The Rose Dawn/Chapter 5

by Stewart Edward White

 

CHAPTER V

I

KENNETH allowed one day to elapse before calling for Pronto and riding out to the Bungalow. His head was full of this girl: he could think of nothing else. She haunted him as no other of his numerous flames had ever haunted him; and yet, strangely enough, the realization that he was in love with her had not entered his head. This was the more remarkable in that he had often enough been "stuck" on other girls, and had realized the fact, and been secretive or proud of it according to his age. But he did not at all consider himself "stuck" on this girl. She was just different. For one thing, you did not have to talk to her all the time; for another, she seemed to have some sense when she did talk; and she certainly was a bird of a horsewoman! Looked to Kenneth as though she would be a lot more fun than these other silly creatures who always wanted a lot of help and attention just because they were girls. So impersonal was his conscious attitude as yet that he suffered no immediate pang of disappointment when his knocking elicited finally only Brainerd in a dressing gown.

"I was riding by and I dropped in to see how Miss Brainerd survived the party," he said.

The tall man's weary eyes surveyed him detachedly. A faint glint of amusement lurked in their depths.

"Miss Brainerd"—he choked slightly over the words, but recovered himself at once and went on gravely, "was here not five minutes ago. I can't imagine what can have become of her." He examined Kenneth again and liked his looks. "I'm a little seedy to-day," he continued, in explanation both of his own presence in working hours and the costume in which he was discovered. "Won't you come in and visit me a little while? I assure you I am getting quite bored and lonely by myself."

Kenneth liked the room into which he stepped. He was still of the chameleon age, capable instantly of taking the mental colour of his surroundings. The worn leather armchairs, the rows and rows of books, the wide fireplace, and the double student-lamp on the magazine-littered table threw him instantly into an appreciative attitude toward a quiet scholarly life by one's fireside, far remote from the turmoil of the world, and so forth. Corbell's ranch house had affected him in a similar manner, though in a different way. Possibly he recognized reality.

He found himself sitting in one of the armchairs at one side the fireplace where oak logs burned quietly. The clearing wind after the rain was singing by the eaves. On Brainerd's invitation he filled a pipe. The conversation for a few moments ran limpingly, for Kenneth was trying, before this quiet, saturnine, wise-seeming individual, to be very intelligent and grown up. But Brainerd let him alone, and after a time the situation eased.

"Yes, California is a delightful place to live in," the older man assented, to Kenneth's remark concluding his account of the quail hunt. "What are you going to do here?" he asked abruptly.

"Do?"

"Yes—as your job. Every man who is worth his salt must have a job, you know."

"I suppose he must."

"You don't want merely to suppose: you want to know it. It's very simple, but people don't seem to grasp it. They seem to think that when a man gets a certain amount of money—enough to live on—that he can stop work if he wants to. Worst sort of fallacy! He may change the kind of work. But the possession of money or leisure merely means that a man has accomplished the first necessary step, and is ready to go on with the next. I suppose merely earning a living and an economic place in the world is made so extraordinarily difficult because so few people go on doing things after that is accomplished. They generally sit down and build bulgy granite houses, and buy more horses and dogs and clothes than the next fellow, and get fat and arrogant and short tempered or silly. Ever notice that?"

He cocked an eye over his pipe at Kenneth and stretched his long legs toward the fire.

"I've a notion the particular Guardian Angel who was put in charge of this planet is a hopeful sort of cuss who likes to try it out. So every once in a while he gives a man what all the rest of the world has to struggle for or die off—wealth and the leisure that comes from relief of that pressure—in hopes that man will go ahead and do something with it. He certainly runs against a lot of disappointments! But I'm preaching away like a parson!"

"No, you're not!" cried Kenneth, earnestly. "I like intellectual conversations; but you don't often find a man you can talk to that way!"

Brainerd hastily concealed a grin that nearly surprised him.

"Well, we're getting a long way off the subject, anyway. Of course a young man like yourself doesn't intend to settle down and live on his father."

"Of course not. I—I thought some of going into the bank."

Brainerd was silent for so long that finally Kenneth asked him:

"What is your advice?"

"Boyd, one man can never give another advice. Advice is a word that should be stricken from the language. The most one can do is to call to another's attention certain facts in the situation of which he may not be aware, leaving him to form his own judgment. If you form another man's judgment for him you have absolutely deprived him of all the value of that experience."

"How do you mean?"

"Life is a series of opportunities for making decisions. Making decisions is the only way you form character. If somebody else makes a decision for you, he has deprived you of one chance."

"But he may be much wiser or experienced than yourself. His decision may be a better one."

"It may be a better one as; far as practical results go; yes," admitted Brainerd. "But no amount of practical results can make up for a lost opportunity of growth."

"By Jove! I never thought of it that way; but you're right!" cried Kenneth.

"Now as to jobs," continued Brainerd. "They are never any good unless you get something out of them besides money. The ideal job is one that produces something either in the shape of material products or some service needed by our somewhat complicated economic system; and at the same time gets us something beside money—such as more opportunity, or interest, or satisfaction, or congenial companions or surroundings, or something like that. Also it might include chance for growth. The man who actually puts something in the world that was not there before—such as a potato—probably on the average gets more satisfaction from his job than the man who fulfills a function. The latter may be more important; but I am talking about the way the average man feels."

"Farmers are always kicking," suggested Kenneth.

"So is every other class of man on this footstool. When you discuss in the abstract you have to assume an intelligent man as your subject."

To Kenneth all this talk was fascinating. He had taken Philosophy III in college because it was considered a "snap," and the surface of his mind had taken the impress of its forms long enough to get credit for the course. But never before had he happened to meet any one with a philosophic attitude toward the realities of every-day life. It was simple and understandable and yet it dealt with fundamentals; so that he had a pleasing sense of discussing deep subjects and comprehending them!

"I'd like to be a rancher," stated Kenneth, with conviction, "and keep cattle."

"Yes, that is a good business," assented Brainerd, "but it cannot be done haphazard. As at present conducted it is for California a persistence of past conditions. It will be crowded out in time by other things. Personally, if I were younger I'd rather be identified in a small way with the beginnings of future things than even in a large way with the endings of past things. Just as a matter of personal interest, you understand, not as a measuring value to the community."

"I don't quite follow you."

"I mean cattle ranching, on a big scale, and near enough centres of civilization to make life worth while, is bound to pass. Its place will be taken by agriculture and horticulture."

