se projects did not strongly engage his imagination. He had
plenty of money. He refused to worry. He felt reckless, too. If he had
lost his great hope, his reward was to be released from the discipline it
had imposed.

Nor was there any other discipline to take its place. If there had been a
strong creative impulse in him, or if he had faced a real struggle for his
life or his personal freedom, he might now have recovered that condition
of trained and focussed energy which civilized life demands of men. But he
was too primitive to be engaged by any purely intellectual purpose, and
his money was a buffer between him and struggle imposed from without.

As he thought of all the things he would do, he felt strong and sure of
himself. He thought that he was now a shrewd, cynical man, who could not
be deceived or imposed upon, who could take the good things of life and
discount the disillusionments.

CHAPTER XXIX

One of his first acts in town was to negotiate a note at the bank for
several thousand dollars. This was necessary because he had little cash
and would not have much until spring, when he would sell lambs and shear
his sheep. He not only needed money for himself, but his mother and
sister, after many lean years, were eager to spend.

He drove out to see Catalina, and found her big with child and utterly
indifferent to him, which piqued him slightly and relieved him a great
deal. She had heard nothing about her father, and Ramon sent Cortez out to
Domingo Canyon to see what had become of the old man. Cortez reported the
place deserted. Ramon made inquiry in town and learned that Archulera had
been seen there in his absence, very much dressed-up and very drunk,
followed by a crowd of young Mexicans who were evidently parasites on his
newly-acquired wealth. Then he had disappeared, and some thought he had
gone to Denver. It was evident that his five thousand dollars had proved
altogether too much for him.

Ramon now hung out a shingle, announcing himself as an attorney-at-law. Of
course, no business came to him. The right way to get a practice would
have been to go back to the office of Green or some other established
lawyer for several years. But Ramon had no idea of doing anything so
tiresome and so relatively humiliating. The idea of running errands for
Green again was repugnant to him.

He went every morning to his office and for a while he took a certain
amount of sa