ot know how
fast our horses run?"

Connor made sure the master was serious and nerved himself for the
second effort.

"What do you wish, David?"

"In what measure, Benjamin?"

"The sky's the limit! I say, what do you wish? The last wish that was in
your head."

"Shakra stumbled a little while ago; I wished for a smoother road."

"David, with the money we win on the tracks we'll tear up these roads,
cut trenches, fill 'em with solid blocks of rock, lay 'em over with
asphalt, make 'em as smooth as glass! What else?"

"You jest, Benjamin. That is a labor for a thousand men."

"I say, it's nothing to what we'll do. What else do you want? Turn your
mind loose--open up your eyes and see something that's hard to get."

"Every wish is a regret, and why should I fail of gratitude to God by
making my wishes? Yet, I have been weak, I confess. I have sometimes
loathed the crumbling walls of my house. I have wished for a tall
chamber--on the floor a covering which makes no sound, colors about
me--crystal vases for my flowers--music when I come--"

"Stop there! You see that big white cliff? I'll have that stone cut in
chunks as big as you and your horse put together. I'll have 'em piled on
a foundation as strong as the bottom of those hills. You see the way
those mountain-tops walk into the sky? That's how the stairways will
step up to the front of your house and put you out on a big terrace with
columns scooting up fifty feet, and when you walk across the terrace a
couple of great big doors weighing about a ton apiece will drift open
and make a whisper when you mosey in. And when you get inside you'll
start looking up and up, but you'll get dizzy before your eyes hit the
ceiling; and up there you'll see a lighting stunt that looks like a
million icicles with the sun behind 'em."

He paused an instant for breath and saw David smiling in a hazy
pleasure.

"I follow you," he said softly. "Go on!" And his hand stretched out as
though to open a door.

"What I've told you about is only a beginning. Turn yourself loose;
dream, and I'll turn your dream into stone and color, and fill up your
windows with green and gold and red glass till you'll think a rainbow
has got all tangled up there! I'll give you music that'll make you
forget to think, and when you think I'll give you a room so big that
you'll have silence with an echo to it."

"All this for my horses?"

"Send one of the grays--just one, and let me place the wagers