rent each--that's three dollars a day they'll bring me six days a

  week. I don't feed 'em, shoe 'm, or nothin', an' I keep an eye on

  'm to see they're treated right. Three bucks a day, eh! Well, I

  guess that'll keep a couple of dollar-an '-a-half men goin' for

  Saxon, unless she works 'em Sundays. Huh! The Valley of the Moon!

  Why, we'll be wearin' diamonds before long. Gosh! A fellow could

  live in the city a thousan' years an' not get such chances. It

  beats China lottery."

  He stood up.

  "I 'm goin' out to water Hazel an' Hattie, feed 'm, an' bed 'm

  down. I'll eat soon as I come back."

  The two women were regarding each other with shining eyes, each

  on the verge of speech when Billy returned to the door and stuck

  his head in.

  "They's one thing maybe you ain't got," he said. "I pull down

  them three dollars every day; but the six mares is mine, too. I

  own 'm. They're mine. Are you on?"

  CHAPTER XX

  "I'm not done with you children," had been Mrs. Mortimer's

  parting words; and several times that winter she ran up to

  advise, and to teach Saxon how to calculate her crops for the

  small immediate market, for the increasing spring market, and for

  the height of summer, at which time she would be able to sell all

  she could possibly grow and then not supply the demand. In the

  meantime, Hazel and Hattie were used every odd moment in hauling

  manure from Glen Ellen, whose barnyards had never known such a

  thorough cleaning. Also there were loads of commercial fertilizer

  from the railroad station, bought under Mrs. Mortimer's

  instructions.

  The convicts paroled were Chinese. Both had served long in

  prison, and were old men; but the day's work they were habitually

  capable of won Mrs. Mortimer's approval. Gow Yum, twenty years

  before, had had charge of the vegetable garden of one of the

  great Menlo Park estates. His disaster had come in the form of a

  fight over a game of fan tan in the Chinese quarter at Redwood

  City. His companion, Chan Chi, had been a hatchet-man of note, in

  the old fighting days of the San Francisco tongs. But a quarter

  of century of discipline in the prison vegetable gardens had

  cooled his blood and turned his hand from hatchet to hoe. These

  two assistants had arrived in Glen Ellen like precious goods in

  bond and been receipted for by the local deputy sheriff, who, in

  addition, reported on them to the prison authorities each month.

  Saxon, too, made out a monthly report and sent it in.

  As for the danger of their cutting her throat, she quickly got

  over the idea of it. The mailed hand of the State hovered over

  them. The taking of a single drink of liquor would provoke that

  hand to close down and jerk them back to prison-cells. Nor had

  they freedom of movement. When old Gow Yum needed to go to San

  Francisco to sign certain papers before the Chinese Consul,

  permission had first to be obtained from San Quentin. Then, too,

  neither man was nasty tempered. Saxon had been apprehensive of

  the task of bossing two desperate convicts; but when they came

  she found it a pleasure to work with them. She could tell them

  what to do, but it was they who knew how do. Prom them she

  learned all the ten thousand tricks and quirks of artful

  gardening, and she was not long in realizing how helpless she

  would have been had she depended on local labor.

  Still further, she had no fear, because she was not alone. She

  had been using her head. It was quickly apparent to her that she

  could not adequately oversee the outside work and at the same

  time do the house work. She wrote to Ukiah to the energetic widow

  who had lived in the adjoining house and taken in washing. She

  had promptly closed with Saxon's offer. Mrs. Paul was forty,

  short in stature, and weighed two hundred pounds, but never

  wearied on her feet. Also she was devoid of fear, and, according

  to Billy, could settle the hash of both Chinese with one of her

  mighty arms. Mrs. Paul arrived with her son, a country lad of

  sixteen who knew horses and could milk Hilda, the pretty Jersey

  which had successfully passed Edmund's expert eye. Though Mrs.

  Paul ably handled the house, there was one thing Saxon insisted

  on doing--namely, washing her own pretty flimsies.

  "When I 'm no longer able to do that," she told Billy, "you can

  take a spade to that clump of redwoods beside Wild Water and dig

  a hole. It will be time to bury me."

  It was early in the days of Madrono Ranch, at the time of Mrs.

  Mortimer's second visit, that Billy drove in with a load of pipe;

  and house, chicken yards, and barn were piped from the

  second-hand tank he installed below the house-spring.

