honest, and
without fear. Something (to his idea not much) had been done to catch at
that life in passing, but its poet had not yet arisen. The few sporadic
attempts, thus he told himself, had only touched the keynote. He strove
for the diapason, the great song that should embrace in itself a whole
epoch, a complete era, the voice of an entire people, wherein all people
should be included--they and their legends, their folk lore, their
fightings, their loves and their lusts, their blunt, grim humour, their
stoicism under stress, their adventures, their treasures found in a day
and gambled in a night, their direct, crude speech, their generosity
and cruelty, their heroism and bestiality, their religion and profanity,
their self-sacrifice and obscenity--a true and fearless setting forth of
a passing phase of history, un-compromising, sincere; each group in its
proper environment; the valley, the plain, and the mountain; the ranch,
the range, and the mine--all this, all the traits and types of every
community from the Dakotas to the Mexicos, from Winnipeg to Guadalupe,
gathered together, swept together, welded and riven together in one
single, mighty song, the Song of the West. That was what he dreamed,
while things without names--thoughts for which no man had yet invented
words, terrible formless shapes, vague figures, colossal, monstrous,
distorted--whirled at a gallop through his imagination.

As Harran came up, Presley reached down into the pouches of the
sun-bleached shooting coat he wore and drew out and handed him the
packet of letters and papers.

"Here's the mail. I think I shall go on."

"But dinner is ready," said Harran; "we are just sitting down."

Presley shook his head. "No, I'm in a hurry. Perhaps I shall have
something to eat at Guadalajara. I shall be gone all day."

He delayed a few moments longer, tightening a loose nut on his forward
wheel, while Harran, recognising his father's handwriting on one of the
envelopes, slit it open and cast his eye rapidly over its pages.

"The Governor is coming home," he exclaimed, "to-morrow morning on the
early train; wants me to meet him with the team at Guadalajara; AND," he
cried between his clenched teeth, as he continued to read, "we've lost
the case."

"What case? Oh, in the matter of rates?"

Harran nodded, his eyes flashing, his face growing suddenly scarlet.

"Ulsteen gave his decision yesterday," he continued, reading from his
father's letter. "He