than I, for he grew up
among your California orchards, but I have the plans he drew; I ought to
be able to see his project through."

"You mean you may buy the land, Mr. Tisdale, if--things--are as you
expect?"

"Yes, provided I have Mrs. Weatherbee's price."

"What do you consider the tract is worth?"

"I couldn't make a fair estimate before I have been over the ground.
Seattle promoters are listing Wenatchee fruit lands now, but the
Weatherbee tract is off the main valley. Still, the railroad passes within
a few miles, and the property must have made some advance since he bought
the quarter section. That was over nine years ago. He was a student at
Stanford then and spent a summer vacation up here in the Cascades with a
party of engineers who were running surveys for the Great Northern. One
day he was riding along a high ridge at the top of one of those arid
gulfs, when he came to a bubbling spring. It was so cool and pleasant up
there above the desert heat that he set up a little camp of his own in the
shade of some pine trees that rimmed the pool, and the rest of the season
he rode to and from his work. Then he began to see the possibilities of
that alluvial pocket under irrigation, and before he went back to college
he secured the quarter section. That was his final year, and he expected
to return the next summer and open the project. But his whole future was
changed by that unfortunate marriage. His wife was not the kind of woman
to follow him into the desert and share inevitable discomfort and hardship
until his scheme should mature. He began to plan a little Eden for her at
the core, and to secure more capital he went to Alaska. He hoped to make a
rich strike and come back in a year or two with plenty of money to hurry
the project through. You know how near he came to it once, and why he
failed. And that was not the only time. But every year he stayed in the
north, his scheme took a stronger hold on him. He used to spend long
Arctic nights elaborating, making over his plans. He thought and brooded
on them so much that finally, when the end came, up there in the Chugach
snows, he set up an orchard of spruce twigs--"

"I know, I know," interrupted Miss Armitage. "Please don't tell it over
again. I--can't--bear it." And she sank against the back of the seat,
shuddering, and covered her eyes with her hands.

Tisdale looked at her, puzzled. "Again?" he repeated. "But I see you must
have heard the story through