r bankruptcy.

As for Madrono Ranch, Naismith owned it and had set the price at fifty
dollars an acre. That would be one thousand dollars, for there were
twenty acres. As a farming investment, using old-fashioned methods, it
was not worth it. As a business investment, yes; for the virtues of the
valley were on the eve of being discovered by the outside world, and
no better location for a summer home could be found. As a happiness
investment in joy of beauty and climate, it was worth a thousand times
the price asked. And he knew Naismith would allow time on most of the
amount. Edmund's suggestion was that they take a two years' lease, with
option to buy, the rent to apply to the purchase if they took it up.
Naismith had done that once with a Swiss, who had paid a monthly rental
of ten dollars. But the man's wife had died, and he had gone away.

Edmund soon divined Billy's renunciation, though not the nature of it;
and several questions brought it forth--the old pioneer dream of land
spaciousness; of cattle on a hundred hills; one hundred and sixty acres
of land the smallest thinkable division.

"But you don't need all that land, dear lad," Edmund said softly. "I
see you understand intensive farming. Have you thought about intensive
horse-raising?"

Billy's jaw dropped at the smashing newness of the idea. He considered
it, but could see no similarity in the two processes. Unbelief leaped
into his eyes.

"You gotta show me!" he cried.

The elder man smiled gently.

"Let us see. In the first place, you don't need those twenty acres
except for beauty. There are five acres in the meadow. You don't need
more than two of them to make your living at selling vegetables. In
fact, you and your wife, working from daylight to dark, cannot properly
farm those two acres. Remains three acres. You have plenty of water for
it from the springs. Don't be satisfied with one crop a year, like the
rest of the old-fashioned farmers in this valley. Farm it like
your vegetable plot, intensively, all the year, in crops that make
horse-feed, irrigating, fertilizing, rotating your crops. Those three
acres will feed as many horses as heaven knows how huge an area of
unseeded, uncared for, wasted pasture would feed. Think it over. I'll
lend you books on the subject. I don't know how large your crops will
be, nor do I know how much a horse eats; that's your business. But I am
certain, with a hired man to take your place helping your wife on her