reat extent
much of the Forest Service work is being done with irrigation in view."

"They used to call it," broke out the old prophet again, "the 'land that
God forgot,' but now they're callin' it the 'land that God remembered.'"

Wilbur waited a moment to see if the old man would speak again, but as
he was silent, he turned to the man beside him:

"How did you get interested in this land?" he asked.

"I was born," the other answered, "in one of the villages of the
cliff-dwellers, who lived so many years ago. Dad, he always used to
think that the sudden droppin' out of those old races an' the endurin'
silence about them was some kind of a visitation. An' he always believed
that the curse, whatever it was, would be taken off."

"That's a queer idea," said the boy; "I never heard it before."

"Well," said the other, "it does seem queer. An' when the government
first started this reclamation work, dad he thought it was a sign, and
he went into every project, I reckon, the government ever had. An' they
used to say that unless 'the Apache Prophet,' as they called him, had
been once on a project, it was no use goin' on till he came."

"But what did he do?"

"They always gave him charge of a gang of men for as long as he wanted
it, and Jim an' I, we used to boss a gang, too. We've been on the
Huntley and Sun River in Montana, we've laid the foundation of the
highest masonry dam in the world--the Shoshone dam in Wyoming,--helped
build a canal ninety-five miles long in Nebraska, I've driven team on
the Belle Fourche in South Dakota; in Kansas, where there's no surface
water, I've dug wells that with pumps will irrigate eight thousand
acres, and away down in New Mexico on the Pecos and in Colorado on the
Rio Grande I've helped begin a new life for those States."

"An' a river shall flow out of it," the old man burst forth again, "an'
I reckon thar ain't a river flowin' nowhere that's forgot. I don't know
where Jordan rolls, but any stream that brings smilin' plenty where the
desert was before looks enough like Jordan to suit me. I've seen it, I
tell you," he added fiercely, turning to the boy, "I've seen the desert
an' I've seen Eden, an' I'm goin' there to live. An' where the flamin'
sword of thirst once whirled, there's little brooks a-ripplin' an' the
flowers is springin' fair."

"You must have seen great changes?" suggested the boy, interested in the
old man's speech.

"Five years ago," he answered, "we were camp