was a wide dirt street at the rear of the station. For the
equivalent of the length of a city block it was lined on both sides
with wooden structures one-story in height, but with the false fronts
of the frontier country pretending to second stories--a front wall
sticking above the roof and with the semblance of windows painted on
it. A dry goods store, a Chinese laundry, an alleged hotel, several
restaurants, several ex-saloons still carrying on some kind of
business--these comprised the lot. At one end the street ran abruptly
into the desert. At the other was a cluster of old freight cars made
into dwellings, with Mexican men, women and children loitering in
front in the sun. This was Ransome.

"Not much of a town," said Jack, "just a trading post for a wide
stretch of this country around here. But look at the setting, will
you?" And he swept a hand in a wide gesture indicating the horizon.

On every hand stretched the desert, broken by clumps of mesquite and
cactus with the only trees in the landscape the thick belt of
cottonwoods lining the banks of a stream that rose in the mountains to
the north and ran by the town. North, east, south and west lofty
mountains gleamed on the far horizon, while closer at hand rose the
foothills. These latter were of fantastic shapes, like castles, tables
or crouching animals, and of the most vivid coloring. Over all was the
warm and brilliant sunshine of late afternoon. As for the air, it was
clean and despite the warmth of the day already beginning to turn cool
as the sun hovered on the rim of the farthest mountains to the west.

"Some country," said Bob emphatically.

"Wait until you have known it day in and day out for months," said
Jack. "You will never want to go back to Long Island."

"Is that the way you feel about it, Jack?" asked Frank.

"Oh, well, I suppose I'll want to go home sometime," said Jack. "But
just the same, I'm in love with this country. As for the old-timers
off there in the hills, you couldn't drive them away."

"Say, Jack," said Frank, as they all continued standing and gazing at
the surrounding scene, "I thought we'd see some oil derricks around
here. But there isn't one in sight."

"No, Frank," interposed Mr. Temple, in explanation, "you see the
Independents are mainly located over in the Panhandle, or upper
western portion of Texas and in Oklahoma. That is east from here. But
Mr. Hampton had his geologists in through this region, and they
report