oky eucalypti; a patch of perennial tomato-vines; and a few acres of
what Barney Wilson called "veteran barley,"--it having been sown once,
and having "volunteered" ever since,--constituted those additions to the
value of the land, if not to the landscape, upon which Parker based his
homestead rights.

Since the Laguna Ranch had been subdivided, and settlers had increased,
and especially since Eben Starkweather had bought the Slater place, and
Ida Starkweather had invaded the foot-hills with her vigorous,
self-reliant, breezy personality, Parker had been contemplating further
improvements in his domicile--improvements which, in moments of
flattered hope, assumed the dignity of a lean-to, a rocking-chair, and a
box-spring mattress. The dreams which had led him to a consideration of
this domestic expansion he had confided to no one but Mose Doolittle,
who had a small stock-ranch high up on the mountain, and who found
Parker's cabin a convenient resting-place on his journeys up and down
the trail.

"I tell ye," he had said to Mose, "that girl is no slouch. Her pa is an
infant in arms, a babe an' a suckling, beside her. Her ma is sickly; one
o' your chronics. Idy runs the ranch. I set here of evenin's, an' watch
'em through this yer field-glass. She slams around that place like a
house a-fire. It's inspirin' to see her. Give me a woman that makes
things hum, ever-ee time!"

"Somebody said she had a hell of a temper," ventured Mose, willing to be
the recipient of further confidences.

"Somebody lied. She's got spunk. When she catches anybody in a mean
trick she don't quote poetry to 'im; she gives 'im the straight goods.
Some folks call that temper. I call it sand. There'll be a picnic when
she gets hold o' Barden!"

Parker raised the field-glass again, and leveled it on the Starkweather
homestead.

"There's the infant now, grubbin' greasewood. He's a crank o' the first
water; you'd ought to hear 'im talk. He went through the war, an' he's
short one lung, an' he's got the asmy so bad he breathes like a squeaky
windmill, an' he won't apply fer a pension because he says he was awful
sickly when he enlisted, an' he thinks goin' South an' campin' out saved
his life. That's what I call lettin' yer 'magination run away with ye."

"What does Idy think about it?" queried Mose innocently.

"Idy stands up fer her pa; that's what I like about 'er. I like a woman
that'll back a man up, right er wrong; it's proper an' female. It