"Not in the South," stated Kenneth, confidently repeating statements he had heard on the quail hunt. "It's been tried, and it doesn't work except here and there on a small scale."

"Because it hasn't been tried right. Everything's been attempted on a big scale, even on a small farm. The idea has been to plant the largest number of acres possible so as to make a killing in the wet season. In dry seasons they argue they won't get anything anyhow. Result is a sort of scratch harrowing, shallow cultivation. But it's not true that in a dry season you'll get nothing, if you do proper work. And this scheme ignores the half and half years. It's shiftless. Men get used to thinking in the immense acreage of the cattle ranches and they bite off more than they can chew. Why, many don't touch the land after planting it. The crops are fouled with wild oats and mustard and such things, and so are reduced. These so-called farmers do not care for small profits. It's all or nothing with them. They are never self sustaining. They scorn to plant vegetables and such things as they need. If they'd do less but better they'd find the South would grow things all right. Why, they don't even know where their best land is."

"In the bottomlands," stated Kenneth, promptly.

"That is what they think—and you're wrong. It's rich and wet enough to grow crops without irrigation, and all that; but it's just common farming, and acre for acre it will not match that land right out there."

Kenneth stared.

"You mean that dry sagebrush, or the sand wash?" he asked, incredulously.

"Both. Properly cultivated and irrigated, they will grow more valuable crops of more valuable things than your bottomland. I have proved it on a small scale to my own satisfaction."

He went on to elucidate what was then a revolutionary idea, becoming almost animated in his interest. Kenneth listened at first sceptically; soon with growing conviction.

"You come up again," Brainerd invited him, finally, "and I'll show you what I mean. It's all on a small scale for I have not the means nor the strength to do more. But the future of the country is in it. Some day they'll wake up. And then you'll see. If I were a young man like you, and I could command a little money, as I suppose you can, I'd certainly go in for ranching. There is no place on the globe with a better climate, with more beautiful surroundings, with more satisfying appeal. I know, for I have lived in many places. It is new, but that affords the satisfaction of being active in the building. And a small ranch intelligently conducted on new and experimental lines would have for me the intelligent interest of creating." He checked himself with a laugh. "I'm coming perilously close to offering advice after all," said he. "But to my mind there is no comparison between such a career and the 'big round suavity, the large, buttoned-up complacency of golden-bellied bankers.'"

"I'm mighty glad I found you in," said Kenneth, rising. "You've given me a lot to think about."

"Talking is one of the best things I do," observed Brainerd, "when I am sure of an understanding listener. I'm sorry Daffy isn't about. I can't imagine where she has disappeared to: her pony is in the corral."

As a matter of fact Daphne was in the next room keeping very quiet until the visitor should depart. She had no intention of being seen at this time, nor for several days yet. By the end of the period certain grown-up dresses would be finished. They were being made at the Peyton's by a little "sewing woman" who came in by the day. After the Boyd party it was as impossible that Daphne reassume her child's dresses and her pigtails as it would be for a butterfly to reënter its cocoon.

II

Dan Mitchell had read Patrick Boyd correctly. Hardly had the echoes of the ball died away before he began to look about him for something else to do. His investigatory habit of prowling up and down Main Street stood him in good stead here. To do him entire justice it must be conceded that he started on his external affairs in Arguello actuated solely by a genuine enthusiasm for the place. His habit of mind had been formed in what was known as a live, a smart community, where men were used to big things dong promptly and on a big scale. He found Arguello half asleep, accustomed to doing the simplest public affairs—if they were done at all—only after long discussions and hesitations. Things Boyd had always taken as much for granted as shoes or a hat, Arguello either lacked, or possessed inadequately, or was strongly divided in opinion as to their advisibility. To the Easterner it was nothing short of a disgrace that Main Street and its principal laterals were unpaved; that the residence part of the town was sparely lighted; that the rattletrap, one-mule car was permitted to represent city transportation; that property owners were not forced to substitute something substantial in the way of sidewalks for the beaten earth that in wet weather became slippery mud. His order-loving mind was scandalized over various easy-going tacit permissions. It was dangerous to turn saddle horses loose on the streets to find their way to the stables by themselves; it was perilous to leave building material unprotected by lights: it was unsanitary and unsightly to drop rubbish over the edge of the sidewalks into the streets; it was annoying and unnecessary to pile the sidewalks half full of merchandise and leave them so; it was unwholesome to abandon Chinatown to its unsavoury filth. And what could be said of a town that permitted its firemen to haul sand with its fire horses two miles away from the fire engine! Boyd saw all these things, and many many others typical of the easy-going time and place, through the eyes of the Eastern visitor; and, as he was by now genuinely a citizen in spirit, he suffered a real agony of mortification as to what that Eastern visitor must think of it all.

His first attempts to interest people met with little encouragement. The inert dead indifference of the opposition astounded and made him indignant. A small proportion of those he talked to agreed with him that his ideas were sound and that it would be a good thing if they could be carried out; another small proportion, with the narrow vision of the untravelled, interposed the panicky but effective opposition of men who, unless they can plainly discern the dollar spent to-day returning not later than to-morrow, clamour vehemently against all public expenditure; but by far the greatest number just plain did not care.

"Go after it if it amuses you, Boyd," said Oliver Mills, the banker. "You will find that you can get things done, to be sure; but you will spend an inordinate amount of energy. What another city would order, as you would order a pound of sugar, Arguello will talk over for two years, and squabble about, and hesitate over—and end by buying a half a pound—or else decide it's too expensive. And when it is all over, those of us who have been trying to engineer the thing are totally exhausted. We've put enough into it to have built the Washington Monument. You'll find it doesn't pay. We're getting along very comfortably: why stir things up?"

Boyd's chief comfort was the obscure, lean real estate man, Ephraim Spinner. In Spinner he uncorked a dynamic enthusiasm that warmed his heart.

