er
'im if he wanted to go to work on the canon,--that'd be onreasonable."

"He hain't no notion o' doin' that," asserted the old woman
contemptuously. "Ketch him improvin' anybody else's water right. We're
nothin' to him but sticks to boil his pot. What's he up to now?"

"Well," rejoined Lysander skeptically, "he _said_ he wanted to divide
that upper volunteer barley-patch into ten-acre lots and put it onto the
market. An' he b'lieved he could double the water right by tunnelin'."

"Why don't he tunnel away, then? Nobody's a-carin'," demanded the old
woman shrilly.

"That's what I told 'im; and he 'lowed, of course, he wasn't a-goin' to
put money into another feller's water right. An' then he figured away,
showin' me how it'd increase the value o' this piece o' property; an' I
told 'im this property was 'way up now,"--Lysander sneered
audibly,--"consider'ble higher 'n most folks wanted to go; an' then he
went to blowin' about it, braggin' up the ranch, an' tellin' what a big
thing he done when he give it to you"--

The old woman broke in upon him fiercely.

"Did he say that, Lysander?" She turned, and bent upon her son-in-law a
quick, wrathful glance from under her shaggy brows; the muscles of her
weather-beaten face twitched nervously. "I'd 'a' give my right hand to
'a' heerd 'im. I'd like to have Colonel Nate Forrester try to say
anything to me about givin' anybody this ranch." She measured her words
bitingly. "I s'pose when a feller puts his pistol at yer head, and tells
you to hold up yer hands, and goes through yer pockets, if he happens to
overlook a ten-cent piece he _gives_ ye that much, does 'e? That's the
way Colonel Nate Forrester _give_ me this ranch. Loss Anjelus County
hadn't heerd o' him when I settled onto this claim, and it ain't heerd
no good of 'im sence."

The old woman's harsh, discordant voice rose higher with her wrath. The
baby stirred uneasily in his father's arms. Even Melissa raised her
eyes,--Melissa, who sat on the lowest step of the projecting staircase,
twisting and untwisting the faded blue silk handkerchief in her lap with
a gentle, listless monotony. It was impossible to tell whether ignorance
or indifference characterized the girl, so calm, so inert, so absent was
she, sitting in the half-shadow of the dimly lighted corner, her
lustrous auburn head outlined against the sombre-hued redwood of the
wall behind her.

There was a little hush in the room after the tempest.

"No, t