  "Huh! I guess I can use my head," he said. "I watched a woman

  over on the other side of the valley, packin' water two hundred

  feet from the spring to the house; an' I did some figurin'. I put

  it at three trips a day and on wash days a whole lot more; an'

  you can't guess what I made out she traveled a year packin'

  water. One hundred an' twenty-two miles. D'ye get that? One

  hundred and twenty-two miles! I asked her how long she'd been

  there. Thirty-one years. Multiply it for yourself. Three

  thousan', seven hundred an' eighty-two miles--all for the sake of

  two hundred feet of pipe. Wouldn't that jar you?"

  "Oh, I ain't done yet. They's a bath-tub an' stationary tubs

  a-comin' soon as I can see my way. An', say, Saxon, you know that

  little clear flat just where Wild Water runs into Sonoma. They's

  all of an acre of it. An' it's mine! Got that? An' no walkin' on

  the grass for you. It'll be my grass. I 'm goin' up stream a ways

  an' put in a ram. I got a big second-hand one staked out that I

  can get for ten dollars, an' it'll pump more water'n I need. An'

  you'll see alfalfa growin' that'll make your mouth water. I gotta

  have another horse to travel around on. You're usin' Hazel an'

  Hattie too much to give me a chance; an' I'll never see 'm as

  soon as you start deliverin' vegetables. I guess that alfalfa'll

  help some to keep another horse goin'."

  But Billy was destined for a time to forget his alfalfa in the

  excitement of bigger ventures. First, came trouble. The several

  hundred dollars he had arrived with in Sonoma Valley, and all his

  own commissions since earned, had gone into improvements and

  living. The eighteen dollars a week rental for his six horses at

  Lawndale went to pay wages. And he was unable to buy the needed

  saddle-horse for his horse-buying expeditions. This, however, he

  had got around by again using his head and killing two birds with

  one stone. He began breaking colts to drive, and in the driving

  drove them wherever he sought horses.

  So far all was well. But a new administration in San Francisco,

  pledged to economy, had stopped all street work. This meant the

  shutting down of the Lawndale quarry, which was one of the

  sources of supply for paving blocks. The six horses would not

  only be back on his hands, but he would have to feed th
em. How

  Mrs. Paul, Gow Yum, and Chan Chi were to be paid was beyond him.

  "I guess we've bit off more'n we could chew," he admitted to

  Saxon.

  That night he was late in coming home, but brought with him a

  radiant face. Saxon was no less radiant.

  "It's all right," she greeted him, coming out to the barn where

  he was unhitching a tired but fractious colt. "I've talked with

  all three. They see the situation, and are perfectly willing to

  let their wages stand a while. By another week I start Hazel and

  Hattie delivering vegetables. Then the money will pour in from

  the hotels and my books won't look so lopsided. And--oh,

  Billy--you'd never guess. Old Gow Yum has a bank account. He came

  to me afterward--I guess he was thinking it over--and offered to

  lend me four hundred dollars. What do you think of that?"

  "That I ain't goin' to be too proud to borrow it off 'm, if he IS

  a Chink. He's a white one, an' maybe I'll need it. Because, you

  see--well, you can't guess what I've been up to since I seen you

  this mornin'. I've been so busy I ain't had a bite to eat."

  "Using your head?" She laughed.

  "You can call it that," he joined in her laughter. "I've been

  spendin' money like water."

  "But you haven't got any to spend," she objected.

  "I've got credit in this valley, I'll let you know," he replied.

  "An' I sure strained it some this afternoon. Now guess."

  "A saddle-horse?"

  He roared with laughter, startling the colt, which tried to bolt

  and lifted him half off the ground by his grip on its frightened

  nose and neck.

  "Oh, I mean real guessin'," he urged, when the animal had dropped

  back to earth and stood regarding him with trembling suspicion.

  "Two saddle-horses?"

  "Aw, you ain't got imagination. I'll tell you. You know

  Thiercroft. I bought his big wagon from 'm for sixty dollars. I

  bought a wagon from the Kenwood blacksmith--so-so, but it'll

  do--for forty-five dollars. An' I bought Ping's wagon--a

  peach--for sixty-five dollars. I could a-got it for fifty if he

  hadn't seen I wanted it bad."

  "But the money?" Saxon questioned faintly. "You hadn't a hundred

  dollars left."