"I'm glad to hear you say so!" cried Spinner. "It's what I've been hammering into these hayseeds for two years! This place should be working night and day getting itself in order for the flood of visitors that is absolutely certain to pour down upon us. Every man who goes East comes back again and brings his friends with him. The boom is bound to come someday, and when it comes!" He threw his arms out with an expressive gesture. "They'll find us asleep at the switch!" he ended gloomily. He chewed savagely at the end of the cigar Boyd handed him. "What this town ought to do is to get on to itself, "he went on presently, in a calmer, wearied tone, "of course it ought to have paving and lights and all those things, just as you say, Mr. Boyd; but if it had the sense God gave a rooster it would go a lot farther than that. Look at the beach, f'rinstance. You can't get at it except afoot or horseback, and when you do get to it you find tin cans and rubbish. Yet look at that stretch from the wharf to Scott's Point! They ought to put a road in there; and they'd have no finer drive in the world than that—with the blue Pacific on one side and the lofty mountains on the other! They could advertise a drive like that all over the country, and draw tourists like a magnet. That's only one thing. And they ought to put a road along the foothills—just for a scenic attraction. Just suggest it to these old mossbacks and see what they say to you. They'd think you were crazy. Were you ever up there?"

"Yes," said Boyd.

"Can you imagine any one not seeing it? Gosh! They haven't got one single solitary blessed thing here they've done themselves to cultivate the best paying crop in the world—the tourist. What there is, old California has done by herself."

"The Fremont," suggested Boyd.

"Yes, that's a good hotel," agreed Spinner, "and it's running behind. What we need is public improvements. And about the first of 'em is a dozen or so first class funerals!"

With this completely altruistic interest to start from, Boyd gradually worked his way into the political life of the place. He had made his fortune through traction organization. The 'eighties did not understand political purity as we are just beginning to understand it to-day. As soon as Boyd found that he could not get things done by direct appeal, he turned naturally to manipulation. Dan Mitchell was right in his guess that the Easterner would need publicity—and would pay for it. Others received pay also for other services. It was all a sort of play for Boyd, activity undertaken at first in idleness, but later with increasing interest. Opposition aroused his combative spirit. He found it would be necessary to follow, in a modified way, Spinner's advice as to the first class funerals, only the funerals were political. It seemed desirable to replace certain sturdy, short visioned, uncompromising aldermen or supervisors. In politics, too, Boyd was past master. He had not much difficulty in electing his own council, nor in passing the ordinance to pave and curb Main Street—his first great objective. But he had to acknowledge that the resultant distrust and uneasiness among the shellbacks was going to make the next election more of a job. In short, he saw a good fight ahead; and he rejoiced; and he began quietly to build a machine that would function.

"If these mossbacks don't know what is good for them we'll make 'em take it," he observed to the exultant Spinner. "There's more than one way to skin a cat."

He bought in a slope of the sagebrush foothills back of the town, and bore much good humoured joking from his friends. His refusal to explain himself ended by fastening upon him the rumour of fantastic projects, for nobody could imagine any possible use for that waste and worthless land. As a matter of cold fact Boyd was himself a little vague on that subject. He got it very cheap, for almost nothing; he believed enthusiastically in the ultimate expansion of Arguello; certainly the view out over the valley, the town, to the wide slumbering Pacific——

But Boyd was a shrewd business man, with plenty of leisure and an enquiring and restless mind. He rode often on his horse up over the slope of his new purchase, sometimes alone, sometimes with Saxon or Marcus Oberman or others of his winter cronies. They called it his Horned Toad Ranch, not that anyone had ever seen a horned toad there, but it was considered that horned toads represented the only possibility. Boyd grinned and replied in kind. But one day he dropped into Spinner's office with an idea.

"Know those boulders up on the Tract, the ones near the little grove of live oaks at the head of the barranca?" he asked. "Well, they're an outcrop of a ledge down below; and the stuff is a real fine-grained sandstone. Makes the best building material I know of. There's a quarry of it there."

"There's mighty little demand for building stone here," said Spinner. "And the whole range is made of that sort of rock."

"Nobody's getting any of it out: and this is the nearest to town. People use quite a little for one thing and another—foundations and garden walls and such. They'd use less bricks and more stone if they could get the stone handier. There's a nice little steady business there."

Spinner looked doubtful.

"Look here, Spinner," said Boyd, suddenly. "How many miles of street are there in this town? You ought to know. Well, they're in frightful state every year with the run-off of the flood waters every time it rains. It's a disgrace. They ought to be curbed and guttered, every foot of them; and an ordinance passed providing for that would in my opinion be a very beneficial piece of legislation."

"And you would supply the stone!" cried Spinner.

"Well," and Boyd puffed slowly at his cigar, "I'd hardly consider it worth while to fuss with a little quarry business. My idea would be to use the quarry merely as a source of supply to a construction company that would be in a position to bid for the contracts."

"I take my hat off to you, Mr. Boyd," cried Spinner, as the whole splendour of the scheme came to him.

"It would make a nice little business," continued Boyd. "I would not want to appear in it personally. The thing would not look well, I suppose; though for the life of me I don't see how anybody could object. I would merely lease the quarry land to the construction company. You could head the company."

"I?" cried Spinner.

"You would have a small salary and a small share in the business. I would not expect you to attend to details. I'll look up a good managing foreman. The real estate business is not so brisk at present but that you could put a little time in on this, is it?"

Thus came into existence the Western Construction Company which for years did practically all Arguello's public improvement. It built a road, opened the quarry, purchased teams and wagons, and set to work. Gradually it acquired what it needed for a comprehensive business, not only in construction but in such things as crushed rock for roads, and grading and wall building for private grounds. It was never out of work, for whenever things got slack, the Common Council would pass an ordinance commanding the curbing and guttering of another stretch of street. The cost was an assessment against the property owners, who almost invariably uttered howls of protest. As they were very few in number as compared with those not immediately concerned, they never had much effect. Dan Mitchell had a laudatory editorial now and then on public improvement; and killed many a virulent communication. He never received any direct pay for his attitude; but he did get very high rates for a small advertisement of the Western Construction Company—whose business by its nature needed no advertisement!

In order successfully to carry on this enterprise and his contemplated scheme of improving Arguello, Boyd had to have a Council on which he could depend. The opposition to doing anything that cost either time or money was partly climatic, partly habitual, partly from parsimony, partly conservative. It was very real, and very strong; but it was not organized. Boyd knew how to organize and he did so. His chief source of strength was the lower wards where the most of the Mexicans lived. There dwelt an obese, polite, suave old scoundrel who belonged to one of the oldest Californian families and was connected by marriage with several of the others. Don Caesar Azevedo held a great prestige among the members of his race, because of his personality and his Falstaffian capacity for vino. On election days he was given disposal of a number of surries and a sum of "expense money." By evening he was portentously drunk, still dignified and respectable, apparently close to apoplexy, but his two wards had voted safe. It amused Boyd to watch the other four wards closely and to determine his action by the conditions of the moment. Sometimes it was quite sufficient to handle his man after election. At any rate he always had his Council.

