Chapter 2

DAN LAID BACK IN THE SHADE, WATCHING THE SHEEP AND, FROM HIS VANTAGE POINT, OBSERVED THE DEVELOPMENTS IN THE VALLEY BELOW.  He soon began to see that there was more about than idle rumor this time.  They were actually beginning to ship in machinery and materials.  They were unloading them around the sidetrack of the grain and apple warehouses.  On up the track, they were unloading ties and railroad steel.  It looked like they were going to build more sidetrack, up 'til now, they hardly used what they had.

The sheep were doing fine now.  Grass was tall and plentiful on the warm south slopes, and Dan spent most of his time watching, wondering, and raving about the foolishness of the men at work below.

He saw giant steam shovels and huge trucks unloaded and going to work, breaking the stillness of the quiet, peaceful valley with their incessant clatter and rattle as they labored day and night building grades for new roads and new railroads.  Other shovels were busy leveling and clearing a large plot of land on each side of the highway and the railroad, directly across from the huge rock island in midstream.  Now worktrain crews were camping along the right of way, and it appeared as if they were building several miles of track on this newly cleared and leveled area.  Every morning from seven until seven-thirty there appeared an almost continuous procession of cars hauling men from the nearby town to work.  Between five and six in the afternoon the procession returned home.

As if by magic, a residential section was being built on the very edge of the camp, which had evidently been fenced man-tight.  Some thirty houses were laid out along three or four main streets or driveways.  Then, inside the fence sprang up another village of some forty or fifty small buildings.  Beyond this and nearer the new railroads, many large buildings were springing up like toadstools, some with towers and some with huge smokestacks.  Dan wondered: Were the factories coming ahead of the "imaginary" dam?  To what length would this foolishness go, anyway?

It was sure making work for somebody.  There was more traffic now on the highway, with trucks large and small coming loaded and going away empty day and night, and every day the railroads sidetracked dozens of cars of material.  Cars and more cars were unloaded every day and then sent on their way.

Below him, a gravel pit was apparently being opened.  Huge shovels were gouging out a monstrous hole, picking up dippers of sand and gravel.  This was dumped into trucks, hauled a short distance, and dumped into what, from sound and appearance, must have been a separator, a crushing and washing machine.

Clean, sparkling sand was carried away from the outlet of this machine on an endless belt and dropped into a large hopper.  Gravel came out of another opening and went into a bunker.

Trucks were constantly going to and from these bunkers, and the huge piles they drove up onto were mounting higher and higher.  This work went on day and night.  Would it never stop?

The noise bothered Dan's sleep.  A continuous crunch, clash, and rattle rose and vibrated, echoed and re-echoed from the crags above.

It appeared that the whole valley which had been so dreary and desolate, except for a few stray pioneer orchardmen who had come, dug wells, and set out orchards, was now alive and inhabited.  Cars were stopping and people were camping along the road, in the desert, and on the edge of orchards.  Everywhere people were looking about.  What was the lure?

Huge cranes were working near the edge of the water, dropping in large timbers.  It seemed the men were building a raft of some kind.  They looked like ants laboring with straws.  Occasionally, Dan saw a rowboat on the quieter part of the river, but the people knew better than to get out into the rapids.  No boat could stay afloat fore even a minute out there.  Let them build their rafts and ferry boats.  They would need them all, and more too, before they got through.  The fools!  Oh, the fools, thinking that they could stop the wild torrent.

He wished he could find someone to look after the sheep.  He would like to go down to look around and tell some of those bosses a few things about this country and that old river.  He had a special insite; hadn't he been born and raised right around here?  Maybe his camp-tender would stay with the sheep the next time he brought the mail and provisions.

John Clark, his "tender",  a high school lad, was the son of a pioneer valley dairyman and orchardist.  John belonged to the 4-H Club.  He had chosen, as his project, to build a small band of sheep, and his father had given him the use of an irrigated piece of land not in orchard.  John had seeded it to pasture grasses.  His father had also given him the use of half-dozen cows for a few months, if he would milk and tame them.  John's agreement with Dan was that he was to have one lamb from each group of triplets and any other weak and "bummer" lambs that Dan might see fit to let him have.  To earn these, he was to go to town each Saturday afternoon and get Dan's mail and provisions, and then on Sunday to pack them out to the camp.

John was a tall, good-looking, athletically built lad.  He was industrious, thrifty, and likable, and seemed well on his way to becoming an up-to-date sheepman.  On account of the weakened condition of the ewes, the crop of weak and bummer lambs had been much larger than he could move home and care for, so he picked only the likeliest-looking ones: the ones showing the best breeding among all those discarded and disowned by overworked Dan and the poor ewes.  He had exceptionally good results.  He often consulted the county agent on proper care of the sheep, and he sent to the State College for bulletins on lamb feeding.  He now had a band of thrifty, fat lambs and felt proud and well paid for his weekly trips, which, to be truthful, he rather enjoyed.

