eep a couple of dollar-an '-a-half men goin' for Saxon, unless she
works 'em Sundays. Huh! The Valley of the Moon! Why, we'll be wearin'
diamonds before long. Gosh! A fellow could live in the city a thousan'
years an' not get such chances. It beats China lottery."

He stood up.

"I 'm goin' out to water Hazel an' Hattie, feed 'm, an' bed 'm down.
I'll eat soon as I come back."

The two women were regarding each other with shining eyes, each on the
verge of speech when Billy returned to the door and stuck his head in.

"They's one thing maybe you ain't got," he said. "I pull down them three
dollars every day; but the six mares is mine, too. I own 'm. They're
mine. Are you on?"

CHAPTER XX

"I'm not done with you children," had been Mrs. Mortimer's parting
words; and several times that winter she ran up to advise, and to teach
Saxon how to calculate her crops for the small immediate market, for the
increasing spring market, and for the height of summer, at which time
she would be able to sell all she could possibly grow and then not
supply the demand. In the meantime, Hazel and Hattie were used every
odd moment in hauling manure from Glen Ellen, whose barnyards had never
known such a thorough cleaning. Also there were loads of commercial
fertilizer from the railroad station, bought under Mrs. Mortimer's
instructions.

The convicts paroled were Chinese. Both had served long in prison, and
were old men; but the day's work they were habitually capable of won
Mrs. Mortimer's approval. Gow Yum, twenty years before, had had charge
of the vegetable garden of one of the great Menlo Park estates. His
disaster had come in the form of a fight over a game of fan tan in the
Chinese quarter at Redwood City. His companion, Chan Chi, had been
a hatchet-man of note, in the old fighting days of the San Francisco
tongs. But a quarter of century of discipline in the prison vegetable
gardens had cooled his blood and turned his hand from hatchet to hoe.
These two assistants had arrived in Glen Ellen like precious goods
in bond and been receipted for by the local deputy sheriff, who, in
addition, reported on them to the prison authorities each month. Saxon,
too, made out a monthly report and sent it in.

As for the danger of their cutting her throat, she quickly got over the
idea of it. The mailed hand of the State hovered over them. The taking
of a single drink of liquor would provoke that hand to close down and
jerk them back to