field, the men stooping
low and snapping the hammers of their rifles at an imaginary enemy.

The League had its agents in San Francisco, who watched the movements
of the Railroad as closely as was possible, and some time before this,
Annixter had received word that the Marshal and his deputies were coming
down to Bonneville to put the dummy buyers of his ranch in possession.
The report proved to be but the first of many false alarms, but it
had stimulated the League to unusual activity, and some three or four
hundred men were furnished with arms and from time to time were drilled
in secret.

Among themselves, the ranchers said that if the Railroad managers did
not believe they were terribly in earnest in the stand they had taken,
they were making a fatal mistake.

Harran reasserted this statement to Presley on the way home to the
ranch house that same day. Harran had caught up with him by the time he
reached the Lower Road, and the two jogged homeward through the miles of
standing wheat.

"They may jump the ranch, Pres," he said, "if they try hard enough, but
they will never do it while I am alive. By the way," he added, "you know
we served notices yesterday upon S. Behrman and Cy. Ruggles to quit the
country. Of course, they won't do it, but they won't be able to say they
didn't have warning."

About an hour later, the two reached the ranch house, but as Harran rode
up the driveway, he uttered an exclamation.

"Hello," he said, "something is up. That's Genslinger's buckboard."

In fact, the editor's team was tied underneath the shade of a giant
eucalyptus tree near by. Harran, uneasy under this unexpected visit of
the enemy's friend, dismounted without stabling his horse, and went at
once to the dining-room, where visitors were invariably received. But
the dining-room was empty, and his mother told him that Magnus and
the editor were in the "office." Magnus had said they were not to be
disturbed.

Earlier in the afternoon, the editor had driven up to the porch and had
asked Mrs. Derrick, whom he found reading a book of poems on the porch,
if he could see Magnus. At the time, the Governor had gone with Phelps
to inspect the condition of the young wheat on Hooven's holding, but
within half an hour he returned, and Genslinger had asked him for a "few
moments' talk in private."

The two went into the "office," Magnus locking the door behind him.
"Very complete you are here, Governor," observed the editor in his