drink
much myself. My wife don't like it. It's a bad example for the
children. But I thought that out here, maybe from what I'd heard----"

"Current Western fiction!" Casey laughed. "No, we don't drink every
time we shake hands. Couldn't stand it. Well, what can I do for you?"

And thereupon Mr. Glass unbosomed himself ramblingly, with much detail,
which included a sketch of his life and family history. Casey saw that
Shiller had unloaded a bore on him.

Glass, it appeared, hailed from Maine, from the vicinity of one of the
"obscots" or "coggins." He had followed various callings--carpenter,
market gardener, and grocer--with indifferent success; but he had
succeeded in accumulating a few thousand dollars. His eldest girl was
not well. Consumption ran in her mother's family. The doctor had
ordered a dryer climate, a higher altitude. For some years Glass had
been thinking of migrating westward; but he had stuck in the narrow
groove, lacking the initiative to pull up stakes and see for himself
the land in which others had prospered. This sickness had decided
him--and here he was.

He liked the climate, which he was sure would be just the thing for his
daughter; and he liked the land. But here was the point--and it was the
point which was worrying Sleeman grayheaded. There was trouble between
the ranchers and the land company. Not that it was for him to say who
was right or wrong. But there _was_ trouble. Now, he was a man of small
means, and he was forced to put all his eggs in one basket. Which was
to say, that if he bought land, and subsequently was unable to get
water for it, he would be ruined. Also he had heard that the ranchers
were unfriendly to those who bought land from the company.

"And I'm a man that has kept out of trouble all my life, Mr. Dunne," he
concluded plaintively. "I'm on good terms with everybody at home, and I
wouldn't want, right at the start-off, as you might say, to have
anybody think I was trying to take water away from him. And yet I like
the country. I thought maybe you could advise me what to do. It seems
like a lot of gall asking you, too; you having land for sale and me
thinking of buying the company's. But, then, I saw their advertising.
It was only right I should go to them, wasn't it?"

"Of course," said Casey. "I haven't any land for sale now. I'm holding
what I have. But as to advising you, it's a difficult thing. Here's the
situation: The amount of the total water supply is lim