This, it must be understood, was the development of a number of years, and carries us somewhat ahead of our story; but an appreciation of Patrick Boyd's place and power in the community is desirable to an understanding of the history of those who may interest us more. We should add that through his purchase of Colonel Peyton's bank stock, and some other blocks he picked up from time to time, he attained a position on the directorate where soon he carried a controlling advice. He gained thus a birds-eye-view of the affairs of the county. He knew who borrowed and how much; who was delinquent; who paid promptly; and he was enabled to shape policies that would influence the future of the country he had adopted. For, though Patrick Boyd made money in the ventures he undertook, the making of money was not the primary incentive of his activities. He had all the money, per se, he wanted. His basic desire was to see Arguello wake up and be somebody: for he loved the valley between the mountains and the sea as only an Easterner transplanted to California can love.

III

Kenneth rode again to the Bungalow: and he continued to ride there on every opportunity. He and Brainerd had many more talks on all subjects having to do with the philosophy of life. The older man was an excellent influence for his forming spirit. Only one forced to comparative failure by insuperable obstacles could, in that age of material emphasis, have gained to the wider views held by Brainerd. He saw beyond the merely utilitarian. Our moralists were prattling of Captains of Industry, exploitation—but under a prettier name—and the remote sacredness of being a millionaire; public office was a matter of victory and patronage; the saving of pennies and the spending of lives was preached as an ideal of the perfect existence. A man was morally justified in anything he did provided he kept technically within the law. Things were ends in themselves. Brainerd had dimly seen them as in themselves only means to something beyond. It was with him not simply a case of get there. Kenneth was one day telling with relish of an acquaintance who was even at college a past master at getting others to attend to details for him.

"Yes," said Brainerd, "that quality of delegating work and responsibility is one of the most valuable qualities of leadership. In fact it is indispensable to leadership. But it is not always desirable to use sheer cleverness to avoid detail—only to avoid repetition of detail. If you avoid anything in the life, you lose the value of the experience."

"That's true, too!" cried Kenneth.

In such statements of what are now considered baldly obvious truths did Brainerd lead Kenneth's young mind away from the smug, old outworn conservative ideas of a passing phase, into a contemplation of the wider outlook that was going to be possible to a new generation. And therein he fulfilled, unknowingly, his function in the fates of those about him.

Together the two men examined the sketchy, incomplete work that Brainerd had managed to accomplish.

"I have lacked health, and I have lacked means," said the elder, frankly, "so I have not here a prosperous money-making plant, such as I should have. But it makes me a decent living; and, what is more, it brings me a living every year. Dry seasons don't bother me a bit. As to this sagebrush upland you were laughing about——"

 

Daphne, her wardrobe renewed, no longer concealed herself. The gangly, bare-legged child of yesterday was suddenly forgotten, as though it had never been. Not by a flicker of the eyelash did Daphne acknowledge that such a creature had ever existed; and there was that, not in but back of her manner, that withered even a recollection of it. Only her extraordinary vital energy, her wayward elfish fancy playing quaintly over everyday things, and her headlong zest in living she carried over with her into the new phase. Once she had determined that Kenneth came sympathetically to the life she and her father lived at the Bungalow, she took him on wholeheartedly; and, as to a friend visiting for the first time, she was all eagerness to take him about and show him hidden lands. Generally they went on horseback. Daphne led, very mysterious as to their destination; very chatty in comment of the things they saw by the way. The dogs invariably accompanied them, creating great disturbance in the colonies of ground squirrels. The first rain had cleared promptly and no more had come. The sun shone warmly. A timid green lay snuggled beneath the dead grasses.

"Keeping warm under a fur coat," said Daphne.

She knew intimately every nook and cranny in the hills; every grove of oaks; every secret cañon from the ranges. To some quaint or beautiful or cozy objective she led Kenneth on each of their rides. He learned to know when to exclaim by the small, triumphant air of expectation she assumed when they had reached their journey's end—a still dark pool beneath fragrant bay trees; a fantastic old tree twisted by long-dead gales; a flat rock looking down on the blue of deep cañons; a slope of shingle where the sun lay warm and the spicy odour of Lad's Love wandered down to them like a gentle spirit. Never did she consciously give him any clue as to when she considered they had reached the thing that was to make the ride worth while. But when he cried out satisfactorily, she was manifestly pleased. Kenneth learned to keep his eyes and his wits about him, lest he pass by one of these favourite places unknowing. The result then was an evident disappointment and lowering of spirit. She was childishly eager to have them see with the same eyes. Then, having arrived, they liked to dismount and turn the horses loose to graze; while they lay on their backs in the grass or in the shade. They never talked much, but watched the slow circling of buzzards, or the forming and melting cloudlets, of made rainbows through their eyelashes. They could hear the horses cropping crisply, a comfortable sound. Or perhaps they crouched by the stream watching the hypnotic shift of light through branches, or the reflection on the under side of leaves. Small, busy, amusing birds complimented them with no attention as they went about their affairs. At length as the sun lowered, a chill would steal abroad. They would rouse themselves. The horses, their reins hanging, would by now be dozing with one hind leg tucked up. The dogs lay farther up the hill flat on their sides exposed to the warmest sun. Everybody seemed to stretch with yawns. But once under way the coolness of the early evening of winter seemed to fill them with a wild, playful energy. The dogs chased madly in wide circles, their quarters tucked under them, their backs humped, their hind legs spurning the soil in quick, stabbing jumps. The horses arched their necks, feeling at the bits, and made little mock shies. Daphne and Kenneth shouted foolishness at each other, and laughed a great deal.

Sometimes they went for all day. In that event they carried chops or a steak and had a picnic, Or they left the horses in the corral and tramped on foot up into the hills, or around the Peytons' ranch.

