, but Roger
and Ernest, weary beyond words, were delighted when it was finished and
they could tumble into bed.

Roger was wakened the next morning by the alarm clock in the dining
room. Ernest jumped up at once and Roger lighted the candle.

"Six o'clock," he said. "Well, our new job has begun, Ern."

There was a great rattling of the stove lids in the kitchen, above
Dick's whistle, then through the windows a light dawning toward the
corral. By the time that Roger and Ernest had shaved and were hurrying
down the little trail, the red glow in the east had made the "Bug"
unnecessary. All the horses were munching alfalfa and Dick was
whistling in the cow-shed.

The two men stood a moment at the corral gate and looked about them.

The house faced the west. It had been carefully placed on a broad ledge
of the mountain, a few feet above the desert level, yet the few feet
were enough to give a complete view of the valley that swept forty miles
to the west into the range that held the Colorado within bounds. The
sandy levels of the desert swept to the very foot of the mountain, and
Dick had fenced in about twenty-five acres. It was not yet under
cultivation, but a scraper half-filled with sand near the corral fence
testified to Dick's intentions. There were practically no farm
buildings: just the cow-shed, with a sheet-iron roof and a canvas
covered shelter in a corner of the corral. Shed and corral were on the
desert level and a good two hundred feet from the house. As they stood
in silence, Dick came up with his pail of milk.

"Great view, isn't it? I'm going to have twenty-five acres of alfalfa
here by June."

"I thought you were mining," said Ernest.

"I came to the desert to dry-farm but I got sidetracked with turquoise
mining up the mountain yonder. Nothing in that, but alfalfa is thirty
dollars a ton and we get five crops a year."

"Which way does the government land lie?" asked Roger.

Dick grinned. "Look in any direction! You'll have no trouble locating
yourselves. Let's go in to breakfast."

Charley and Felicia were sitting at the breakfast table and the meal was
quickly eaten.

"What do you two do first?" asked Charley as Ernest finished his second
cup of coffee.

"Locate the camp site and set up housekeeping, so as not to intrude on
you any longer," replied Ernest.

"Shucks! You wouldn't talk that way if you'd lived here a few years,"
exclaimed Dick.

"You're the first human beings," remarked Ch