owed land
like sections on a chess-board of the gods, and farm buildings cut so
clear in the mountain atmosphere that the sense of space was lost and
they seemed like child-houses just across the way.

Grant turned to his companion with an animation in his face which almost
startled the prosaic dealer in real estate.

"Wonderful! Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "We don't need to go any farther
if you can sell me this."

"Sure I can sell you this," said the dealer, looking at him somewhat
queerly. "That is, if you want it. I thought you were looking for a
wheat farm."

The man's total lack of appreciation irritated Grant unreasonably.
"Wheat makes good hog fodder," he retorted, "but sunsets keep alive the
soul. What is the price?"

Again the dealer gave him a queer sidelong look, and made as though to
argue with him, then suddenly seemed to change his purpose. Perhaps he
reflected that strange things happened to the boys overseas.

"I'll get you the price in town," he said. "You are sure it will suit?"

"Suit? No king in Christendom has his palace on a site like this. I'd go
round the world for it."

"You're the doctor," said the dealer, turning his car.

Grant completed the purchase, ordered lumber for a house and barn, and
engaged a carpenter to superintend the construction. It was one of his
whims that he would do most of the work himself.

"I guess I'm rather a man of whims," he reflected, as he stood on
the brow of the hill where the material for his buildings had been
delivered. "It was a whim which first brought me west, and a whim which
has brought me west again. I have a whim about my money, a whim about my
farm, a whim about my buildings. I do not do as other people do, which
is the unpardonable sin. To Linder I am a jester, to Murdoch a fanatic,
to our friend the real estate dealer a fool; I even noticed my honest
carpenter trying to ask me something about shell shock! Well--they're MY
whims, and I get an immense amount of satisfaction out of them."

The days that followed were the happiest Grant had known since
childhood. The carpenter, a thin, twisted man, bowed with much labor at
the bench, and answering to the name Peter, sold his services by the day
and manifested a sympathy amounting to an indulgence toward the whims of
his employer. So long as the wages were sure Peter cared not whether the
house was finished this year or next--or not at all. He enjoyed Grant's
cooking in the temporary work-shed