be." Elijah spoke with no less conviction.

"Yes, it's going to be just so long as you keep clear of boomers'
methods. Not one of the boomers has cared a snap of his fingers for
Ysleta's future. Every one has wanted all he could get, now."

"Now?" Elijah repeated.

"Yes, now; but we have to _wait_ for things that are worth while."

"Good Heavens, Helen! Haven't I waited?"

"Wait a little longer." Her voice was eager, almost pleading.

"About the Pico ranch?"

"Just that, Elijah." Helen made no attempt to restrain the sigh of
relief that escaped her.

"I can't wait, Helen. You saw where that ditch line was going. Others
will see it. You saw that only a hill lay between it and Pico's ranch.
Others will see it. A tunnel suggested itself to you. It will suggest
itself to others. We were the first to see these things, why should we
not take advantage of them?"

"But Seymour and Ralph, Elijah. It isn't fair to them."

"I have given them enough."

"Yes, but--"

Elijah interrupted her.

"I want to do things. You want to do things." He was striding back and
forth across the floor of the office in growing excitement. "I don't
care for money. You don't care for money. Look!" He laid his hand on her
arm and pointed to the dusty street. "'Except the Lord build the house,
they labor in vain that build it.' Because of this, it is falling!
falling! But one can breathe the breath of life into these dry bones. It
shall rise from its ashes. Deliver these lands from the hands of them
who have wrought this,"--he flung his hand toward the street,--"from
them and their kind, and Ysleta shall yet live. It shall look forth upon
waters of plenty flowing from the mountains, upon green hillsides, and
upon valleys standing out with fatness." He paused, his voice dropped
almost to a whisper, but vibrating with intense emotion. "The vision of
the future came to me. I was alone and I waited. Then you came into my
life. What I lack, you have; patience, sympathy. You don't know what it
means to me."

Helen's eyes were not frank and fearless now. They were shrinking,
questioning, doubting; but they could not drop from Elijah's. She felt
rather than knew her feet were trembling on the brink, but she could not
turn back. The old fascination was yet strong upon her, but she felt its
strength as a whole. Of its elemental compounds she was ignorant; the
religious fanaticism that with frenzied kisses wears smooth a block of
worthless stone;