No
matter how wise you may be in some other place, right here in this spot
you may be a sucker. Do you git my words?"

"I think so," she responded, "and thank you. I'll try to keep my eyes
open."

"They's places in this country," Smith went on, for he liked to talk as
well as the next one, once he got under way, "where you could put your
pocketbook down at the fork of the road with your card on top of it and
go back there next week and find it O. K. But they's other places where
if you had your money inside of three safes they'd git at it somehow.
This is one of that kind of places."

They had been dropping down a slope scattered with gray lava chunks and
set with spiked soapweed, which let them to the river level. Ahead of
them, twisted cottonwoods and red willows marked the brink of the
stream.

"This is the first bench," said Smith, "and it's mainly good land.
Before the books was opened for registration the gover'ment give the
Indians choice of a homestead apiece, and they picked off all this land
down here. Oh, well, on up the river they's a little left, and if I draw
a low number I know where to put my hand on a piece."

"It looks nice and green here," said she, admiring the feathery
vegetation, which grew as tall as the stage along the roadway.

"Yes, but you want to watch out for greasewood," advised Smith, "when
you come to pick land in this country. It's a sign of alkali. Pick that
gray, dusty-lookin' stuff. That's sage, and where it grows big,
anything'll grow when you git the water on it."

"But how _do_ you get the water on this hilly land?" she asked.

The question had been troubling her ever since she had taken her first
look at the country, and nobody had come forward with a satisfactory
explanation.

"You got to go up the river till you strike your level," explained
Smith, "and then you tap it and take the water to your land."

"But if you're on the 'third bench' that I hear them talking about so
much--then what do you do up there, a thousand or two feet above the
river?"

"You go back where you come from if you're wise," said Smith.

When they reached the section which, according to Smith, had not all
been taken up by the Indians already, the party got out occasionally for
closer inspection of the land. The men gravely trickled the soil through
their fingers, while the women grabbed at the sweet-smelling herbs which
grew in abundance everywhere, and tore their sleeves reaching for the