The Long Chance

At night she sang to him, or sat contentedly at his side while he told her whimsical tales of his wanderin

ithal he was a droll rascal, a rollicking, careless fellow who quickly discovered that, next to telling her that he loved her and would continue to love her forever and ever, it pleased Donna most to have him tell her about himself, to listen to his Munchausenian tales of travel and adventure. Did he speak of cities with their cafes, parks, theaters and museums, she was interested, but when he told her of the country that lay just bey

the hunger in the girl's heart for a change from the drab, lifeless, unchanging vistas of the open

ening eyes, seized his hand

n?" she

ad not spoken. He was a lit

little scheme of mine, it will not be more than a year. Things are very uncertain right now." He smiled sheepishly as he

ither, Bob. I'm just content to know I've got you, and t

ing to the zephyr whistl

opped to gather up the hats since the night you came

mazed. "I don't un

sion of any subject dealing with the practical side of her life, and Bob was keenly interested. He laughed as Donna related some homely little anecdote of the hat trade, and later,

been an artist of more or less ability-probably less-who, having met and fallen in love with McGraw senior in New York during one of his prosperous periods, had continued to love him when the fortune vanished. Bob had been born in a mining camp in Tuolumne county. He had never seen his mother. She died bringing him into the world. His father had drifted from camp

g the law; so to please him young Bob had managed to struggle through the course and by dint of much groaning and burning of midnight oil, eventually he was admitted to practice before the Superior Court. Unknown to his father, however, he had been attending the courses in geology and mining engineering, in which he had made really creditable progress. He was unfortunate enough to pass his law examinations

re bucket coming down. Bob closed his office, went up country to the mine and saw to it that his father was decently buried

rough disgust for the profession of the law. He left his position with Dunstan and went to work on a morning paper at fifteen dollars a week. At the end of two months he was

s any, and stake it all on the turning of a card; if this metaphor may be employed to designate Bob McGraw's nature without creating the impression that he had, inherited a penchant for the gaming table. It had been born in him to take a chance.

esert and he liked it. There was a broad strain of poetry in his make-up, inherited perhaps from his mother, and the desert appealed to that mystical sixth sense in him, arousing his imagination, taunting him with a desire that was almost pre-natal to investigate the formation on the other side of the sky-line. It pandered to the

ts of country, and the silence pleased him. Also he had met and talked with other desert wanderers, with whom he had shared his water and his grub, and in return they had infected him still further with the microbe of unrest. He h

and seek a job; which he accordingly did. He found employment with a cattle company and went up to Long valley in Mono county. Here he was almost happy. Life on a cow range suited him very well indeed, for it took him away from civilization and carried him through a mineral country. He rode with a prospecto

e was very happy, for the future was always rose-tinted and he had definitely located two lost mines. That is to say, he could say almost for a certainty that they lay within five miles of certain points. Somehow, his water had a habit of always giving out just w

Pasqual and got as far as the Hat Ranch

e of the stigma of failure and clothed it in the charm of achievement. She laughed in perfect understanding when he described how so

like it. It sounded too blamed pessimistic for me, so when I broke c

h denied to her these joyous, endless wanderings. "I love it" he told her presently. "I can't help it. It appeals to something in me, just like drink appeals to a drunkard. I'm never so happy as when gophering around in a barren prospect hole or coyoting on some rocky hillside. But it's only another form of the g

pleased her to learn that he had made it because he realized that he

once you have made up you

myself. I used to think a good deal about myself in those days, but five years in the desert and riding the range changes one. It takes the little, selfish foolish notions

cares that

them ye

fields abo

e winds

lowing of

ling of

singing of

ing of t

ears of what

them

clover-sce

he new-

hushing

owsy pop

ughts die and

e fields

ss died out in the girl's ey

oftly, "that's be

lieve to understand when he goes to church in a city, but if you'r

'm a Pagan and the daughter of a Pagan.

with which the reader is already familiar. He questioned her carefully about Sam

erson?" he asked. "Didn't

he merely told mother that he was going to meet an Eastern capitalist

sto

a no

nd your father called him that in sh

strange tale of a lost mine which

ing until somebody cracks me on the head an

civilization. I'm going to plant them on ten-acre farms up there under the shadow of old Mt. Kearsarge, and convert them into Pagans. I'm going to create an Eden out of an abandoned Hell. I'm going to lay out a townsite and men will build me a town, so I can light it with my own electricity. It's a big Utopian dream, Donna dear, but what a crowning glory to the dreamer's life if it only comes true! Just think, Donna. A few thousand of the poor and lowly and hope

wide and

rave and

live and

me down w

verse you

s where he

sailor, home

ter home fr

now he almost quivered at the thought that Donna would look upon him as a dreamer, an idealist-perhaps a fool-he, a penniless desert wanderer assuming to hold in his