They spent a good deal of time at the Peytons' for there was a great variety of things to do and see. In the old days the ranch had been almost self-sustaining. Even now it raised many things that others were accustomed to buy in the town. The cattle work was of course the basis, and was always interesting. They liked to ride out with one of the vaqueros on his never-ending round, spying out the distribution and condition of the stock, observing strays, helping young calves, keeping a vigilant eye for those in trouble. Daphne told of the spring round-up when the neighbouring ranches joined forces to sort and brand the stock. That was a season of hard work, but also of picturesque pleasure. But outside the cattle were many minor industries that repaid investigation—a vineyard and an olive orchard of dove-gray foliage, where dwelt a flashing smile set in the simple countenance of one Tomaso, whose duty it was to make wine and pure olive oil. Near the foothills dwelt the bee-man, a religious fanatic who wore no hat or coat and let his hair grow long, who shouted texts and Bible quotations as he strode here and there among the hives, a strange person who was nevertheless quite at home with the hot, uncertain insects and who thoroughly understood all the mysteries of honey. The vegetable garden lay in a flat below the house. It was protected with wire fencing, and in its enclosure cress-grown water ditches ran in patterns, frogs croaked, and an ancient Chinaman in the wide peaked bowl of a woven hat moved like a figure on a screen. His name was Lo, and he knew little English, nor had he pride of appearance. He dwelt in a ramshackle little hut in one corner of the vegetable garden, made of old doors and lumber slung together anyhow, with a rickety stovepipe sticking out of it; not intrinsically an impressive dwelling; yet in some fashion, by means of strips of red paper with ideographs, tall-stalked bulbs growing in bowls, a queer smell or so, Lo had managed to make of his dwelling something exotic and picturesque. And over by the stables was the blacksmith shop; where they shod horses, and fashioned parts of agricultural machinery or wagons out of hot metal that glowed in the dusk of the shop, and hissed in water tubs like serpents. Nor must we forget the great stables for the working animals, nor the dairy stables, nor the dairy itself, with its cool, silent shelves of milk set to rise, nor its churns with its sweet smell of buttermilk, nor its rows of fragrant butter rolls, with everywhere a dampness and a cleanness. Nor the fowl yards, seemingly endless in extent, very populous, very busy, very conversational, with wise-looking but foolish chickens, and foolish-looking but wise ducks, and apoplectic turkey gobblers scraping the stiffened ends of their wings on the ground. An old sailor, twisted with rheumatism, had charge of the feathered creatures; and he was always eager to show the young people the latest squabs or hatchings, or to talk as long as they would listen about the remarkable examples of intelligence displayed by his charges. The dogs, who followed them everywhere else, were here rigidly barred. They sat outside the wire in a reproachful row conscious of being misjudged.

The half of the ranch has not been described. It would be interesting to follow our young people to the main stables, to the cook shack and the bunk houses, to the miniature village across the ravine where dwelt all the Spanish families, retainers of the ranch. And the hogs and the pigs, who had a self-sufficient air of competent wisdom, and liked to have their backs scratched. On the paddocks where roamed the colts and young horses, free as deer, gentle as dogs. But we can only enumerate them. And in the end they always arrived at the great wide-flung oak known as Dolman's House, where they climbed into the low branches and swung their legs for a good talk. Here, fancifully, seemed the central abiding place of the soul of the ranch, a soul born through the slow mellowing and blending of these many activities into one relationship. The ranch had a personality of its own: it was a single thing, to be loved and remembered. Daphne used to believe in Dolman implicitly. Through the haze gathering across her childhood memories she thought still to discern his face, to hear his voice. At times even yet it seemed to her that she felt a great beneficent presence that wished her well. She joked with herself about it, and told of it to Kenneth in a playful fashion that he considered charmingly fanciful. It would be, of course, absurd to believe such a thing literally: the imagination is a powerful agent in proper circumstances. Yet at times something overpowering swept through Daphne's soul that left her wondering.

As their intimacy progressed they joked a good deal about Dolman, making believe, as children do, inventing legends and possibilities. The degree to which their intimacy had unconsciously progressed may be gauged from the fact that they did not feel it necessary to act grown-up toward each other. Nobody, except perhaps United States Senators and ticket agents, of whose inner life I know nothing, is ever as grown up as he appears to his contemporaries. All he needs is a proper companion to show himself in his true kiddish colours. Kenneth did not even appreciate the fact that he was in love with Daphne. He had passed through the usual number of school and college "cases" and he thought he knew just what being in love was like. It was a tempestuous matter with a lot of violent emotion attached to it, and a number of symptoms that were pleasant or disagreeable according as you looked at it. He felt entirely differently toward Daphne. To be sure, he wanted to be with her all the time, and was totally neglectful of his old companions, but that was because she was such a good sort; you could talk foolishly with her without being silly. She was a good sport and was game for anything. She had sense——

Allie Peyton saw plainly enough, but she was a wise woman and said nothing. Except that she warned the Colonel against one thing.

"Don't ever call them 'children'," she said. "They are children, of course, and they act like children—I believe they're out at Sing Toy's cookey jar right now—but they'll freeze into grown-ups in two jiffies if you make them conscious of what they're doing."

Neither the Colonel nor Brainerd attached the slightest importance to Kenneth's constant presence. To them Daphne was still an infant. They thought it rather kind of Kenneth to spend so much time amusing the child.

IV

The year, in spite of the encouragement of its early rain, turned out to be another dry one. The tourists were delighted. They had come out to buy climate; and climate was being delivered to them. The first rains, and a few unimportant subsequent showers, had started the green, so that the country looked well. The brilliant days followed each other, clear and sparkling. Loud were the praises of the land as heard in such places as the Fremont Hotel veranda. But those who knew cast back in mind to other dry years within their recollection, and they began to figure ahead apprehensively.

The barometers of this condition were the banks. The men who sat in the little varnished back offices of these modest institutions were experts in the affairs of the country. They knew the peculiar conditions that obtained in a land when even the children counted the inches of rainfall for a normal February; and they were perfectly aware of the probable sequences to any given set of circumstances. It was time to retrench. It was time to fortify for a disastrous moment when, to save the integrity of the whole, it would be necessary to support whole-heartedly some of the weaker parts. That was one of the functions of banks; and in consequence, to one who did not understand, it would have seemed that at first they were unduly harsh, and later unduly generous.

