"

"It looks awful bad for good fruit and vegetables and fish to be thrown
away when folks have to pay ten cents for a loaf of bread no bigger than
a watch-charm," said Collie.

"It is bad. Crookedness in real estate transactions is bad. We don't
want to waste our time, however, in feeling worried about it. What we
want to do is to show the other fellow that _our_ work is successful and
straight."

"Yes, sir. A fellow has got to believe in something. I guess believing
in his own State is the best."

"Of course. Now, about your leaving us. I had rather you would stay
until the Marshalls go. Louise and Mrs. Stone depend on you so much."

"Sure I will! You see, Red don't say to come, in his letter, but he sent
the check for three hundred if I did want to come. There's no hurry."

"All right. Hello, Louise! Dinner waiting?"

"Yes, Uncle Walter. How are you, Collie?" And Louise nodded to him.
"What are you two hatching? You seem so serious."

"Plans for the ultimate glory of the State," said Stone.

"Ultimate?"

"Yes. We've been going beneath the surface of things a little. Collie
expects to go even deeper, so he tells me."

Collie walked slowly toward the bunk-house. Halfway there he took
Overland's check from the letter and studied it. He put it back into his
pocket. As he passed the corrals, Apache nickered in a friendly way.
"Haven't got a thing for you," said Collie. "Not a bite. We're not goin'
to town to-day. To-morrow, maybe, for there'll be doings at the Oro
Rancho and we'll be there--we'll be there!"

With a run and a spring the young man leaped the gate and trotted into
the bunk-house.

Brand Williams was solemnly shaving. He turned a lathered face toward
Collie whose abrupt entrance had all but caused the foreman to
sacrifice his left ear. "Well," he drawled, "who is dead?"

"You mean, Who is alive? I guess. Say, Brand, what do you think that
Yuma horse over at the Oro is worth?"

"That dam' outlaw? Ain't worth the trouble of mentioning."

"But, oh, Brand, she's built right! I tell you! Short-coupled, and them
legs and withers! They ain't a pony in the valley can touch her. And
only three years old!"

"Nor a man neither," said Williams.

"She's been scared to death because the fellows was scared of her and
started in wrong."

"So'll the man be that tries to ride her. Say, I seen that
copper-colored, china-eyed, she-son of a Kansas cyclone put Bull O'Toole
so far to the bad once that his r