a go. An'
now where d'you want to ride?"

CHAPTER XXII

They cantered out the gate, thundered across the bridge, and passed
Trillium Covert before they pulled in on the grade of Wild Water Canyon.
Saxon had chosen her field on the big spur of Sonoma Mountains as the
objective of their ride.

"Say, I bumped into something big this mornin' when I was goin' to fetch
Ramona," Billy said, the clay pit trouble banished for the time. "You
know the hundred an' forty. I passed young Chavon along the road, an'--I
don't know why--just for ducks, I guess--I up an' asked 'm if he thought
the old man would lease the hundred an' forty to me. An' what d 'you
think! He said the old man didn't own it. Was just leasin' it himself.
That's how we was always seein' his cattle on it. It's a gouge into his
land, for he owns everything on three sides of it.

"Next I met Ping. He said Hilyard owned it an' was willin' to sell, only
Chavon didn't have the price. Then, comin' back, I looked in on Payne.
He's quit blacksmithin'--his back's hurtin' 'm from a kick--an' just
startin' in for real estate. Sure, he said, Hilyard would sell, an' had
already listed the land with 'm. Chavon's over-pastured it, an' Hilyard
won't give 'm another lease."

When they had climbed out of Wild Water Canyon they turned their horses
about and halted on the rim where they could look across at the three
densely wooded knolls in the midst of the desired hundred and forty.

"We'll get it yet," Saxon said.

"Sure we will," Billy agreed with careless certitude. "I've ben lookin'
over the big adobe barn again. Just the thing for a raft of horses, an'
a new roof'll be cheaper 'n I thought. Though neither Chavon or me'll be
in the market to buy it right away, with the clay pinchin' out."

When they reached Saxon's field, which they had learned was the property
of Redwood Thompson, they tied the horses and entered it on foot. The
hay, just cut, was being raked by Thompson, who hallo'd a greeting to
them. It was a cloudless, windless day, and they sought refuge from the
sun in the woods beyond. They encountered a dim trail.

"It's a cow trail," Billy declared. "I bet they's a teeny pasture tucked
away somewhere in them trees. Let's follow it."

A quarter of an hour later, several hundred feet up the side of the
spur, they emerged on an open, grassy space of bare hillside. Most of
the hundred and forty, two miles away, lay beneath them, while they were
level wi