He usually left the mail and provisions at the camp, and then hunted up Dan and took his order for the next week's delivery.  Often, he stayed for a visit and a chat with lonely, doleful Dan.  It made him feel quite important talking sheep with the older man.  Of course, Dan's ideas didn't jibe with a good deal that John read in the bulletins, but Dan knew lots of practical stuff and there was much to learn from him.

"I'll lend you my bulletins on sheep management, Dan, or send and get you some" said John.

"Don't bother, I have some of that bunk somewhere.  I don't care for it.  It wouldn't do me no good.  I'm in no shape to put it into practice.  Whoever heard of a real sheepman having money to buy fancy feeds and salts?  Mineral salts for a hundred bucks a ton.  Yeah, in my financial condition, guess I'll order a few carloads.  Bah, them feed experts and college fellers make me sick."

John had seemed hurried and preoccupied on his last few visits, and Dan was beginning to wonder if some girl was responsible for his being robbed of the lengthy chats he so looked forward to.  John was an interesting talker; he knew everybody in the valley, went to town to school, and knew something about almost everything that was going on.  Dan thought it was near Sunday again and that he must ask John what he knew about all this activity that was going on right before his eyes, but so far away that he couldn't get the full meaning of it all.

Sometimes he told himself that it was just a dream, a mirage.  Yes, he was getting worse.  But then again he knew he was just kidding himself about that, because the activity was there all the time and growing.  He knew those sights and sounds were real, but so crazy, so foolish.  Would John never come?  His calendar said that the thirteenth was Sunday.  Dan had never gotten the habit of marking off each day on the calendar, so quite often he became balled up in his count, and, although, John always came on Sunday and had never missed a trip, sometimes Dan thought he came a day early or a day or two late.

This week was sure a long one, he thought, as he fidgeted there on the high bench and watched while the ant-like men and their machinery toiled below.  Occasionally, he scanned the horizon in the other direction for signs of an approaching horseman.  Maybe John had quit now that he had all the lambs he wanted.

He would almost bet that this was Tuesday.  One could not tell by the traffic on the highway or by the work below.  It went ahead Sunday and every day just the same as his job, so one day seemed just like another.  They seemed to be making progress down there, transforming the landscape, while he... well, the lambs were growing every day now.  He could almost see them grow.

John arrived at last.  It was about three.

"No, I cant stay and look after the sheep this evening" he said when Dan pressed the question.  "I'll have to get home and milk the cows and feed my lambs.  They get hungry now before their regular feeding time.  You should hear them blat, telling me to hurry, when they see me.  Besides, it wouldn't do you much good to go down there.  You're fenced out and there are guards are at each gate.  You couldn't get in.  You get a better bird's-eye view from right here."

"What?  Fenced out, and this is supposed to be a free country?  Why do they do it?  I'll bet the couldn't keep me out."

"Well, Tom says... he's in my class and his dad is a carpenter working there... Tom says that his dad told him they have to be mighty careful.  All kinds of people are floating into the country, even anarchists, Bolsheviks, and other radicals.  If they were allowed to mingle with the workers, they might try to upset things by peddling their propaganda, stirring up dissatisfaction and strikes.  They need to protect their property so that it isn't stolen or even dynamited.  They must keep out bootleggers and booze.  Men should be sober to do the kind of work.  They'll have to be when they get to the real damming.  The company also has to guard against lawsuits.  If everybody were allowed to go where they pleased, there would be folks standing around in the way watching, and then, if they got hurt, they could sue the company and make trouble.  The Cement Construction Company has built dams before, so I guess they know what they're about and what is for the best."

"I doubt it," said Dan testily.  "Maybe they've dammed some slow, sluggish streams like the Mississippi.  They could easily turn that aside onto the flat swamp and then dam the channel, but the Mississippi ain't this roaring Columbia and it ain't in a gorge like this.  No, it ain't never been done, and any man can see from here that it never will be.  They're wasting their time and material, those pitiful ants with their straws among the rapids.  But tell me about the camp, if you know.  What are the builders at the left, and about the stacks that look like factories?  Chester Evans, that dreaming surveyor, said the factories were coming, but I'm afraid they came too soon.. much, much too soon."

"Well, all I know is what I've heard, but they say that these nearest buildings lined up on streets are homes for the married men with better-class jobs.  The bosses and engineers will live in them.  They're modern in every respect, plain on the outside, but nice as you could wish on the inside.  They'll rent for twenty-seven- fifty for the small three room ones, and the five-room ones will rent for thirty-seven- fifty, or even more."

"That other bunch laid out in streets are bunkhouses, fifty of them I think, each one for fourteen men, so you can see they aim to hire quite a lot of men when they get going.  The larger building beyond that will be the mess hall, where they say they will feed over eight hundred men at one time."

"Those other, larger buildings are dormitories, main offices, and so on.  Those near the track that you spoke of as factories are... yes, I guess that's what they are.  Factories!  Dam factories."

"They say there will be steam plants, boiler makers, carpenter, plumbing, and blacksmithing shops, and a cement mixing plant that will turn out hundreds, maybe thousands of yards of concrete a day."