k of gentle indulgence so common to the Unbeliever. But there was no

ful Utopia of yours, Bo

y, "but it-it may. And when it does become

hy

ou about, where you'll find all the things your soul is hungry for; where we will own a big farm, you and I, with great fields of alfalfa with purple blossoms; and there'll be long rows of apple and pear trees and corn and-do

ever be beaten, Bob. The dreamers do the world's work. But tell me. How do yo

but it is good to talk it over after hugging it to myself so many years, and suff

eastern side most of the way until it empties into Owens lake just above Keeler. The lake is salty, bitter, filled with alkali, boras and soda, and for nearly forty miles above its mouth the river itself is pretty brackish and alkaline. Away up the valley the river water is sweet but as it approaches the lake it gathers alkali and borax from the formation through whic

desolate, but once you climb the mountains and look down into it, it's beautiful. I know it looked beautiful to me and I wished that I might have a farm there and settle down. For the next few years, every time I drifted up or down that valley I used to dream a

unt of the alkali in it, and from the formation I judged that I wouldn't have much success putting in artesian wells. Besides, I didn't care to be a lone rancher out

getting ready to come out of the mountains and hustle for next year's grubstake, I found a 'freez

water. You ought to see that land, Donna. Why, the sage grows six feet tall in spots, and any desert land that will grow big sage will produce more fortunes

mpensating offset over there. Here was a valley that with irrigation could be made marvelously fertile at this point, only the river had to go brackish and alkaline just where it was needed most. I couldn

I had my eye, was suddenly withdrawn from entry and thrown into a Forest Reserve by the Department of the Interior. It was a queer proceeding that-incl

its school lands which were timbered. In the congressional investigation into certain land frauds in California, it was discovered that the men accused of the frauds had been aided by corrupt minor officials in the General Land Office-clerks and chiefs of certain bureaus, whom the land-grabbers ke

rnished the General Land Office by officials of the Forestry Department in California, was responsible for the inclusion of the desert in the Forest Reserve, strengthened into belief the more I thought it over. I thought I could det

ce; that he rarely spent more than two hours each day in his office; that frequently he was away from his office for a month at a time, ill, and that the office practically was dominated by his deputy. The surveyor-general was a quiet, easy-going man, advanced in years and inclined to take things

Reserve. Either an error had been made by the local forestry officials in defining the boundaries of the reserve, and thus reporti

the water to it, and while developing their water supply they wanted the land denied to the public. There was always the chance that some smart nester would come, file on a half-section and start boring artesian wells. If he struck water, the news would travel and other settlers would come in and take a chance, and before long there might be a hundred settlers in there. There would be no reason to fear that they would stay forever, unless they go

uence had so maneuvered to hoodwink the General Land Office that the valley had been withdrawn from entry. When they had protected themselves from prospective settlers, it would be safe for them to develop their water away up the valley. When they were ready, it would be easy enough, to suddenly discover that a desert valley had, by some stupid error, been included in a Forest Reserve, the boundaries would be readjusted immediately, the valley once more thrown open for entry and-dummy entrymen, Johnny-on-the-spot, to file on the land for the water company! Within the statutory limit of four years the water c

nd it's part of a mining engineer's business to know the laws relating to the public domain. I could see that unless I developed water first and file

up there below the snow-line, I must find one that I could tap and bring the water down into my valley. If Nature made a mistake in th

a rawhide riata. I camped three nights on a peak with so much iron ore in it that when an electrical storm came up it attracted the lightning and struck around me for hours. I crawled and cr

a sacred heritage that belonged to the lowly of the earth, and I wanted to save it for them. I could see them all at that moment, the roustabouts, the laborers and muckers, the unskilled toilers of the world. It was the hewers of wood and the drawers of water that I wanted that valley to bloom for; the poor, poor devils whose only hope is the land that gave them bir

eastern edge, and through a gigantic crevice in this sandstone the water escaped. When the lake rose to the edge of this crevice, during the summer when the snow was melting up on the face of old Mount Kearsarge, the surplus flowed off into some subterranean outlet, probably emerging at the head of some canyon miles away on the other side of the range. This lake was hemmed in by hills, and between two of these hills a canyon dropped away sheer to the desert two thousand feet below. I made careful estimates and discove

nd office in Independence I registered my filing and turned to leave, just as a clerk came out and tacked a notice on the bulletin board. I read it. It was the cust

ivery bill, threw the saddle on Friar Tuck and headed south, for I knew that if I was to turn robber baron and s

haps a minute she gazed i

o drive that tunnel?

ging a pick and drill myself, I estimate

right hold good before

allows me

ft in which to plan your ca

and, they will buy my water-right at their own figures, or starve me out and acquire the right when I am forced to abandon it by reason of my inability to develop it; or failing that they will proceed on their original plan and lead their own water down the valley in canals. Without the water the land is worthless, and without the land my water-righ

osition to the land ring, if you se

ency. In order to carry it out, I must get my filings into th

an you hope

be monopolized. A man can hope till he's licked, at least, and despite the fact that I have nei

hat be?" qu

ever needs-a