"Now we'll get it," Boyd concluded. "And we can hurry it along if we want to. We have my foothill land already. Get that laid out in some sort of shape and have a map made of it. Keep out the quarry, though; I don't want to lose that. But I don't want to start in on the foothill tract. Everybody knows that I own it. But if somebody comes in from outside, a stranger, and buys up a lot of land and has faith and enthusiasm and all the rest of it, why that will count a lot. From what I've seen, you can sell anything anywhere, once you get them started, but you got to begin with something reasonable. I own most of that abutting to the east on the foothills; and Colonel Peyton all of the north boundary. Naturally we can't sell the Pacific Ocean. I'm going to bring in a good man from below to pick up something on the south or a strip of Peyton's. That'll do to start her off."
"There are plenty of vacant lots right in town now," Spinner pointed out.
"Yes, and they're more expensive. Why pay city lot prices when you can get acreage? They'll buy lots in, an addition quicker than scattered stuff inside."
Boyd also saw Dan Mitchell with whom he had a serious and confidential talk. The result was a sudden accession of items and articles on the prosperity that had struck California. There were a good many alluring statistics having to do with the number of tourists coming in, the number of land sales made, and especially the phenomenal rises in values and the fortunes that had been made therefrom. Under the impulse of these, of the reports brought by returned visitors to the south, and especially by the tourists, Arguello began to stir in her sleep. And, aware of that fact, the boomers commenced to drift in and look about and lay their plans.
Boyd was too shrewd to attempt to monopolize. He knew that up to a certain point rivals were a good thing. They made a noise: they all got in and pushed; their numbers helped work up the excitement. He contented himself by being a little more ready than they were; a little more thoroughly conversant with the local situation; with possessing the tracts—lying as they did on the foothills—that were intrinsically the most worth while.