One of the first to feel the effects of this prescience on the part of the bankers was Don Vincente Cazadero. He had hung on longer than most of his kind, partly because the situation of his rancho was more favourable than ordinary, partly because he was fortunate in his friends. To the latter he was almost as deeply indebted as to the bankers. New ways touched him not at all. He lived according to the old life, which had been good enough for his fathers, and was good enough for him. Therefore he raised no hay against the days of adversity; he planted no fields of alfalfa under irrigation; he made no attempts to improve the stock of his long-horned, big-headed Mexican cattle; he maintained still the old heedless lavish manner of life. No one knew exactly how many human beings Las Flores directly supported; nor did anybody but Don Vincente's major domo, who was as hide-bound and impatient of new methods as his master, know to whom wages were paid or how much. There were, as with every Spanish family, shoals of parientes, who might be roughly described as relatives, though the term included all sorts of round-about connections. These expected, as a matter of course, to be supported by the feudal head of the house.

Don Vincente rode over to see his neighbour as soon as he had understood that the bank had delivered an ultimatum. He deeply resented it. In his secret heart of hearts he considered it as of a piece with all the "acts of oppression" that he had chalked, rather vaguely, against the Americans' account. Nevertheless he concealed his resentment beneath his pride, and threw over it a careless scarf of nonchalance. Indeed, it was only at the end of quite a long visit, and of many casual topics, that he introduced the real subject of his call in a "by the way" manner.

"I have heard from Señor Mills," he remarked in Spanish, "who desires further payment on some matters between us. I pointed out to him that this was not the season. What ranchero has money at this season? It is not the time of the sale of cattle. But he has given me this and that reason. It seems to be serious with him. Is it possible, amigo, that you——?" he paused delicately.

Colonel Peyton's fine old face wrinkled in distress.

"I know, I know!" he cried. "It is the dry year, after last winter. I sincerely hope that it will mean no sacrifice to you, my old friend. I sincerely hope that it will amount only to an inconvenience. For I, too, have talked with Señor Mills—a serious talk, amigo. I have not one cent to lay my hands on. I am myself pushed to save affairs from disaster. It can be done, but——"

A chill had struck through Don Vincente's heart at the first words of his friend. For whatever secret opinion or suspicion or aristocratic contempt he might have as to others of the American usurpers of his land, he knew and trusted and loved the owner of Corona del Monte. He knew that the Colonel's refusal was final, because it must be final; and for a single instant his panic-stricken mind visaged the consequences of a failure where he had from long habit taken success for granted. But instantly he recovered command of himself, and waved his hand gracefully.

"It is a nothing," he said. "It can be arranged in other ways."

"Let me tell you my situation," urged the Colonel.

Already the little Spanish gentleman sitting opposite, ridiculous—or pitiable—in his futile and ineffective pride, owed him an immense sum of money, which, a little at a time, he had taken without interest, without notes or other formality, with hardly even spoken thanks, as one accepts a cigarette. Yet the Colonel's generous heart was eager for justification as to his reason for refusing in this further need.

"It is nothing, nothing!" disclaimed Don Vincente. "But I am grieved to hear that you, too, are the victim of these heartless bankers. Perhaps I may in my turn be of assistance——"

"They are not dealing with their own money—I can see that," the Colonel said, in defence of his friend, "but it does not make it the easier for us, amigo. A bad year is coming; a serious year."

They parted with formal expressions in the ceremonious Spanish style; and went their respective ways. The Spaniard, for the first time, had had brought home to him the seriousness of a situation that had been for years preparing. Colonel Peyton for the first time had found himself without ready money.

He, too, had been summoned to the little back office in the bank, where he had passed through a series of very uncomfortable conferences. Oliver Mills had several sheets of figures, which he insisted on discussing. The figures had to do with Corona del Monte, the number of cattle it supported, the natural increase, the proportion of beef animals, the average of market prices, the average gross expenditures for some years, and a whole lot of statistics concerning dry years and compound interest and such things. It was appallingly cold blooded and accurate, and seemed to show that Corona del Monte was rapidly sinking to perdition. In vain the Colonel had pointed out that these things could not be so, for the simple reason that he had always plenty of money, and the money must have come from somewhere. Mills proceeded to show him whence it had come; and that was disconcerting, for a lot of it, it seemed, would have to go back.

"So you see, Richard," he ended, kindly, "it really is necessary to take some thought and plan to the future. You have a wonderful piece of property there, a very rich piece of property. It ought to pay you big money, instead of being a burden, which it actually is. All it needs is a retrenchment until you get it on its feet; and then a revision of methods. The old days are over, Richard. We old codgers have got to realize that."

"I suppose so, Oliver," acknowledged the Colonel, whose usually sunny and exuberant spirits had been depressed by the three sheets of figures. "Have you any suggestions?"

"Yes, I have," replied Mills, briskly. "You've got to get rid of those hotels. They're white elephants as it is now. I can turn them over to a syndicate for you; and you will be free from that burden, and at the same time be able to lift your most pressing needs at the ranch. You know, Richard, you are very considerably in arrears there, and while as a person I would do anything in the world for you, as a banker I must begin to think more of my stockholders. This is going to be a bad year. The banks are inclined to be as liberal as possible, but they must stop short of the safety line." The little banker was obviously nervous and embarrassed. He saw he must speak more plainly, and he hated to do it. The Colonel's expression was that of a bewildered child. If the matter had depended on himself alone, he would have managed somehow to evade it and let things drift for a little while longer, but the board of directors had given him some very positive instructions in this and in a number of cases. The new director, Patrick Boyd, had made him very uncomfortable. "We will have to do some foreclosing this year, I am afraid," he continued; then after a pause he blurted it out: "We want to avoid foreclosing on you."

The Colonel sat up very straight, and his eyes flashed.

"On me? On Corona del Monte?" he cried. "Exactly what do you mean, sir?"

"Do you know just how much you owe? and how far behind your interest payments you are? and how deeply involved your two hotels are? and what deficit they are making?" asked the banker, reaching for another sheet of figures.

"No, by gad, sir, I do not! At least I have not the figures by me. But what has that to do with this extraordinary statement—foreclose on me?"

Oliver Mills was very patient and very considerate. He succeeded in convincing the Colonel that the situation was serious: he succeeded in allaying the first indignation; he did not at all succeed in restoring the Colonel's former engaging child-like trust that the bank was a sort of affectionate big brother.

"And if I meet your suggestion, sir, and dispose of the hotel property to this syndicate you speak of: exactly how much money would that leave me clear?" he inquired at last.

