"Well, I can't say that I have. I've been busy with its present."

"That's what I supposed. You've been too busy with the details of your
little job to give attention to bigger things. Now, let me pass you a
few pieces of information--things you must know, but you have never put
them together before. What are the natural elements which make a
country or city a desirable place to live? I'll tell you. Climate,
transportation, good water, variety of landscape, opportunity of
independence. Given these conditions, everything else can be added.
Now, our climate--of course it is misunderstood in the South and East,
but misunderstanding doesn't ruffle it. You and I know what it is.
This is a white man's climate. Follow our latitude into Europe if you
want to find the seats of power and success. London and Berlin are
north of us; Paris very little south."

"Where did you get this stuff?" Dave interjected. "Sounds like the
prelude of an address before a boomsters' club."

"I've been thinking, while you've been too busy to think," Conward
retorted. "Then there's transportation. This is one of the few
centres in America which has a north and south trade equal to its east
and west trade. We're on the cross-roads. Every settler who goes into
the North--and it is a mighty North--means more north and south trade.
The development of the Pacific Coast, the industrialization of Asia,
the opening of the Panama Canal--these mean east and west trade. Every
railway that taps this country must come to this city, because we have
the start, and are too big to be ignored."

"'City' is good," said Dave.

"All right. Scoff as much as you like. Have your joke before it turns
on you. There'll be a quarter of a million people here before you're
dead, if you play fair with the life insurance people."

"Go on."

"Then there's the soil--the richest soil in the world. Just dry enough
to keep it from leaching. Natural possibilities for irrigation
wherever necessary--"

"I'm not sure about it as a grain country," interrupted Dave, with a
touch of antagonism.

"That is because you were brought up on a ranch, and are a rancher at
heart," Conward shot back. "No rancher is ever sure of any country
being a grain country. All he is sure of is that if the farmer comes
it is good-bye to the open range. Just as the fur-trader blackguarded
the climate to keep the stockman out, so is the stockman blackguarding
the climate to keep