like that; but, you see, I'm busy. Tell you what, Adam--you
get Hob to go along, and I'll think about it."

"Oh, well, maybe it's a false alarm anyway," said Adam lightly. "I've
known better things to fizzle. I get my fun, whatever happens. I can't
stay cooped up on that measly old farm all the time. I need a little
fresh air every so often. I'm a lot like Thompson's colt, that swum
the river to get a drink."

"Don't like farmin', eh?"

"Why, yes, I do. Beats hellin' round, same as a stack of hay beats a
stack of chips. They're right nice people here, Charlie, mighty
pleasant and friendly and plumb cheerful about the good time coming.
And every last one of 'em is here because this is the very place he
wants to be, and not because he happened to be here and didn't know
how to get away. That makes a power of difference. They're plumb
animated, these folks; if so be they ain't just satisfied any place,
they rise up and depart. So we have no grand old grouches. All the
same, I'm free to admit that I haven't quite the elbowroom I need."

"I know just how you feel," said Charlie; "I've leased a township and
fenced it in. That's why I'm not at some round-up; all my bossies
right at home. And dog-gone if I don't feel like I was in jail. But
you people can't be making much real money, Adam--hauling over such
roads as these. It is forty miles from place to place, in here, while
out in the open it is only thirty or maybe twenty-five. That's on
account of the sand and the curly places. And then you have nothing to
do in the wintertime."

"Well, now, it ain't so bad as you'd think--not near. We raise plenty
eggs, chickens, pork and such truck, and fruit and vegetables. Lots
of milk and butter, too; not like when we didn't have anything but
cows. Some of us have our little bunch of cattle in the foothills yet,
and fat the steers on alfalfa, and get money for 'em when we sell. But
that won't last long, I reckon. We're beginning to grow hogs on
alfalfa and fat 'em on corn, smoke 'em and salt 'em and cross 'em with
T and ship 'em to El Paso. I judge that ham, bacon and pork will be
the main crops presently.

"Then we hurled up a grist mill since you was here, cooperative. Hob,
he got up that. And we got a good wagon road through the mountain, to
Upham. Goes up Redgate and out by MacCleod's Tank. Steepish, but no
sand; when we get a car of stuff to ship we can haul twice as much as
we can take to Rincon. We can't buy nothing at U