travellers, well groomed and well dressed and
enveloped in comfortable self-satisfaction, gravely discussed
politics, business or real estate, or exchanged the latest titbits of
wit accumulated in their travels. Riles probably could have bought
and paid for the worldly possessions of the whole group, and have
still a comfortable balance in the bank. But a sleeper berth cost the
price of two bushels of wheat, and even in a good year Riles' crop
seldom exceeded ten thousand bushels.

As fate would have it, Riles selected as the base of his homestead
operations the very foothill town to which Beulah Harris had come a
few weeks before. He sought out the cheapest hotel, and having thrown
his few belongings on the bed, betook himself to the bar-room, which
seemed the chief centre of activity, not only of the hotel itself,
but of the little town. Men were, lined three deep against the
capacious bar, shouting, swearing, and singing, and spending their
money with an abandon not to be found in millionaires. Riles was no
great student of human nature; he had a keener eye for a horse than a
fellow-man, but the motley crowd interested and, in a certain way,
amused him. Land-seekers, some in overalls and flannel shirts, some
in ready-mades with dirty celluloid collars and cheap, gaudy
ties--big, powerful men with the muscles and manners of the
horse--and others, lighter of frame, who apparently made an easier
and a better living by the employment of their brains; cowboys in
schaps and sun-burn and silk handkerchiefs; ranchers, stately English
and French stock, gentlemen still five thousand miles from the place
of their breeding; lumbermen and river-drivers, iron bodies set with
quick, combative intellects; guides, locaters, freighters, land
dealers, gamblers, sharks, and hangers-on wove back and forth plying
the shuttle from which the fabric of a new nation must be wrought.

Riles debated with himself whether the occasion justified the
expenditure of ten cents for a drink when a hand was placed on his
shoulder, and a voice said, "Have one with me, neighbour." He found
himself addressed by a man of about his own age, shorter and somewhat
lighter of frame and with a growing hint of corpulence. The stranger
wore a good pepper-and-salt suit, and the stone on his finger danced
like real diamond.

"Don't mind if I do, since y' mention it," said Riles, with an
attempted smile which his bad eye rendered futile. One of the
bartenders put