etective,
Hall, who was to go disguised into the districts overrun by the I.W.W. A
further run of forty miles put him on his own property.

Anderson owned a string of farms and ranches extending from the
bottom-lands to the timber-line of the mountains. They represented his
life of hard work and fair dealing. Many of these orchard and vegetable
lands he had tenant farmers work on shares. The uplands or wheat and
grass he operated himself. As he had accumulated property he had changed
his place of residence from time to time, at last to build a beautiful
and permanent home farther up on the valley slope than any of the
others.

It was a modern house, white, with a red roof. Situated upon a high
level bench, with the waving gold fields sloping up from it and the
green squares of alfalfa and orchards below, it appeared a landmark from
all around, and could be plainly seen from Vale, the nearest little
town, five miles away.

Anderson had always loved the open, and he wanted a place where he could
see the sun rise over the distant valley gateway, and watch it set
beyond the bold black range in the west. He could sit on his front
porch, wide and shady, and look down over two thousand acres of his own
land. But from the back porch no eye could have encompassed the limit of
his broad, swelling slopes of grain and grass.

From the main road he drove up to the right of the house, where, under a
dip of wooded slope, clustered barns, sheds, corrals, granaries, engine
and machinery houses, a store, and the homes of hired men--a little
village in itself.

The sounds he heard were a welcome home--the rush of swift water not
twenty yards from where he stopped the car in the big courtyard, the
pound of hoofs on the barn floor, the shrill whistle of a stallion that
saw and recognized him, the drawling laugh of his cowboys and the clink
of their spurs as they became aware of his return.

Nash, the suspected driver, was among those who hurried to meet the car.

Anderson's keen, covert glance made note of the driver's worried and
anxious face.

"Nash, she'll need a lookin' over," he said, as he uncovered bundles in
the back seat and lifted them out.

"All right, sir," replied Nash, eagerly. A note of ended strain was
significant in his voice.

"Here, you Jake," cheerily called Anderson to a raw-boned, gaunt-faced
fellow who wore the garb of a cowboy.

"Boss, I'm powerful glad to see you home," replied Jake, as he received
bu