to it? This adds another big cost to us farmers' bill."

Williams grunted. "Wish you folk had been up on the Makon. That's where
we had real floods. Ames, we are doing our limit. Ain't you old enough
yet to know that a lift under the arm carries a fellow twice as far as a
kick in the pants? Here's the Boss now. Light on _him_! Poor old scout!"

Jim was on horseback. He rode slowly up and dismounted. "How are you,
Ames? And Mrs. Ames? Have you met Mrs. Saradokis? Ames, before you begin
to chant my funeral march let me ask you if you don't want to sell that
south forty you say I'm not irrigating right. Mr. Saradokis represents
some Eastern interests. Perhaps you'd like to meet him."

Oscar grinned a little sheepishly. "Business before pleasure! I'll go
right up to see him now."

"Then you must come up with me," said Penelope to Mrs. Ames, and the two
women followed after Jim and Oscar.

The climb was short but stiff. Pen had not yet become accustomed to the
five thousand feet of elevation at which the officers' camp was set, so
she had no breath for conversation until they reached the tent house.
Sara lay in his invalid chair before the open door, maps, tobacco and
magazines scattered over the swing table that covered his lap. Pen, as
if to ward off any rudeness, began to explain as she mounted the steps:

"Here is a gentleman who has land for sale, Sara." Sara's scowl
disappeared. He gave the Ames family such a pleasant welcome that Jim
was puzzled. Ames and Jim dropped down on the doorstep while Mrs. Ames
and Pen took the hammock chairs.

"Have you people been long in this country?" asked Pen.

"Thirty years this coming fall," replied Ames, taking the cigar Sara
offered him and smelling it critically. "I was a kid of 21 when I took
up my section down on the old canal. I couldn't have sold that land for
two bits an acre a year after I took it up. I refused two hundred
dollars an acre for the alfalfa land the other day."

"You must have done some work in the interval," commented Sara.

Jim, leaning against the door post, watched Sara through half closed
eyes and glanced now and again at Pen's eager face. Ames puffed at his
cigar and gazed out over the desert.

"Work!" he said with a half laugh, "why when I took up that land sand
and silence, whisky and poker were the staples round here. I built a
one-room adobe, bought a team, imported a plow and a harrow and a
scraper and went at it. I've got a ten-acre orange