"Instead of using wheelbarrows, they'll build more tracks and handle everything in carload and trainload lots, even concrete.  Oh, they're going about it in a big way, and I believe they've figured out some way to finish it or they'd never have started.  Some think it will be a great thing for the country and for everybody, and here's hoping they're right."

Dan broke forth, "Well, there's no use of me arguing with you, or anybody else for that matter, but as Chester Evans said, ?time will tell', and it will tell him that he is a damn liar.  I put it to him rather mild, told him he was a teller of nice fairy tales.  I see someone has been broadcasting his stories and that you're swallowing them.  I hate to let you go now, but learn all you can and come earlier next time.  I better let you go now so you can take care of your cows, lambs and hired girl, while poor me is left here a whole, long week with only my dog and sheep and thoughts."

He watched the John out of sight, occasionally smiling to himself.  Then he broke out in a loud, "By heck, that dig struck home!".  He slapped his thigh, laughed, and jumped up and down and laughed some more.  "The lad actually blushed when I mentioned the hired girl.  But who is she?  Come to think of it, he did mention some girl.... Adams, Anna Adams, he called her.  Said she was staying there and working for her board til apple-picking time.  That's it, I'd bet he's sweet on her.  He wants to get the chores done early so they can go to church or the movies, or just slip off somewhere and do some neckin'.  Well, young folks will be young folks.  I was that way myself once."  Suddenly, a shadow crossed his face.  He shook his head, trying to clear the memories from it.  He should try to forget... but if only he knew where Agnes and the kids were.  It was driving him crazy.  Between that and the sheep and the debts, he was slowly going nuts.  He must forget.  

Time dragged slowly for Dan.  Nothing much for a herder to do, just watch that the sheep didn't stray too far, lay back and watch things grow.  Perhaps he should move over to the other range, but he had been putting that off.  From there he wouldn't have as good a view of the hurry and scurry, hustle and bustle going on in the human anthill below.  Ignorant ants working away with their straws!  They had quite a long raft now; it seemed to be anchored with cables in the still waters of an eddy.  Yes, they could do that all right, but what else?

Some sheepmen sheared this early in the season, but Dan was never one to rush things.  The nights were still quite cool, the wool was still growing, and as yet the sheep were not shedding too much.  Even though, on a few sheep, the wool had begun to slip off in patches and dangled raggedly, he hoped he would be able to put the job off for a while.

Last year his banker, in need of money, had insisted that he shear early in the spring.  The banker had financed and sent a crew to do it.  Dan had argued that it was too early, but the crew was on the grounds with the banker's orders, so of course they went ahead.  A bad storm with wind, rain and sleet came just after the job was done, and many sheep, for the want of a winter coat in such weather, had contracted pneumonia and had died.. Died like flies.  Dan didn't want that to happen this year.

He was too tender-hearted to work where there were so many deaths; even under the best of range conditions, some were always dying.  One day it was some little goitered baby lamb that couldn't nurse, or maybe a dozen of them.  The next day some poor, old toothless granny, or gummer, as they were called, would calmly close here eyes and pass away.  The maternity cases among the young and apparently healthy so often turned out bad.  A dead mother and a squalling babe; no milk and starving lambs.  He had learned to shift them about.  Tie the skin of a dead lamb over a starving straggler, and the bereaved mother would claim and care for it.

He had learned many tricks of the trade, but his one weakness was that he could not kill the suffering, hopeless things.  Dan let them go to their own bitter ends.  But the sight and sounds had begun to tell on his nerves.  He was getting so he put everything off.  Right now, as he lay in the shade of some jagged rocks, he didn't know how he was going to finance shearing.  On the other hand, he didn't care much, and there was no need to press the issue.  The banker would take care of all the wool, all the receipts and money, anyway.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning.  Chester Evens, who was staying at the hotel in town, decided not to report for work at the damsite.  He would take the day off and do some driving about the country, a little reconnoitering, perhaps then go up on the bench to see Dan McArthur.

A few evenings before, he had picked up and glanced through a county paper.  He had noticed the name, Daniel McArthur.  Where had he heard that name?  Oh, yes, the sheepherder.  What was it about?  He read further.  From the looks of the paper, the county authorities must have taken over most of the land in the county for taxes, and were now advertising it for resale.  Some sixteen sections had been assessed to one Daniel McArthur.  It was all to be offered to the highest bidder, Monday, April the 21st, at nine o'clock.

The legal description of each section and the amount of delinquent taxes against it were given for each piece, along with a few lines by the county treasurer stating that some of the properties were "improved" farm lands and that it should be a good buy in view of the nearby future dam developments.  Just below this was a news item telling how the expense of policing the county had increased with the influx of dam workers that the, almost bankrupt, county would be forced to use every legal measure to support its servants, indigents, and schools.

Chet had located important section corners with the preliminary survey, which gave him a line on the property in the valley below that would eventually be flooded.  The electric company intended to buy this land as an investment and forestall all chance of damage suits on account of flood rights.

Chet got maps of the precincts, sections, highways, roads and schoolhouses.  This enabled him to chart out an inspection drive that would take him near the place where he had first met Dan.

