n burst out, suddenly remembering a
forgotten argument. He waved an arm. "Ach, der pipe-line bei der Mission
Greek, und der waater-hole for dose cettles. Say, he doand doo ut
HIMSELLUF, berhaps, I doand tink."

"Well, talk to Harran about it."

"Say, he doand farm der whole demn rench bei hisseluf. Me, I gotta
stay."

But on a sudden the water in the cart gushed over the sides from the
vent in the top with a smart sound of splashing. Hooven was forced to
turn his attention to it. Presley got his wheel under way.

"I hef some converzations mit Herran," Hooven called after him. "He
doand doo ut bei hisseluf, den, Mist'r Derrick; ach, no. I stay bei der
rench to drive dose cettles."

He climbed back to his seat under the wagon umbrella, and, as he
started his team again with great cracks of his long whip, turned to the
painters still at work upon the sign and declared with some defiance:

"Sieben yahr; yais, sir, seiben yahr I hef been on dis rench. Git oop,
you mule you, hoop!"

Meanwhile Presley had turned into the Lower Road. He was now on
Derrick's land, division No. I, or, as it was called, the Home ranch,
of the great Los Muertos Rancho. The road was better here, the dust laid
after the passage of Hooven's watering-cart, and, in a few minutes, he
had come to the ranch house itself, with its white picket fence, its few
flower beds, and grove of eucalyptus trees. On the lawn at the side
of the house, he saw Harran in the act of setting out the automatic
sprinkler. In the shade of the house, by the porch, were two or three
of the greyhounds, part of the pack that were used to hunt down
jack-rabbits, and Godfrey, Harran's prize deerhound.

Presley wheeled up the driveway and met Harran by the horse-block.
Harran was Magnus Derrick's youngest son, a very well-looking young
fellow of twenty-three or twenty-five. He had the fine carriage that
marked his father, and still further resembled him in that he had the
Derrick nose--hawk-like and prominent, such as one sees in the later
portraits of the Duke of Wellington. He was blond, and incessant
exposure to the sun had, instead of tanning him brown, merely heightened
the colour of his cheeks. His yellow hair had a tendency to curl in a
forward direction, just in front of the ears.

Beside him, Presley made the sharpest of contrasts. Presley seemed to
have come of a mixed origin; appeared to have a nature more composite,
a temperament more complex. Unlike Harran Derr