Christi mines. Then he had sold
out his interest at a small profit--just in time to miss his chance of
becoming a multi-millionaire in the Comstock boom--and was looking
for reinvestments in other lines when the news that "wheat had been
discovered in California" was passed from mouth to mouth. Practically
it amounted to a discovery. Dr. Glenn's first harvest of wheat in
Colusa County, quietly undertaken but suddenly realised with dramatic
abruptness, gave a new matter for reflection to the thinking men of the
New West. California suddenly leaped unheralded into the world's market
as a competitor in wheat production. In a few years her output of wheat
exceeded the value of her out-put of gold, and when, later on, the
Pacific and Southwestern Railroad threw open to settlers the rich lands
of Tulare County--conceded to the corporation by the government as a
bonus for the construction of the road--Magnus had been quick to seize
the opportunity and had taken up the ten thousand acres of Los Muertos.
Wherever he had gone, Magnus had taken his family with him. Lyman had
been born at Sacramento during the turmoil and excitement of Derrick's
campaign for governor, and Harran at Shingle Springs, in El Dorado
County, six years later.

But Magnus was in every sense the "prominent man." In whatever circle he
moved he was the chief figure. Instinctively other men looked to him
as the leader. He himself was proud of this distinction; he assumed the
grand manner very easily and carried it well. As a public speaker he was
one of the last of the followers of the old school of orators. He even
carried the diction and manner of the rostrum into private life. It was
said of him that his most colloquial conversation could be taken down
in shorthand and read off as an admirable specimen of pure, well-chosen
English. He loved to do things upon a grand scale, to preside, to
dominate. In his good humour there was something Jovian. When angry,
everybody around him trembled. But he had not the genius for detail,
was not patient. The certain grandiose lavishness of his disposition
occupied itself more with results than with means. He was always ready
to take chances, to hazard everything on the hopes of colossal returns.
In the mining days at Placerville there was no more redoubtable poker
player in the county. He had been as lucky in his mines as in his
gambling, sinking shafts and tunnelling in violation of expert theory
and finding "pay" in eve