The engineer drove across the bridge and out through the northeast part of town.  He chimed a slight grade on a fairly well-graveled road, while the homes and orchards flew by his faithful car as it hit forty and forty-five.  He was out in the irrigated district about the town, and a picture of prosperity and contentment spread out in every direction.

Here were green, well-cared-for orchards with blossoming trees; fine homes with beautiful lawns, flowers, and shrubbery; gardens springing up promisingly; fine cars in driveways and open-door garages; small, well-kept stables; a few contented cows, pigs, and chickens; and healthy, happy children walking carefully about in their best clothes, ready for Sunday School.

All this slid from view.  In a short four miles from town, he struck the rough, uncared-for roads.  He passed a dilapidated set of farm buildings occupied by a poor family.  A few scrawny, hungry-looking cows were munching dry straw at an almost exhausted rick.  A little farther on, a man with one old crowbait mule was harrowing a patch of dry, life-less-looking soil.  He was now passing through desolation everywhere.  In comparison, the soil looked better along the roadbank than back in the rich orchard districts.  Lack of water was the only difference.  The poor fellow would work and plant and sweat and wait and probably raise nothing but dust, as he was doing now.  If he was exceptionally lucky, and it should rain a little in the growing season, he might get his seed back, plus a little extra for his effort.  But the rain was the uncertainty.

The patch of ground he was now passing looked as if it had been summer- fallowed the year before to conserve two years; moisture for one crop.  However, moisture seemed to be in scarce supply; the limiting factor in plant growth.  Yes, too damn'd little water, to spark of life on desert soil.  The farmer might raise a few dollars' worth of feed for his hungry stock on this patch, whereas a mile below a patch of the same size would produce hundreds, maybe, thousands of dollars' worth of big, Delicious apples.  What a contrast!  How could the poor family expect to live?  Surely not off the land.

Farther out there were no more signs of habitation.  Fences had fallen down; rickety farm buildings were scattered here and there.  Many were left roofless by the wind, and others were tottering on their last legs.  It surely was a dried-out, blowed- out, desolated country.  He saw a few squirrels, a couple of gaunt rabbits whiz by.  There were many fresh badger holes and mounds, even in the little-used road.  These were more often felt that seen as his care encountered them.  His eyes were constantly sweeping the long, broad plateau.  He must, he thought, be nearing the center.  The bench must average about two miles wide and eight or ten long, and it was practically level.  The river, which ran parallel with it, was a mile or so to the south.  The towering cliff was an excellent shelter and windbreak on the north.  What a wonderful prospect, what a marvelous chance for someone to make a fortune!  He stopped and consulted his maps and checked his location.

Here on a little knoll was a deserted schoolhouse.  Its windows were boarded up; the fence that once surrounded the yard had been torn or blown down; the grass eaten and tramped out by sheep, evidently quite recently.  Perhaps Dan wasn't far off.  He would talk to him and try to make him see his opportunity.

He was near the section corner.  Remnants of fence stretched for miles due east and west.  Another, making right angles with it, ran north about one mile to the bluff and stopped, then south a mile or so and disappeared over the hill toward the river.  If he only had the money to buy and develop this huge tract.  Of course, there was the water lift of four or five hundred feet.  But with the completion of the dam and the provision of cheaper water power, he knew it could be done for a small cost per acre.  The trick was to handle the job on a big scale, using powerful pumps and long-enough pipes to do away with most of the friction.

What a difference, what a great difference water would make in the appearance of things.  There would be room and resources for a thousand homes.  A thousand self-supporting families could be here within the sweep of his eyes, and yet people were crowded in tenements with nothing for their hands and minds to do.  No hope, except for charity or the dole.  Human fodder for the ever growing crime wave and the nearer-approaching revolutions.  "My God," he prayed, "Grant that it be given to those in power to see as even humble I am allowed to see."

He started his car again, heading east.  Still the same sights met his eyes.  Everywhere, he saw the remnants of dry-farmer's blasted hopes.  These desert farms were all covered with weeds.  Before the sod had been broken up, it had been worth a few cents an acre as sheep range.  But with the coming of the First World War and the motto: Wheat Will Win the War, and: Raise more wheat, we'll guarantee $2.00 per bushel, this land had been hurriedly broken out.  Some of it had been sold for twenty-five dollars an acre.

Even with wheat at two dollars a bushel, it ws a losing game.  That land wasn't very good after the first few crops, especially when there was no rain, so that the poor dry-farmers had played the game and lost.  He had hard their story many times.  He sympathized with them, but their lonesome and desolate lives were made more strikingly plain today.

"Where was Doleful Dan?  No wonder he rated the name "Doleful," thought Chet.  Yet there was something about the man that drew Chet to him in spite of his rude, tactless ways.  Wasn't he the last of that hardy western pioneers?  The fittest, shown by his survival?  Yet, in many ways, how lonely and pitifully ignorant.

