observed
Annixter, "about selling me their interest in Quien Sabe, I'm ready.
The land has more than quadrupled in value. I'll bet I could sell it
to-morrow for fifteen dollars an acre, and if I buy of the railroad for
two and a half an acre, there's boodle in the game."

"For two and a half!" exclaimed Genslinger. "You don't suppose the
railroad will let their land go for any such figure as that, do you?
Wherever did you get that idea?"

"From the circulars and pamphlets," answered Harran, "that the railroad
issued to us when they opened these lands. They are pledged to that.
Even the P. and S. W. couldn't break such a pledge as that. You are new
in the country, Mr. Genslinger. You don't remember the conditions upon
which we took up this land."

"And our improvements," exclaimed Annixter. "Why, Magnus and I have
put about five thousand dollars between us into that irrigating ditch
already. I guess we are not improving the land just to make it valuable
for the railroad people. No matter how much we improve the land, or how
much it increases in value, they have got to stick by their agreement on
the basis of two-fifty per acre. Here's one case where the P. and S. W.
DON'T get everything in sight."

Genslinger frowned, perplexed.

"I AM new in the country, as Harran says," he answered, "but it seems
to me that there's no fairness in that proposition. The presence of the
railroad has helped increase the value of your ranches quite as much
as your improvements. Why should you get all the benefit of the rise
in value and the railroad nothing? The fair way would be to share it
between you."

"I don't care anything about that," declared Annixter. "They agreed to
charge but two-fifty, and they've got to stick to it."

"Well," murmured Genslinger, "from what I know of the affair, I don't
believe the P. and S. W. intends to sell for two-fifty an acre, at all.
The managers of the road want the best price they can get for everything
in these hard times."

"Times aren't ever very hard for the railroad," hazards old Broderson.

Broderson was the oldest man in the room. He was about sixty-five years
of age, venerable, with a white beard, his figure bent earthwards with
hard work.

He was a narrow-minded man, painfully conscientious in his statements
lest he should be unjust to somebody; a slow thinker, unable to let a
subject drop when once he had started upon it. He had no sooner uttered
his remark about hard times than