  "Didn't I tell you I had credit? Well, I have. I stood 'm off for

  them wagons. I ain't spent a cent of cash money to-day except for

  a couple of long-distance switches. Then I bought three sets of

  work-harness--they're chain harness an' second-hand--for twenty

  dollars a set. I bought 'm from the fellow that's doin' the

  haulin' for the quarry. He don't need 'm any more. An' I rented

  four wagons from 'm, an' four span of horses, too, at half a

  dollar a day for each horse, an' half a dollar a day for each

  wagon--that's six dollars a day rent I gotta pay 'm. The three

  sets of spare harness is for my six horses. Then . . . lemme

  see . . . yep, I rented two barns in Glen Ellen, an' I ordered

  fifty tons of hay an' a carload of bran an' barley from the

  store in Glenwood--you see, I gotta feed all them fourteen

  horses, an' shoe 'm, an' everything.

  "Oh, sure Pete, I've went some. I hired seven men to go drivin'

  for me at two dollars a day, an'--ouch! Jehosaphat! What you

  doin'!"

  "No," Saxon said gravely, having pinched him, "you're not

  dreaming." She felt his pulse and forehead. "Not a sign of

  fever." She sniffed his breath. "And you've not been drinking. Go

  on, tell me the rest of this . . . whatever it is."

  "Ain't you satisfied?"

  "No. I want more. I want all."

  "All right. But I just want you to know, first, that the boss I

  used to work for in Oakland ain't got nothin' on me. I 'm some

  man of affairs, if anybody should ride up on a vegetable wagon

  an' ask you. Now, I 'm goin' to tell you, though I can't see why

  the Glen Ellen folks didn't beat me to it. I guess they was

  asleep. Nobody'd a-overlooked a thing like it in the city. You

  see, it was like this: you know that fancy brickyard they're

  gettin' ready to start for makin' extra special fire brick for

  inside walls? Well, here was I worryin' about the six horses

  comin' back on my hands, earnin' me nothin' an' eatin' me into

  the poorhouse. I had to get 'm work somehow, an' I remembered the

  brickyard. I drove the colt down an' talked with that Jap chemist

  who's been doin' the experimentin'. Gee! They was foremen lookin'

  over the ground an' everything gettin' ready to hum. I looked

  over the lay an' studied it. Then I drove up to where they're

  openin' the clay pit--you know, that fine, white chalky stuff we

  saw 'em borin' out just outside the hundred an' forty acres with

  the three knolls. It's a down-hill haul, a mile, an' two horses

  can do it easy. In fact, their hardest job'll be haulin' the

  empty wagons up to the pit. Then I tied the colt an' went to

  figurin'.

  "The Jap professor'd told me the manager an' the other big guns

  of the company was comin' up on the mornin' train. I wasn't

  shoutin' things out to anybody, but I just made myself into a

  committee of welcome; an', when the train pulled in, there I was,

  extendin' the glad hand of the burg--likewise the glad hand of a

  guy you used to know in Oakland once, a third-rate dub

  prizefighter by the name of--lemme see--yep, I got it right--Big

  Bill Roberts was the name he used to sport, but now he's known as

  William Roberts, E. S. Q.

  "Well, as I was sayin', I gave 'm the glad hand, an' trailed

  along with 'em to the brickyard, an' from the talk I could see

  things was doin'. Then I watched my chance an' sprung my

  proposition. I was scared stiff all the time for maybe the

  teamin' was already arranged. But I knew it wasn't when they

  asked for my figures. I had 'm by heart, an' I rattled 'm off,

  and the top-guy took 'm down in his note-book.

  "'We're goin' into this big, an' at once,' he says, lookin' at me

  sharp. 'What kind of an outfit you got, Mr. Roberts?'"

  "Me!--with only Hazel an' Hattie, an' them too small for heavy

  teamin'.

  "'I can slap fourteen horses an' seven wagons onto the job at the

  jump,' says I. 'An' if you want more, I'll get 'm, that's all.'

  "'Give us fifteen minutes to consider, Mr. Roberts,' he says.

  "'Sure,' says I, important as all hell--ahem--me!--'but a couple

  of other things first. I want a two year contract, an' them

  figures all depends on one thing. Otherwise they don't go.'

  "'What's that,' he says.

