e and through no fault
of yours, unless it's a fault that you aren't quitters!"

"That's right," said Robbins. Orr's eyes narrowed a little. Wallace
continued, not taking his own eyes off the farmer's:

"This country is all right when there's a good year, but the good years
come so seldom! What you fellows need down here is not free silver, but
free water. With plenty of water you can raise big crops; and down in
this valley there is not the danger, if we dig ditches, of the river
running dry; we can get--"

"And who'll pay for irrigation?" a voice demanded. Wallace did not shift
his gaze to the speaker; he talked to Orr as if Orr were the only man in
the room: "We expect to furnish the money."

"And what will happen till the ditches are digged?"

"There's alfalfa to be raised on all these abandoned fields."

"And what's to become of _us_?" said Orr. "I can see where you folks can
git a holt and come out even; but what's going to become of us? Are we
to move off the earth and let you stay here?"

Every one listened for Wallace's answer. Even the boy in the doorway,
returning with Wallace's bag, stood half scared at the foot of the
stairs, not daring to go forward.

"Why not stay and take pot luck with us?" said Wallace, coolly. "We
bought the mortgages cheap, and we'll sell them cheap. We'll sell water
rights cheap also. And you will make better colonists than any we could
import--cheaper, too. It's for our interests as well as yours to make a
deal with you and to make one that will be satisfactory. Isn't it?"

Orr's hand dropped to his side, he shuffled his feet, his eyes turned
from Wallace to seek the captain. "I hadn't figured it out you was going
to make any such proposition," said the captain.

"Perhaps you thought we intended to chuck you all out in the cold and
hog everything. We are neither such pigs nor such fools. You fellows can
help us more than anybody else. Here is Johnny. Now, let's come to
business; but first, Johnny, get some glasses. We'll all drink to the
new deal."

And afterwards they told with chuckles how even the captain, who was an
original Prohibitionist before he became a Populist, touched his lips to
the glass that was passed over the big map.

"All you folks here need is _hope_," said the cheerful young Iowan; "you
have plenty of pluck and plenty of sense and oodles of experience; and
we stand ready to put in the capital. Now, what do you say; does it go?"

After an hour of t