ully in the Imperial Valley. The stuff which
looks to be sand--barren, unfertile sand--is the richest soil in the
world. Put water on it and you can raise anything. Reclamation work is
a fairly new thing with us, Conniston. Men have been content
heretofore to squat in the green valleys and let the desert places
remain the haunts of the horned toad and coyote. But now the green
valleys are filling up, and there are hundreds of thousands of square
miles like the country you rode over from Indian Creek to the Half
Moon which are calling to us. To redeem them from barrenness, to do
the sort of work which our friends have done in the Imperial Valley,
is pioneer work. The pioneers ever since Adam, be it the Columbuses of
early navigation or the Wrights of aerial navigation, have always
taken the long chances. They are the ones who have suffered the
hardships, and who, often enough, have been forgotten by the world in
its mad rush along the trail they have opened. But they are the men
who have done the big things. The pioneers are not yet all gone from
the West, thank God! And their work is reclamation work!"

"And it's for the work over there that you want an engineer?"

"Yes. I want him bad, too. Do you happen to know one?"

"I know one. I won't say how much good he is, though. I'm an engineer
myself."

"You!" It was Argyl's voice, surprised but eager.

"My father is a mining engineer. He always wanted me to do something
for myself, you know." Conniston laughed softly. "He sent me to
college, and since I didn't care a rap what sort of work I did, I took
a course in civil engineering to please him. Civil, instead of
mining," he added, lightly, "because I thought it would be easier."

"Had any practical experience?" demanded Mr. Crawford. Conniston shook
his head. "It's too bad. You might be of a lot of use to me over
there--if you'd ever done anything."

Conniston colored under the plain, blunt statement. There it was
again--he had never done anything, he had never been anything. His
teeth cut through his cigarette before he answered.

"I didn't suppose that you could use me." He still spoke lightly,
hiding the things which he was feeling, his recurrent self-contempt.
"I don't suppose, that I know enough to run a ditch straight. I've
been rather a rum loafer."

Mr. Crawford smiled. "I suppose you have. But you are young yet,
Conniston. A man can do anything when he is young."

There was the grinding of wheels upon