He spied a few scattered sheep just now feeding into sight on the far eastern end of the bench.  Dan must still be holding them as far that way as possible so he could more easily watch the dam activities.  Chet drove a mile or so nearer and then, leaving the car, struck out across the sage and boulders to the rough end of the bench.  Here is where he had first met Dan, and there in almost the same location sat the herder.  The sun was well up, and he had picked the shady side of the point of rock.

Only a short month had passed, but as Chet walked down upon the unsuspecting herder, he saw that a change had already taken place in the landscape below.  In fact, it was the first bird's-eye view of this picture he had had since activities began.  Having been working with the engineers inside the camp on the location of the dam itself, he had missed the outside view.

Not often is a man of the outdoors as easily walked in upon as Dan was today.  The sheep were full and lazy and had not made any unusual commotion.  The dog, Shep, was asleep at Dan's feet, dreaming of better days when he had occasionally been allowed to leave the sheep and go with Dan to the home ranch and romp with others of his kind.  Even he had a memory of laughing women and playful children.  He was growing tired of his monotonous dog's life, but he was staying, growing old in service with Dan, his best friend.  Sometimes Dan thought the dog his only friend, saying, "Who else cares for me but Shep?".

"Hello, Dan, old man," spoke Chet when he was less than ten steps behind him.  Dan and Shep both jumped up, Dan wheeling with his hand on his pistol butt.  Then, recognizing who it was, he actually looked foolish and even blushed.

"Glad to see you, Prophet, but I'm afraid you've scared me out of a year's growth.  I haven't an enemy on earth, so I don't know why I made that foolish- looking grab at this old badger-exterminator and coyote-frightener.  Guess I'll have to quit this herding.  It's getting on my nerves.  I'd better get a job doing something easy, like... dam building" he laughed.

"Sure," Chet said, "come on down. They're putting on lots of men now.  They might let you run the whole job, considering how much confidence you had in the project when we first met.  I'll ask the head boss, McGrew - Dangerous Dan, the men call him... To resign in your favor.  What do you say, Dan, and what do you think about our program below there?  All an idle dream, was it?  There has been more real construction work done down there in the last month than had been done since before time began, and they haven't really started yet.  Watch for a few more years, or decades, King Dan."

"Cheer up, King Dan, I've just been on a scouting expedition over your broad domain.  If I, like you, had deeds to all these broad acres, especially the level, fertile land back of us here towards town, I'd be feeling like a multimillionaire.  In fact, in time I would be a millionaire!  Don't you know you have thousands of acres of good fertile land that can and will be irrigated not long after the completion of the dam?  With cheaper power and large pumping plants, it will be simple and comparatively inexpensive.  I wondered if you knew, so I've come to tell you that your land is being advertised for tax sale tomorrow.  It doesn't give you much time, but you could hurry to town and sell your wool or at least make a part payment and stall the sale."

"In a way I should thank you for your interest in my affairs, and in a way I shouldn't," finally retorted Dan.  "You're bothering about something you don't understand.  I ain't surprised that they're trying to sell the land.  I've expected that for a year or so.  Why, I was foolish enough to try to sell it myself once.  I even listed it with one of them real estate sharks and paid part of his advertisin' expenses, and he never got a prospect.  Why, the deeds Ain't worth the paper they're written on, nor were they even before the taxes came due.  There are some mortgages on the improved places, as much as ten dollars an acre.  Why, Dad even gave twenty dollars for some near the spring.  But it's all worthless now.  Those weeds don't even make sheep pasture.  I have to herd around the edges and on the rough, unbroken parts.  Most of it didn't cost us much, anyhow.  The starved-out ranchers and homesteaders used to give us a deed for a few dollars to move with, or a worn-out team to drag out with.  At that, we gave ?em too much.  No, it won't sell.  Nobody'll be so foolish enough to buy, and I'll be herding right here ten years from now, if I want, but I won't want to be."

"As for that talk about irrigation; why I've heard lots of old-time apple men, good ones too, say they couldn't make expenses if they had to lift water over one hundred feet.  This is four, five and six hundred feet.  So that's that.  Besides, the lambs and wool are already sold, and the money spent in advance for two or three years, anyway.  Why, I couldn't raise ten dollars by tomorrow if my life depended un it.  There was a day when, if I wanted a thousand or two or three, my note was good, but now..... "

"Well, I'm sorry, Dan, old man," Chet said, "but it seems we can't see anything alike.  I hate to see you lose this land.  It's not fair.  They're robbing you, and you don't realize it.  You have no idea of the changing conditions and shifting values.  I have a notion to appoint myself your guardian and pay your taxes from my salary.  Why, I've totaled it up, and the land isn't assessed very high and it doesn't total up to much.  Do you know that the company is taking option on the land below us here for four hundred dollars on unimproved land and two thousand per acre for orchard land, and its really more gravelly than yours?"

"Would you accept a loan of a couple of hundred dollars, and see what you can do before the sale in the morning?  I really have no money to spare but I'd be willing to accept a few sections of your worthless land if you couldn't pay me back.  You see, I know you'd be able to repay me if you saved your land."

"Nothing doing," said Dan, "just some more of your fairy stories".

