ourt
passed with his fast trotting mare and sulky, saw that their great
fellow-townsman was more than usually preoccupied and curt in his
acknowledgment of their salutations. Nevertheless as he drew near
the creek, he partly checked his horse, and when he reached a slight
acclivity of the interminable plain--which had really been the bank of
the creek in bygone days--he pulled up, alighted, tied his horse to a
rail fence, and clambering over the inclosure made his way along the
ridge. It was covered with nettles, thistles, and a few wiry dwarf
larches of native growth; dust from the adjacent highway had invaded
it, with a few scattered and torn handbills, waste paper, rags, empty
provision cans, and other suburban debris. Yet it was the site of 'Lige
Curtis's cabin, long since erased and forgotten. The bed of the old
creek had receded; the last tules had been cleared away; the channel and
embarcadero were half a mile from the bank and log whereon the pioneer
of Tasajara had idly sunned himself.

Mr. Harcourt walked on, occasionally turning over the scattered objects
with his foot, and stopping at times to examine the ground more closely.
It had not apparently been disturbed since he himself, six years ago,
had razed the wretched shanty and carried off its timbers to aid in the
erection of a larger cabin further inland. He raised his eyes to the
prospect before him,--to the town with its steamboats lying at the
wharves, to the grain elevator, the warehouses, the railroad station
with its puffing engines, the flagstaff of Harcourt House and the
clustering roofs of the town, and beyond, the painted dome of his last
creation, the Free Library. This was all HIS work, HIS planning, HIS
foresight, whatever they might say of the wandering drunkard from whose
tremulous fingers he had snatched the opportunity. They could not take
THAT from him, however they might follow him with envy and reviling,
any more than they could wrest from him the five years of peaceful
possession. It was with something of the prosperous consciousness with
which he had mounted the platform on the opening of the Free Library,
that he now climbed into his buggy and drove away.

Nevertheless he stopped at his Land Office as he drove into town,
and gave a few orders. "I want a strong picket fence put around the
fifty-vara lot in block fifty-seven, and the ground cleared up at once.
Let me know when the men get to work, and I'll overlook them."

Re-enteri