dry season, and
all Tulare County, all the vast reaches of the San Joaquin Valley--in
fact all South Central California, was bone dry, parched, and baked
and crisped after four months of cloudless weather, when the day seemed
always at noon, and the sun blazed white hot over the valley from the
Coast Range in the west to the foothills of the Sierras in the east.

As Presley drew near to the point where what was known as the Lower Road
struck off through the Rancho de Los Muertos, leading on to Guadalajara,
he came upon one of the county watering-tanks, a great, iron-hooped
tower of wood, straddling clumsily on its four uprights by the roadside.
Since the day of its completion, the storekeepers and retailers of
Bonneville had painted their advertisements upon it. It was a landmark.
In that reach of level fields, the white letters upon it could be read
for miles. A watering-trough stood near by, and, as he was very thirsty,
Presley resolved to stop for a moment to get a drink.

He drew abreast of the tank and halted there, leaning his bicycle
against the fence. A couple of men in white overalls were repainting
the surface of the tank, seated on swinging platforms that hung by hooks
from the roof. They were painting a sign--an advertisement. It was all
but finished and read, "S. Behrman, Real Estate, Mortgages, Main Street,
Bonneville, Opposite the Post Office." On the horse-trough that stood
in the shadow of the tank was another freshly painted inscription: "S.
Behrman Has Something To Say To You."

As Presley straightened up after drinking from the faucet at one end of
the horse-trough, the watering-cart itself laboured into view around
the turn of the Lower Road. Two mules and two horses, white with dust,
strained leisurely in the traces, moving at a snail's pace, their limp
ears marking the time; while perched high upon the seat, under a yellow
cotton wagon umbrella, Presley recognised Hooven, one of Derrick's
tenants, a German, whom every one called "Bismarck," an excitable little
man with a perpetual grievance and an endless flow of broken English.

"Hello, Bismarck," said Presley, as Hooven brought his team to a
standstill by the tank, preparatory to refilling.

"Yoost der men I look for, Mist'r Praicely," cried the other, twisting
the reins around the brake. "Yoost one minute, you wait, hey? I wanta
talk mit you."

Presley was impatient to be on his way again. A little more time wasted,
and the day would be