"It would pay the mortgages on the hotels, and the back interest, and the floating debts; and it would square your way for a fresh start at the ranch—that is, would catch you up on your interest, and leave you five or ten thousand."

"Five or ten thousand! For two hotels!" cried the Colonel.

He could not get over the shock of that. To all intents and purposes it seemed to him that he was selling two big modern hotels, with grounds, well furnished and in running order, both of which belonged to him personally without partnership, and all he was getting from the transaction was a miserable five or ten thousand dollars! He listened to Oliver Mills's careful explanations and understood them intellectually; he assented to the banker's conclusion that he had not really owned them for some time—a panicky thought flashed through his mind that perhaps in the same way he did not really own Corona del Monte, but he thrust it out as unthinkable—but in spite of it his instinct cried out as against a cold-blooded subversion of age-founded things. He spent the afternoon in that office; and when he left, his usual springy jauntiness was quenched. For the first time in his life he walked with his shoulders stooped. He drove back to Corona del Monte huddled over the reins trying to think it out.

He had known from the start that he would have to fall in with the banker's plans, but he hated to face it. The hotels meant so much to his large feeling of hospitality. He enjoyed every detail, from the first lordly segregating of the sheep from the goats at the weekly docking of the Santa Rosa to all the little personal touches of especial fruits and flowers and gallant attentions that the Colonel loved to bestow. He would miss the hotels; miss them cruelly. Instinctively he knew he would never go back as an outsider to those beloved halls where he had reigned. That one pleasant human aspect of his life would be by one stroke cut off. It was like a bereavement.

But the Colonel again experienced that swift cold pang of fear. The hotels after all were a side issue in life. Corona del Monte was life itself. He had made it; and it had made him. It was a sentient, plastic, living entity composed of its many elements of living human beings and animals, of customs grown old, of experiences joyous and tragic, of sentiments and sympathies shared. To the Colonel it had seemed as much a matter of course as the air he breathed; and as immortal. Now, apparently, that life might be in danger. Corona del Monte, as a living, breathing thing, might actually cease to exist. The possibility had never crossed the Colonel's mind before. What were the hotels in comparison to this? Nothing: less than nothing!

He turned in to the long Avenue of Palms, and the lights of the ranch house twinkled intermittently through the trees. The Colonel thrust his body upright, as though throwing off a physical weight, and carefully composed his features. To all intents and purposes it was the same old debonair Colonel who entered the low living room and strode around the centre table to kiss his wife; who, as usual, occupied her worn, old wooden "Boston" rocker. She looked up at him and smiled; but into her eyes came a trouble. It was only after supper, however, when they were once again beside the study lamp, that Allie revealed what her perceptions had told her.

"What is it, Richard?" she asked, quietly.

"What is what?" he countered, with an air of well-imitated surprise.

"That won't do. Something is on your mind. You may as well tell me first as last."

The Colonel hesitated. His first instinct was to evade; for in his simple, old-fashioned code one kept all matters of worrisome business from one's women folk. It was almost a defect of chivalry to permit the dear creatures to realize that their lightest wish could not be granted. To talk about money was nearly as indelicate as to talk about legs. Man must shelter woman from all business worries. But the Colonel was very human, and very much alone in a new and bewildering experience. It did not require much more of Allie's gentle authority to bring him to confession.

"Well, I think that might be a whole lot worse!" she cried cheerfully, when he had finished detailing the situation. "I thought when you came in to-night that your best friend had died, at least. I never did like your fussing with those two hotels. They took too much of your time and money, both of which you could have spent to much better advantage on the ranch. That, to my mind, has been the whole trouble. The ranch would have done much better for a little attention. You've simply fallen between two stools."

"I believe you're right!" cried the Colonel, brightening.

"Of course I'm right!" insisted Allie, stoutly.

The Colonel thought of some of the figures.

"We will have to economize," he said.

"Then we'll economize. That won't kill us."

The Colonel passed in rapid review the different activities of the ranch, all rendered almost sacred by long custom.

"I don't believe I know how," he said.

V

About this time Patrick Boyd suggested at supper that he would like a little talk with his son. So the two adjourned to the "den" with the leather armchairs.

"What I want to see you about is your going into some sort of business," began Boyd. "We agreed last spring that every young man worth his salt should be active in life; and we rather placed the vacation limit for the fall. It is now nearly mid-winter, and we don't seem to have made much of a start. Mind you, I'm not blaming you. And there is of course no harm done, for a man can loaf more busily in this country than any place I know. But we ought to begin to think about it."

"I have been thinking about it, Dad," replied Kenneth, unexpectedly. "Don't think I've just been sliding along. Ever since we came back from San Francisco I've been collecting ideas and making up my mind. I think I've decided."

"What."

"Ranching."

Boyd puffed for a few minutes in silence.

"Well, it's a big business; but, according to my observation, very rarely profitable nowadays. You see, I am on the board of directors at the bank, and therefore in a position to know something about it. I had rather thought some active business would have been better. There is a firm of contractors here with, I think, a big future as the town grows. It is the Western Construction Company. I happen to know that I could get you in there—with every prospect of advancement. I don't know a single big ranch that is prosperous right now——"

"Let me tell you some of the things I have learned," urged Kenneth. "Then see what you think."

"Let her go!" agreed Boyd.

The conference lasted for several hours. Kenneth did most of the talking. What he said was a compilation of the many conversations he had had with Brainerd. In brief he pointed out the effects of the old hit-or-miss, kill-or-cure, all-or-nothing methods, the ignorances of soil and climate, the possibilities back of irrigation, the advantages of special rather than common farm products, and all the rest that is so generally in practise to-day, but which was then revolutionary. Boyd's keen and practical mind was intrigued. He began his listening in tolerance; but ended it in interest.

"Your arguments sound plausible. But of course none of what you say is certain. It would have to be worked out in experiment."

"Of course! And that is just what I want to do!" cried Kenneth. "If it does work out, think what it would mean to the country! I'd feel that I'd really accomplished something worth while!"

Patrick Boyd grinned covertly. What it would mean to the country had nothing to do with it. But he saw instantly what it would mean to the owner of a large acreage could it be proved conclusively that a few acres would support a family. Sounded a little wild; but Kenneth was young, and it might do him no harm to try.

"And if it doesn't work?" he suggested.

"But it will; I'm certain of it. And you have to take some risks in any new thing, don't you?"