"Well," Chet shrugged, "if you wont accept my loan or listen to reason, I may as well go. So long, you loco sheepherder, the king who sacrificed his kingdom, his birthright just when it was becoming valuable.  I pity you, but you won't let me help you".

"Begone, you loco surveyor!  You sure have been eating the loco weed.  As much as I crave human companionship, I want you out of my sight.  You're worse than the sheep with your baa, baa... it's all baa.  Come back again sometime, and let's talk about the weather or something good to eat.  We can agree on that.  Thanks for comin', old man, but no use.  So long.  I'll be down to see you some day and tell you how to build your damn dam.  I'll bet you'll need help worse than I do before you get through."

Just as Chet was turning to leave, a horseman appeared over the knoll a few yards away, riding hurriedly toward them.

"It's John, my roustabout.  Don't go.  I want you to meet him," said Dan.

As the lad rode up on the sweating horse, Dan saw from his haste, flushed face, and attitude that he had something on his mind.  He hadn't even taken time to ride past the camp and unload; a grain bag of provisions and the usual roll of mail, magazines, and papers were still tied to the saddle.

As the boy drew rein and dismounted, Dan said, "John, meet my would-be friend and adviser, Mr. Chester Evans, and then you can spill what you got on your mind".

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Evans.  Dan was telling me about your other visit up here and your interesting prophecy.  I believe you're right about things.  I'd like to have time to visit with you and get the inside dope on the dam and hear your ideas on future agricultural developments.  Of course, Dan told me part of what you said, but knowing him as I do, and probably as you do too, by this time, I'm afraid he gave me an overdrawn view of parts of your picture.  Then again, I don't believe he has exactly the right slant on it himself.  We've been studying economic history in high school, and I have some ideas of my own on the subject.  Let me tell you what I think about it".  He raced on without drawing a breath.

"They've taught us that economic cycles last about ten years.  After every war, there has always been a period of depression when people were really paying for the war.  After that, they say, there is always a period of reconstruction, growth and expansion, making prosperity and good times.  I feel we've had our ten years of hard times and now the pendulum is ready to swing the other way.  The construction has already begun.  Look below!  Our state has one-sixth of the available water power in the United States and plenty of raw products near at hand.  Sometime, when there are dams along this river, making it navigable to the sea, and one-sixth of the factories of the United States are located here, and one-sixth of the population here instead of one-sixtieth, then won't irrigable land be valuable!"

"My Gosh, ain't he another prophet and regular side-show speiler," said Dan.  "Now we've had another sermon on the mount.  You fellers shore should get acquainted.  You ought to get along great."  He turned to John.  "You didn't answer my question.  Besides peddling that line of bunk you didn't say what was on your mind."

"Oh, yes, Dan.  Pardon me, but I forgot it in my excitement over meeting Mr. Evans.  I was trying to make a good impression and show him all of us natives aren't like you.  It's about this land, Dan, all of your land.  It tells about it in the paper here.  They're going to sell it.  Can't you do something?  Can't we, all of us?  Maybe I could get Dad to help.  He has been doing well of his apples."

"No, no use," Dan roughly replied.  "And if you fellows ;can't think of something more cheerful and interesting to talk about, you'd better go peddle your papers.  Come, Shep, we got to get below those sheep or they will be going clear to the orchards".  He walked off.

On Monday morning Chester Evans telephoned his boss and asked for another day's leave of absence from his job.  He then thoughtfully took his last three pay checks from his pocket, still uncashed.  Slowly weighing his actions, he re-pocketed them, went to his car, and struck out for the county seat.  Yes, his mind was made up now.  He would not turn back.  He would try to do his best to help poor, doleful Dan, even as Dan himself did for his flock.  He would appoint himself Dan's guardian and save his land.  Dan would be glad eventually and do the right thing by him when the land became valuable.

After forty-five minutes of hard driving, mostly up a winding, dangerous grade, he come out on what appeared to be the top of the world.  As far as the eye could reach, there stretched the broad, level plateau.  He was surprised and amazed bu the beauty of the sight.  It appeared like a mammoth checkerboard, each section or six-hundred-forty acres of farm land making one square.  The colors were alternately green and black.  Here a section of green-growing grain, next a section of black, recently turned summer-fallow.  Each farmer owned at least two sections, one to seed and one to summer-fallow, this to catch two years' moisture to raise... or try to raise... one crop.

He had heard this country spoken of as the Desert of Wheat.  At this season of the year, it belied its name, for the wheat was still green and waving beautifully in the breeze.  What a checker-board!  What a game this wheat-raising must have been.  What fine large houses and barns these farmers had.  Yes, he had heard they had all been kings in the earlier days when the land was new, prices good, and wheat was king.

