head. One man settin' down an' holdin his hands while another
team drives outa its way doin what he oughta done. That's the trouble
with two-dollar-a-day men."

"With two-dollar-a-day heads," Saxon said quickly. "What kind of heads
do you expect for two dollars?"

"That's right, too," Billy acknowledged the hit. "If they had better
heads they'd be in the cities like all the rest of the better men.
An' the better men are a lot of dummies, too. They don't know the big
chances in the country, or you couldn't hold 'm from it."

Billy dismounted, took the three bars down, led his horse through, then
put up the bars.

"When I get this place, there'll be a gate here," he announced. "Pay
for itself in no time. It's the thousan' an' one little things like this
that count up big when you put 'm together." He sighed contentedly. "I
never used to think about such things, but when we shook Oakland I began
to wise up. It was them San Leandro Porchugeeze that gave me my first
eye-opener. I'd been asleep, before that."

They skirted the lower of the three fields where the ripe hay stood
uncut. Billy pointed with eloquent disgust to a break in the fence,
slovenly repaired, and on to the standing grain much-trampled by cattle.

"Them's the things," he criticized. "Old style. An' look how thin
that crop is, an' the shallow plowin'. Scrub cattle, scrub seed, scrub
farmin'. Chavon's worked it for eight years now, an' never rested it
once, never put anything in for what he took out, except the cattle into
the stubble the minute the hay was on."

In a pasture glade, farther on, they came upon a bunch of cattle.

"Look at that bull, Saxon. Scrub's no name for it. They oughta be a
state law against lettin' such animals exist. No wonder Chavon's that
land poor he's had to sink all his clay-pit earnin's into taxes an'
interest. He can't make his land pay. Take this hundred an forty.
Anybody with the savve can just rake silver dollars offen it. I'll show
'm."

They passed the big adobe barn in the distance.

"A few dollars at the right time would a-saved hundreds on that roof,"
Billy commented. "Well, anyway, I won't be payin' for any improvements
when I buy. An I'll tell you another thing. This ranch is full of water,
and if Glen Ellen ever grows they'll have to come to see me for their
water supply."

Billy knew the ranch thoroughly, and took short-cuts through the woods
by way of cattle paths. Once, he reined in abruptly, and both