"True. But we like to make these risks as small as possible. Where did you get all this stuff, anyway?"

Kenneth mentioned his source. Boyd shouted with laughter.

"That shiftless cuss!" he cried. "Brainerd! Why, Ken, he hasn't got enough to bless himself with! He's been gophering away on that side hill of his for ten years or more, and he hasn't got two cents to bless himself with! Why, Ken, he's the worst man in the world to talk farming. He never raised anything but a pretty daughter. Oho!" concluded Boyd, struck by a sudden thought.

Kenneth flushed, but stood by his guns.

"He hasn't made a paying business, but he made just the experiment we were talking about; and it has worked, as an experiment."

This was exactly the right tack.

"How do you mean?" asked Boyd.

Kenneth explained Brainerd's physical weakness and the handicap that came from his lack of energy. He went over in accurate detail what had been done on the little ranch, why it could not have been carried farther, and what the results were up to that time. Boyd was partly won to his son's point of view by his arguments; but was more struck by the thoroughness and intelligence with which the young man had evidently gone into the question. Those are good qualities, and Boyd felt a glow of pride at this excellent proof of them. His active mind had been working independently of his listening.

"I see," he said, when Kenneth had finished. "You may be right; and then again you may not. But you have gone into it all in a way I like. As I see the situation, however, a really conclusive experiment would take a good many years. By the time it was proved wrong, you would have put the best years of your life into it."

"I'm willing," interrupted Kenneth, eagerly.

"I don't think it necessary. According to your statement there is such an experiment pretty well along, that only needs finishing. Suppose we should make an arrangement with Mr. Brainerd to let you in partnership with him. You could supply the energy and I the capital; and we would know in short order whether or not the thing would work. If it does work, then we can think of getting a bigger ranch for a permanent proposition. What do you think of it?"

"Perfectly fine—if Mr. Brainerd will do it."

"Mind you, I don't agree to it myself, yet. I want to go out with you and look the whole thing over, and get you to explain this to me on the ground. I'm too old a bird to buy a pig in a poke!"

"All right; we'll go to-morrow," agreed Kenneth.

They went the next day and the day after. Boyd had a long talk with Brainerd. Then, apparently, he dropped the subject; but about a week later he again called Kenneth for conference in the library.

"I have looked into this ranching matter; and I have taken considerable advice on it. I am inclined to believe you are right. Now, I have had an interview with Mr. Brainerd, and this is what I have proposed to him. He has agreed, so if you like the scheme, we can go ahead. I will furnish sufficient money to develop Mr. Brainerd's property along the lines he has laid out. You are to see that the property is developed, under Mr. Brainerd's supervision and advice. You are, however, to have charge of all details of hiring and firing men, of buying necessary supplies and all the rest of that, of attending to the details of housing and feeding your help, and all that sort of thing. My idea is not especially to make a success of this particular little ranch, but to have you learn all you can. Incidentally, of course, we get a chance to try it out—and to try you out."

"I won't fail, Dad."

"I don't think you will. But I want you to get my idea clearly. I've given considerable thought to it. I don't want you to get swamped on this little proposition. Don't try to do any of the actual work yourself, unless you have a lot of time and need exercise. Lay out the work for others: and see that it is done."

"I understand that," assured Kenneth.

"Now, next door to you is one of the biggest and finest ranches in the country—Colonel Peyton's," pursued Boyd. "You have there a fine chance to see how things are done on a big scale. I have seen Colonel Peyton and told him what you may be about. He will see that you have a chance to learn anything you may want to learn. I'll leave that to you. But here is what I propose, while our actual experiment is going——"

He paused so long that Kenneth stirred expectantly.

"Suppose, after you are in the run of things, you bring me a weekly report in which you describe how you would run that big ranch. It may be that you would do exactly as Colonel Peyton is doing. If so, state what it is, exactly as though it were your own method. In that way I can judge of how well you are grasping the situation."

"I see."

"If, on the other hand, you would do some things differently, why say so; and how you would do them. It might be well that a young man would see improvements on old methods. Put them down, and we'll discuss them, and see how practicable they are."

"That will be grand fun!" cried Kenneth.

"Of course," warned Boyd, "you must not make any of these suggestions for improvement to Colonel Peyton. He would hardly take them in good part, after doing things his own way for forty years or so!"

"Of course not," agreed Kenneth.

"Then when we have tried it out, and if it works, we'll see about starting you in on a ranch that is worth while."

It was agreed that Kenneth should continue to live with his father. He would have to get up a trifle earlier in the morning; but on the other hand the Bungalow was only a brisk twenty minutes' ride over a beautiful country. Kenneth was delighted with the whole arrangement. His mind, excited by the numberless possibilities of the activities he had dreamed, refused for a long time to let him fall asleep. He reviewed the best course of the new ditch; he determined the height and kind of a rabbit-proof fence; and debated pro and con a gang plough.

Over and over, around and around, his thoughts milled. Yet when at last his wearied spirit stole into the dim borderland of sleep, its eyes saw, not the green fields and blossoming trees of his ambition, but Daphne. He would be near her.

For some time after his son had retired Patrick Boyd sat smoking and gazing into the collapsing, glowing coals of the oakwood fire. He was well satisfied, though at the first proposal of this ranching venture he had been very much the contrary. There had seemed to him nothing in it, either of money or of opportunity for a brisk, modern young man to exercise his powers. But the week's investigation had convinced him. The money success of the thing was not certain; that would have to be determined by experiment. But there was no doubt that here was a field in which a young man could use all his intelligence and push. Even if it did not turn out, Kenneth would have acquired the experience necessary to his development; and that, in the final analysis, was all that Boyd wanted for him at first. That was all he had expected from the Western Construction Company. If, on the other hand, the experiment proved a success, Boyd had other plans. As director on the bank board he had access to the financial affairs of the whole county. It was not by-the-way that he had urged the hypothetical "reports" on Colonel Peyton's ranch. Boyd had taken pains, during the past week, to look up the Colonel's situation. He knew to a dollar the latter's troubles: and he had a shrewd guess as to why they had come about. If things went on as they were going, the Colonel must eventually find himself where he must do something. It might be possible to acquire part of the Corona del Monte; or perhaps all of it; or a partnership might be arranged. There was nothing sinister in Patrick Boyd's visioning of future possibilities—as yet. His ruthless, fighting spirit never stirred unless at the push of serious opposition.