toward the distant blue mountains. When Welton, casually and by the way, mentioned topographical names, Bob realized to what placid and contented retirement these men had turned, and who they were. Nugget Creek, Flour Gold, Bear Gulch—these spoke of the strong, red-shirted Argonauts of the El Dorado. Among these scarred but peaceful foothills had been played and applauded the great, wonderful, sordid, inspired drama of the early days, the traces of which had almost vanished from the land.

Occasionally also the buckboard paused for water at a more pretentious place set in a natural opening. There a low, rambling, white ranch-house beneath trees was segregated by a picket fence enclosing blossoms like a basket. At a greater or lesser distance were corrals of all sizes arranged in a complicated pattern. They resembled a huge puzzle. The barns were large; a forge stood under an open shed indescribably littered with scrap iron and fragments of all sorts; saddles hung suspended by the horn or one stirrup; bright milk pails sunned bottom-up on fence posts; a dozen horses cropped in a small enclosed pasture or dozed beneath one or another of the magnificent and spreading live-oak trees. Children of all sizes and states of repair clambered to the fence tops or gazed solemnly between the rails. Sometimes women stood in the doorways to nod cheerfully at the travellers. They seemed to Bob a comely, healthy-looking lot, competent and good-natured. Beyond an occasional small field and an invariable kitchen garden there appeared to be no evidences of cultivation. Around the edges of the natural opening stretched immediately the open jungle of the chaparral or the park-like forests of oaks.

"These are the typical mountain people of California," said Welton. "It's only taken us a few hours to come up this far, but we've struck among a different breed of cats. They're born, live and die in the hills, and they might as well be a thousand miles away as forty or fifty. As soon as the snow is out, they hike for the big mountains."

"What do they do?" inquired Bob.

"Cattle," replied Welton. "Nothing else."

"I haven't seen any men."

"No, and you won't, except the old ones. They've taken their cattle back to the summer ranges in the high mountains. By and by the women and kids will go into the summer camps with the horses."

On a steep and narrow grade they encountered a girl of twenty riding a spirited pinto. She bestrode a cowboy's stock saddle on which was coiled the usual rope, wore a broad felt hat, and smiled at the two men quite frankly in spite of the fact that she wore no habit and had been compelled to arrange her light calico skirts as best she could. The pinto threw his head and snorted, dancing sideways at sight of the buckboard. So occupied was he with the strange vehicle that he paid scant attention to the edge of the road. Bob saw that the passage along the narrow outside strip was going to be precarious. He prepared to descend, but at that moment the girl faced her pony squarely at the edge of the road, dug her little heels into his flanks, and flicked him sharply with the morale or elongated lash of the reins. Without hesitation the pony stepped off the grade, bunched his hoofs and slid down the precipitous slope. So steep was the hill that a man would have had to climb it on all fours.