Now he saw that it was but the ruins of kings and kingdoms.  The buildings were showing the need for paint.  The huge barns were mostly empty except for the occasional tractor parked in their driveways.  There were no horses, no hay, no cattle, no hogs, net even a hen.  The farmers had about all moved to town and only drove out periodically to do the plowing, seeding or harvesting.  Most of them figured that they were working for the bank anyway, and that land values had slumped and their farms and chattels were mortgaged for more than they were worth, much more than they would bring at sheriff's sale.  This the seeds of neglect, despair and "Don't care" were being broadcast through this whole checkerboard, and millions of other checkerboards.  There would be many king farmers uncrowned, and they would have to eat humble pie and begin over again and root hog or die if some sudden change didn't come about.

Too bad, thought Chet, that this fine level plateau was so high as to be above all hope of future irrigantion, but, thank goodness, there were millions of acres near that were low enough.

Chet entered what, apparently, had once been a rich, pretentious county town.  But there were althgether too many empty business houses now.  Chet drove directly to the courthouse.

At the stroke of nine by the courthouse clock, the chief deputy of the county treasurer came out from his office to the front steps of the courthouse and began the sale.  In a regular, monotonous voice he read off the legal description of the land, a section at a time, and asked, "Have I a bider?".  No response from any of the half- dozen men present. Then, "Sold to the county."

Chet watched one little, dried-up old man, who put him in mind of a sand toad.  At the reading of each description, the old fellow would cup his hand to his ear and lean attentively toward the auctioneer.  When sure that it was not the section that he was interested in, he would drop his hand and relax until the reading of the next.  There seemed to be no others interested and, as yet, no bidders.  Chet noticed from the auctioneer's list that Dan's was the last name on the list.

The few men present were there through curiosity.  Deciding there would be no sales, that no one was willing or able to redeem their property at the eleventh hour, they had finally all left except Chet and the old man.

The auctioneer had hurried through the long, tedious list and said, "Sold" when the old man screeched: "What? Repeat that again.  What was that description?".

The auctioneer replied in a louder but courteous voice, "I have just sold section...., township...., range.... to the county.".

"My God, I hoped you wouldn't.  I meant to try to stop you.  If I could only hear better.  When you started to sell it, I wanted to plead my cause" piped up the little old man in his squeaky voice.

"Have you the money?" asked the county treasurer, who had strolled out to witness the one interruption of the uninteresting sale.  "If you have we will have the sale put aside."

"No, I have no money, but I come to plead for time and for justice.  Maybe I'll have the money soon".

"If you have no money, the sale stands.  For six years you've let your taxes go unpaid.  You've been notified regularly but you've never, in that time, paid one cent.  If you had paid one year's taxes you could have stalled this sale for a year, but if you have no money, it's too late now."

"But listen to me" pleaded the old man.  "Listen to reason and give me justice.  Fifty years, as man and boy, I've lived in this country.  I came in ?79.  I came in behind a bunch of cattle, some fourteen hundred of them.  I've worked, skimped and saved.  I've paid hundreds of dollard of taxes right here.  But now I'm too old for plowboy or cowboy, and jobs are hard to find.  My ears and eyes are none too good now, but God knows I've tried to raise the $12.34 to pay a years taxes.  This desert land will soon be worth two thousand dollars an acre.  Wouldn't I be rich then!  You know that this is all the land I have left, and it's all in Rock Island Precinct.  It has been too high to irrigate, but now that they're going to raise the river level wit the new dam, irrigation will be easy.  My neighbor below me has sold his land, which is no better, to Northwestern Electric for four hundred dollars an acre.  Won't you please have pity and not rob me of my valuable land for only $12.34?".

"There is no redemption after a tax sale.  Why didn't you sell some of your land before?"

"I tried, honest I tried, but it's all above flood level.  The backwaters would never damage it, so the company is under no obligation to buy.  To think the county that I helped to settle and civilize should rob me in my old age.  And they haven't even got a poor farm or a hospital that I can go to."

"That's your fault.  You taxpayers' fault," spoke up the county treasurer.  "If you don't pay your taxes, how can we run the county and meet our obligations?  How can we maintain and operate poor farms and hospitals, now when we have additional expenses?  The scum of the earth has drifted in from the far corners of the country to build the dam.  We've had to put on two new deputy sheriffs and that isn't half enough.  The town of Rock Island has been started without any semblance of law and order.  Im told that ninety percent of its present population are bootleggers, gamblers, moonshiners and prostitutes.  How can our poor little county, without funds, patrol that far corner of the county and keep down crime and take care of the sick, maimed, and indigent?  No, other towns in nearer counties are getting all their trade, and they must look after them."  

"Well, what will I do?  Where'll I go?  I'm too old to start tramping.  I guess I can go jump in the river," said the old man, sadly and solemnly.

Chester had heard enough.  He had a little silver and a few small bills in his billfold besides his checks.  "Here," he said to the old man, "here is twelve-fifty.  Let's have the sale set aside.  I think it can still be done legally.  The deeds are not made out yet."

"What?" said the old man, cupping his hand to his ear.  

"Fine," replied the treasurer.  We'll be glad to accept.  We'll mark one year's taxes paid and postpone the sale for one year."

The old man began to catch on.  Tears sprang into his eyes, as he gripped Chet's had.  "You've saved my life.  And you've made a friend for life."

