er present position. Moreover, being a woman, she shrank from
wholly independent action. The appeal to her ambition was a powerful
one. A great transformation was going on in California. It was so
radical, so unthought of, that those connected with it in any of its
phases were bound to become prominent, and prominence was one great
thing that she desired. Elijah was the originator of orange growing on a
large scale. He had made his particular field a variety of seedless
orange which had been hitherto unknown; he had conceived of fertile
lands that were now worthless; had, by sheer will power, got under way
an irrigation scheme which would bring fame and fortune. These
possibilities were known to only half a dozen individuals who could take
advantage of them, and Helen was one. It was strange that, as she now
faced the question finally, she felt none of that sense of triumph and
satisfaction which she had imagined such an outlook would give her.

As she took her seat beside Elijah and was whirled through the sandy
streets of Ysleta, out over the rolling desert toward the foot-hills of
the San Bernardinos, she felt, instead of elation, a strange depression
which she could not explain away. Perhaps it was the chill which is
always in the California air before the rising sun has asserted its
power, or lost it when its daily course is run and it is sinking towards
the western horizon. The scenes they passed only served to heighten this
feeling; the torpid Mexicans, crawling from their cheerless adobe huts,
squatted on what should be the sunny side, their sombreros pulled low,
their ponchos wrapped closely around face, and neck, and shoulders, one
grimy hand with numbed fingers, thrusting the inevitable cigarro between
blue lips, as they watched with dull eyes the team flash by. Stiffened
bunches of scrawny cattle rose regretfully from the sand which their
bodies had warmed through the night. Shambling the least possible
distance from the wagon trail, they stood with arched backs and low-hung
heads, looking mild reproach at the disturbers of their dismal peace.
Even the long, blue shadows stretched themselves stiffly along the
yellow sands or lost their form in the soggy mists that hung damp and
chill over the river bottoms and deep-sunk hollows, where seeping
springs oozed out into the shivery air. Toward the west, the great
Pacific was hidden by a waveless wall of milky white that flowed inland
by imperceptible motions, over