at reason, it was supposed to be useless.
But since irrigation has been discovered--you see, it's really a recent
discovery with us in America, whatever it is with other peoples--we
dry-belt ranchers are in a better position than any others. For we are
able to give the land moisture whenever it needs it. Whereas others
have to depend on the uncertainties of rainfall. About once in five
years their crops are ruined by drought. But we are able to water our
fields as the city man waters his lawn."

"So that you are certain of a good crop every year."

"No, not certain. We have merely eliminated one cause of failure. We
are still at the tender mercies of hot winds, hail, and frosts late and
early."

These things were but names to her. They called up no concrete visions
of the baking, siroccolike winds that curdled the grain in the milk,
the hail that threshed it and beat it flat, of the late frosts that
nipped the tender green shoots in spring, and the early ones in fall
that soured the kernels before the complete ripening. But she saw that
to him they typified enemies, real, deadly, ever threatening,
impossible, so far, to guard against.

Dimly she began to perceive that while certain forces of nature made
always for growth, still others, equally powerful, made for
destruction. Between the warring forces stood the Man of the Soil,
puny, insignificant, matching his own hardly won and his forefather's
harder-won knowledge against the elements; bending some to his
advantage, minimizing the effects of others, openly defying those he
could neither control nor avoid. And she partly realized his triumph in
having vanquished one of these inimical forces, one of his most dreaded
enemies, Drought.

"You like the life?"

"Yes, I like it. It's idyllic, compared with some phases of existence
that I have experienced."

"You have had varied experiences?"

"'Varied!' Yes, I suppose you may call them that."

"Won't you tell me about them?"

"There isn't much to tell, and that little not very entertaining. You
see, Miss Burnaby, if my youthful mouth was ever acquainted with a
silver spoon it was snatched away at a tender age."

"I beg your pardon," said Clyde quickly. "I'm afraid my request was
impertinent."

"Not at all. I went West when I was a kid, and I've seen quite a bit of
country. Then, when I had money enough, I put it into land, and went to
ranching. That's all there is to it."

She was quite certain, somehow, th