"It's nothing," said Chet.  "Maybe I can help you sell it and then you can pay me back.  And now, Mr. Treasurer, I want to make a one year's payment on all property assessed to Dan McArthur.  Figure it up; I have the money here in checks."

"What?  Dan McArthur?  Doleful Dan?" asked the old man.  "Are you his guardian angel too?  What a man, and may God bless you."  He thought for a moment.  "But I wonder how Dan will take it, not being here.  He's been with his sheep so long he's getting a mite ?teched' in his head.  How did you get to know Dan and why were you so good as to come to the sale?"

"It's a long story.  I'll tell you later.  Now, I have to finish up here and get back to work.  What's your name, partner?"

"William Evans.  Call me Bill."

"How are you going home, Bill?"

"I'll hitchhike or catch a ride with someone I know.  That's how I came up.  My, it's good to thin I can go back to my old home instead of to the river. ?Course I could have gone back anyway, up there on the hill they wouldn't have known it.  But I wouldn't, nohow, when it wasn't mine.  ?Taint much... no frills, just an old shack... but it's home to me for another year."

"Come, ride home with me," Chet suggested, "and we'll have a good long visit.  There are a lot of things you can tell me about this country."  He helped Bill into the car and they drove off.

"You know," Chet said, "it occurred to me that the Cement Construction Company could use a "kid" of your caliber for water boy.  It's pretty warm down there among those rocks.  They're putting on more men, and they'll need more water boys."

"If you could get me a job, I'd be so grateful."

"We'll see what can be done about it.  Now, old timer, can you tell me of some short cut to Dan's range or where we can find him?  We'll drive up as close as we can get and surprise him with the good news."

"Take this next turn across the valley and then up that steep, narrow grade.  That'll take us quite near his present herding ground" said Bill.  "I know every trail and every crook and turn in these hills.  I chased cattle over this very ridge forty- three years ago."

Chet suddenly slowed the car and pointed.  "I wonder who that is striding down the grade so fast.  It looks like Dan," Chet said.

There ws little doubt as to the identify of the man coming toward them.  The car stopped as they met, but Dan kept right on until Chet hailed him.  "Stop, we have good news for you."

"No you haven't.  There is only one thing that would be good news to me, and you won't ever know what that is.  I never expect it now anyhow."

"Are you going to town?  Who is looking after the sheep?" asked chet, ignoring Dan's remarks.

"Who in hell wants to know?  The blankety-blank banker just came out and brought the shearing crew and a new herder.  He said the county was taking over my range today and they were going to rent from them.  They started foreclosure on my last year, so I gave them a bill of sale for the sheep and like a blankety-blank fool stayed another year just because I didn't know where to go or what to do.  Now they've taken possession and I'm through.  I'm done.  I hope never to see that range or those blankety-blank sheep again."

"But surely you aren't going away mad without taking anything.  Where's your bed and old Shep?  Surely you wouldn't leave him.

"I didn't have anything to leave.  The camp wagon was included in the bill of sale, they said.  They told me the shepherd dog always went with the sheep. Good old Shep, my last friend.  They've robbed me of him.  He tried to follow.  For five years, as pup and dog, he has followed me.  I never tied him, but they put a rope on him and tied him to the camp wagon.  He rared and tore and fought to get loose.  He is still their prisoner, their slave.  But they've turned me loose.  I'm no longer worth my keep.  I lost too many starved sheep.  But it was their fault.  They wouldn't buy feed.  They expected me to keep sheep fat even in winter... on snow, fresh air, and mountain scenery.  But the poor sheep died.  I hated it, but I done my best.  It wasn't my fault."

"But where are you going?  What are you going to do?  I think I could get you some kind of job on the dam.  Bill Evans, here, may be our new water boy."

"I don't know where I'm going, or what I'm going to do, and I don't give a damn.  I'm not looking for work, thank you.  I am taking a vacation, and enforced vacation, the first in many years.  If I was a drinking man, I'd go and get gloriously drunk.  I hear they have some powerful stuff down in Rock Island.  The future Power City, they proudly call it.  But I never did like the smell of the stuff, and I'm afraid it wouldn't set good on my stomach."

"No, I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.  I want to go places and see people, here the sound of children's voices and look at women's faces.  There is one face that haunts me in my sleep.  A poor, tired, overworked mother.  She's gone.  She's gone.  But why and where?  Was it my fault?  I tried to be good to her in my rough way."

"But I forget.  That's my troubles and none of your business.  Neither is that worthless land.  So, I'm going.  I'll be seeing you and your damn dam some of these days."

"Chet, I'm getting out here" said Bill, who had been listening with his hand cupped to his ear.  "Dan has had a peck of trouble, lots that you don't know about and, as you have become my guardian angel, maybe I'll become his.  I'm going to ask him to come and stay with me.  If he don't, I'm going with him.  He ain't fit to be left alone with his troubles."

Dan had already started striding down the grade, and the wiry, old sand toad started out after him.

Chet had to drive on up the grade to turn around, and the two products of the desert were lost to view.