  "'The dump,' says I. 'Here we are on the ground, an' I might as

  well show you.'

  "An' I did. I showed 'm where I'd lose out if they stuck to their

  plan, on account of the dip down an' pull up to the dump. 'All

  you gotta do,' I says, 'is to build the bunkers fifty feet over,

  throw the road around the rim of the hill, an' make about seventy

  or eighty feet of elevated bridge.'

  "Say, Saxon, that kind of talk got 'em. It was straight. Only

  they'd been thinkin' about bricks, while I was only thinkin' of

  teamin'.

  "I guess they was all o
f half an hour considerin', an' I was

  almost as miserable waitin' as when I waited for you to say yes

  after I asked you. I went over the figures, calculatin' what I

  could throw off if I had to. You see, I'd given it to 'em

  stiff--regular city prices; an' I was prepared to trim down. Then

  they come back.

  "'Prices oughta be lower in the country,' says the top-guy.

  "'Nope,' I says. 'This is a wine-grape valley. It don't raise

  enough hay an' feed for its own animals. It has to be shipped in

  from the San Joaquin Valley. Why, I can buy hay an' feed cheaper

  in San Francisco, laid down, than I can here an' haul it myself.'

  "An' that struck 'm hard. It was true, an' they knew it.

  But--say! If they'd asked about wages for drivers, an' about

  horse-shoein' prices, I'd a-had to come down; because, you see,

  they ain't no teamsters' union in the country, an' no

  horseshoers' union, an' rent is low, an' them two items come a

  whole lot cheaper. Huh! This afternoon I got a word bargain with

  the blacksmith across from the post office; an' he takes my whole

  bunch an' throws off twenty-five cents on each shoein', though

  it's on the Q. T. But they didn't think to ask, bein' too full of

  bricks."

  Billy felt in his breast pocket, drew out a legal-looking

  document, and handed it to Saxon.

  "There it is," he said, "the contract, full of all the

  agreements, prices, an' penalties. I saw Mr. Hale down town an'

  showed it to 'm. He says it's O.K. An' say, then I lit out. All

  over town, Kenwood, Lawndale, everywhere, everybody, everything.

  The quarry teamin' finishes Friday of this week. An' I take the

  whole outfit an' start Wednesday of next week haulin' lumber for

  the buildin's, an' bricks for the kilns, an' all the rest. An'

  when they're ready for the clay I 'm the boy that'll give it to

  them.

  "But I ain't told you the best yet. I couldn't get the switch

  right away from Kenwood to Lawndale, and while I waited I went

  over my figures again. You couldn't guess it in a million years.

  I'd made a mistake in addition somewhere, an' soaked 'm ten per

  cent. more'n I'd expected. Talk about findin' money! Any time you

  want them couple of extra men to help out with the vegetables,

  say the word. Though we're goin' to have to pinch the next couple

  of months. An' go ahead an' borrow that four hundred from Gow

  Yum. An' tell him you'll pay eight per cent. interest, an' that

  we won't want it more 'n three or four months."

  When Billy got away from Saxon's arms, he started leading the

  colt up and down to cool it off. He stopped so abruptly that his

  back collided with the colt's nose, and there was a lively minute

  of rearing and plunging. Saxon waited, for she knew a fresh idea

  had struck Billy.

  "Say," he said, "do you know anything about bank accounts and

  drawin' checks?"

  CHAPTER XXI

  It was on a bright June morning that Billy told Saxon to put on

  her riding clothes to try out a saddle-horse.

  "Not until after ten o'clock," she said "By that time I'll have

  the wagon off on a second trip."

  Despite the extent of the business she had developed, her

  executive ability and system gave her much spare time. She could

  call on the Hales, which was ever a delight, especially now that

  the Hastings were back and that Clara was often at her aunt's. In

  this congenial atmosphere Saxon Burgeoned. She had begun to read--to

  read with understanding; and she had time for her books, for

  work on her pretties, and for Billy, whom she accompanied on many

  expeditions.

  Billy was even busier than she, his work being more scattered and

  diverse. And, as well, he kept his eye on the home barn and

  horses which Saxon used. In truth he had become a man of affairs,

  though Mrs. Mortimer had gone over his accounts, with an eagle

  eye on the expense column, discovering several minor leaks, and

  finally, aided by Saxon, bullied him into keeping books. Each