people who hate the road, women and men, the whole county,
the whole State, thousands and thousands of people. Don't the managers
and the directors of the road ever think of that? Don't they ever think
of all the hate that surrounds them, everywhere, everywhere, and the
good people that just grit their teeth when the name of the road is
mentioned? Why do they want to make the people hate them? No," she
murmured, the tears starting to her eyes, "No, I tell you, Mr. Presley,
the men who own the railroad are wicked, bad-hearted men who don't care
how much the poor people suffer, so long as the road makes its eighteen
million a year. They don't care whether the people hate them or love
them, just so long as they are afraid of them. It's not right and God
will punish them sooner or later."

A little after this the two young men took themselves away, Dyke
obligingly carrying them in the wagon as far as the gate that opened
into the Quien Sabe ranch. On the way, Presley referred to what Mrs.
Dyke had said and led Dyke, himself, to speak of the P. and S. W.

"Well," Dyke said, "it's like this, Mr. Presley. I, personally, haven't
got the right to kick. With you wheat-growing people I guess it's
different, but hops, you see, don't count for much in the State. It's
such a little business that the road don't want to bother themselves to
tax it. It's the wheat growers that the road cinches. The rates on hops
ARE FAIR. I've got to admit that; I was in to Bonneville a while ago to
find out. It's two cents a pound, and Lord love you, that's reasonable
enough to suit any man. No," he concluded, "I'm on the way to make money
now. The road sacking me as they did was, maybe, a good thing for me,
after all. It came just at the right time. I had a bit of money put by
and here was the chance to go into hops with the certainty that hops
would quadruple and quintuple in price inside the year. No, it was my
chance, and though they didn't mean it by a long chalk, the railroad
people did me a good turn when they gave me my time--and the tad'll
enter the seminary next fall."

About a quarter of an hour after they had said goodbye to the one-time
engineer, Presley and Vanamee, tramping briskly along the road that led
northward through Quien Sabe, arrived at Annixter's ranch house. At once
they were aware of a vast and unwonted bustle that revolved about the
place. They stopped a few moments looking on, amused and interested in
what was going forw