pasture. An' you saw it first. Wait till I come down
and tell you all about it. I didn't dast before."

It required no shrewdness to guess the truth. Saxon knew this was the
precious clay required by the brickyard. Billy circled wide of the
slide and came down the canyon-wall, from tree to tree, as descending a
ladder.

"Ain't it a peach?" he exulted, as he dropped beside her. "Just look at
it--hidden away under four feet of soil where nobody could see it, an'
just waitin' for us to hit the Valley of the Moon. Then it up an' slides
a piece of the skin off so as we can see it."

"Is it the real clay?" Saxon asked anxiously.

"You bet your sweet life. I've handled too much of it not to know it
in the dark. Just rub a piece between your fingers.--Like that. Why,
I could tell by the taste of it. I've eaten enough of the dust of the
teams. Here's where our fun begins. Why, you know we've been workin' our
heads off since we hit this valley. Now we're on Easy street."

"But you don't own it," Saxon objected.

"Well, you won't be a hundred years old before I do. Straight from here
I hike to Payne an' bind the bargain--an option, you know, while title's
searchin' an' I 'm raisin' money. We'll borrow that four hundred back
again from Gow Yum, an' I'll borrow all I can get on my horses an'
wagons, an' Hazel and Hattie, an' everything that's worth a cent. An'
then I get the deed with a mortgage on it to Hilyard for the balance.
An' then--it's takin' candy from a baby--I'll contract with the
brickyard for twenty cents a yard--maybe more. They'll be crazy with joy
when they see it. Don't need any borin's. They's nearly two hundred feet
of it exposed up an' down. The whole knoll's clay, with a skin of soil
over it."

"But you'll spoil all the beautiful canyon hauling out the clay," Saxon
cried with alarm.

"Nope; only the knoll. The road'll come in from the other side. It'll be
only half a mile to Chavon's pit. I'll build the road an' charge steeper
teamin', or the brickyard can build it an' I'll team for the same rate
as before. An' twenty cents a yard pourin' in, all profit, from the
jump. I'll sure have to buy more horses to do the work."

They sat hand in hand beside the pool and talked over the details.

"Say, Saxon," Billy said, after a pause had fallen, "sing 'Harvest
Days,' won't you?"

And, when she had complied: "The first time you sung that song for me
was comin' home from the picnic on the train--"

"The ver