urate
about geology and such things if history and the Scriptures are silent
on these fine points."

Joe Thomson still stood leaning against the oak limb. The confusion of
meeting this handsome stranger had passed. He was in his own territory
now, talking of things of which he knew. He knew, too, how to put his
thoughts into good, expressive English.

"There are beautiful farms up the river--ranches, I mean. What has
changed this prairie to such an awful place?" Jerry questioned,
eagerly.

"Eastern capital and lack of brains and energy," Joe answered her. "It
is just a blowout, that's all. It began in that sandy strip in that low
place along over there by the railroad, where, as I say, some old
river-bed, maybe the Sage Brush, might have been long ago before it made
that big bend in its course up by my buildings. A crazy, money-mad fool
from back East came out here and plowed up all this ground one dry
season, a visionary fellow who dreamed of getting a fortune from the
land without any labor. And when the thing began to look like real work
he cut the whole game, just like a lot of other fools have done, and
went back East, leaving all these torn, unsodded acres a plaything for
the winds. There were three or four dry seasons right after that, and
the soil all went to dust and blew away. But the sand grew, and
multiplied, and surged over the face of this particular spot of the
Lord's earth until it has come to be a tyrant of power, covering all
this space and spreading slowly northward up over the next claim. That's
mine."

"What is it doing to your land?" Jerry asked.

"Ruining it," Joe replied, calmly.

"And you don't go mad?" the girl cried, impulsively.

"We don't go mad on the Sage Brush till the last resort, and we don't
often come to that. When we can't do one thing, out West, we do another.
That's all there is to it." The smile was in his eyes again as Joe said
this.

"Do you know who owns this ground now?" Jerry tried to ask as carelessly
as possible.

"An estate back in Pennsylvania, I believe," Joe replied.

"What is it worth?" Jerry's voice was hardly audible.

"Look at it. What do _you_ think it is worth, as a whole, or cut up into
town lots for a summer resort?" Joe demanded.

In spite of his calmness there was a harshness in his voice, and his
eyes were stern.

Jerry twisted her white hands helplessly. "I don't know--anything worth
knowing," she said, faintly, looking full into the young