, I suppose. If he could get water----"

"You've figured it out," said Sanderson. "But he won't get water. The
water belongs to the Double A--to me an' to you. An' we're goin' to
sell it ourselves."

"You mean--" began Mary.

"That we're going to build an irrigation dam--with all the fixin's.
You and me."

The girl sat erect, her eyes luminous and eager. "Do you think we can
do it?" she whispered.

"Do you think you could trust me with the three thousand you said dad
left? An' would you be willin' to mortgage the Double A--if we needed
more money?"

"Why," she declared, breathlessly, "the Double A is yours--to do with
as you see fit. If you want to try--and you think there is a chance to
win--why, why--go to it!"

"You're a brick!" grinned Sanderson. "We'll start the ball to rollin'
right away."

Sanderson could not escape the vigorous hug she gave him, but he did
manage to evade her lips, and he went out of the house blushing and
grinning.

It was late in the afternoon when he got to Okar. Barney Owen was with
him. The two rode into town, dismounted at a hitching rail in front of
a building across the front of which was a sign:

THE OKAR HOTEL

Okar was flourishing--as Mary Bransford said. At its northwestern
corner the basin widened, spreading between the shoulders of two
mountains and meeting a vast stretch of level land that seemed to be
endless.

Okar lay at the foot of the mountain that lifted its bald knob at the
eastern side of the basin's mouth. Two glittering lines of steel that
came from out of the obscurity of distance eastward skirted Okar's
buildings and passed westward into an obscurity equally distant.

The country around Okar was devoted to cattle. Sanderson's practiced
eye told him that. The rich grassland that spread from Okar's confines
was the force that had brought the town into being, and the railroad
would make Okar permanent.

Okar did not look permanent, however. It was of the type of the
average cow-town of the western plains--artificial and crude. Its
buildings were of frame, hurriedly knocked together, representing the
haste of a people in whom the pioneer instinct was strong and
compelling--who cared nothing for appearances, but who fought mightily
for wealth and progress.

Upon Okar was the stamp of newness, and in its atmosphere was the
eagerness and the fervor of commercialism. Okar was the trade mart of
a section of country larger than some o