dear Watson," said Baker, indicating Mr. Welton, who grinned. "Does your side partner resemble a raisin raiser? Has he the ear marks of a gentle agriculturist? Would you describe him as a typical sheepman, or as a daring and resolute bee-keeper?"
Bob shook his head, still unconvinced.
"Well, if you will uncover my dark methods," sighed Baker. He leaned over and deftly abstracted from the breast pocket of Bob's coat a long, narrow document. "You see the top of this stuck out in plain sight. To the intelligent eye instructed beyond the second grade of our excellent school system the inscription cannot be mistaken." He held it around for Bob to see. In plain typing the document was endorsed as follows:
"Granite County Timber Lands."
"My methods are very subtle," said Baker, laughing. "I find it difficult to explain them. Come around sometime and I'll pick it out for you on the piano."
"Where are you going?" asked Bob in his turn.
"Los Angeles, on business."
"On business? — or just buying abalone shells?"
"It takes a millionaire or an Iowa farmer to be a tourist," replied Baker.
"What are you doing?"
"Supporting an extravagant wife, I tell Mrs. Baker. You want to get down that way. The town's a marvel. It's grown from thirty thousand to two hundred thousand in twenty years; it has enough real estate subdivisions to accommodate eight million; it has invented the come-on house built by the real estate agents to show how building is looking up at Lonesomehurst; it has two thousand kinds of architecture — all different; it has more good stuff and more fake stuff than any place on earth — it's a wonder. Come on down and I'll show you the high buildings."
He chatted for a few moments, then rose abruptly and disappeared down the aisle toward the sleeping cars without the formality of a farewell.
Welton had been listening amusedly, and puffing away at his cigar in silence.
"Well," said he when Baker had gone. "How do you like your friend?"
"He's certainly amusing," laughed Bob, "and mighty good company. That sort of a fellow is lots of fun. I've seen them many times coming back at initiation or Commencement. They are great heroes to the kids."
"But not to any one else?" inquired Welton.
"Well — that's about it," Bob hesitated. "They're awfully good fellows, and see the joke, and jolly things up; but they somehow don't amount to much."
"Wouldn't think much of the scheme of trying Baker as woods foreman up in our timber, then?" suggested Welton.
"Him? Lord, no!" said Bob, surprised.
Welton threw back his head and laughed heartily, in great salvos.
"Ho! ho! ho!" he shouted. "Oh, Bobby, I wish any old Native Son could be here to enjoy this joke with me. Ho! ho! ho! ho!"
The coloured porter stuck his head in to see what this tremendous rolling noise might be, grinned sympathetically, and withdrew.
"What's the matter with you!" cried Bob, exasperated. "Shut up, and be sensible."
Welton wiped his eyes.
"That, son, is Carleton P. Baker. Just say Carleton P. Baker to a Californian."
"Well, I can't, for four days, anyway. Who is he?"
"Didn't find out from him, for all his talk, did you?" said Welton shrewdly. "Well, Baker, as he told you, graduated from college in '93. He came to California with about two thousand dollars of capital and no experience. He had the sense to go in for water rights, and here he is!"
"Marvellous!" cried Bob sarcastically. "But what is he now that he is here?"
"Head of three of the biggest power projects in California," said Welton impressively, "and controller of more potential water power than any other man or corporation in the state."
Welton enjoyed his joke hugely. After Bob had turned in, the big man parted the curtains to his berth.
"Oh, Bob," he called guardedly.
"What!" grunted the young man, half-asleep.
"Who do you think we'd better get for woods foreman just in case Baker shouldn't take the job?"
II
All next day the train puffed over the snow-blown plains. There was little in the prospect, save an inspiration to thankfulness that the cars were warm and comfortable. Bob and Welton spent the morning going over their plans for the new country. After lunch, which in the manner of trans-continental travellers they stretched over as long a period as possible, they again repaired to the smoking car. Baker hailed them jovially, waving a stubby forefinger at vacant seats.
"Say, do Populists grow whiskers, or do whiskers make Populists?" he demanded.
"Give it up," replied Welton promptly. "Why?"
"Because if whiskers make Populists, I don't blame this state for going Pop. A fellow'd have to grow some kind of natural chest protector in self-defence. Look at that snow! And thirty dollars will take you out where there's none of it, and the soil's better, and you can see something around you besides fresh air. Why, any one of these poor pinhead farmers could come out our way, get twenty acres of irrigated land, and in five years — "
"Hold on!" cried Bob, "you haven't by any chance some of that real estate for sale — or a sandbag?"
Baker laughed.
"Everybody gets that way," said he. "I'll bet the first five men you meet will fill you up on statistics."
He knew the country well, and pointed out in turn the first low rises of the prairie swell, and the distant Rockies like a faint blue and white cloud close down along the horizon. Bob had never seen any real mountains before, and so was much interested. The train laboured up the grades, steep to the engine, but insignificant to the eye; it passed through the cañons to the broad central plateau. The country was broken and strange, with its wide, free sweeps, its sage brush, its stunted trees, but it was not mountainous as Bob had conceived mountains. Baker grinned at him.
"Snowclad peaks not up to specifications?" he inquired. "Chromos much better? Mountain grandeur somewhat on the blink? Where'd you expect them to put a railroad — out where the scenery is? Never mind. Wait till you slide off 'Cape Horn' into California."
The cold weather followed them to the top of the Sierras. Snow, dull clouds, mists and cold enveloped the train. Miles of snowsheds necessitated keeping the artificial light burning even at midday. Winter held them in its grip.
Then one morning they rounded the bold corner of a high mountain. Far below them dropped away the lesser peaks, down a breathless descent. And from beneath, so distant as to draw over themselves a tender veil of pearl gray, flowed out foothills and green plains. The engine coughed, shut off the roar of her exhaust. The train glided silently forward.
"Now come to the rear platform," Baker advised.
They sat in the open air while the train rushed downward. From the great drifts they ran to the soft, melting snow, then to the mud and freshness of early spring. Small boys crowded early wild-flowers on them whenever they stopped at the small towns built on the red clay. The air became indescribably soft and balmy, full of a gentle caress. At the next station the children brought oranges. A little farther the foothill ranches began to show the brightness of flowers. The most dilapidated hovel was glorified by splendid sprays of red roses big as cabbages. Dooryards of the tiniest shacks blazed with red and yellow. Trees and plants new to Bob's experience and strangely and delightfully exotic in suggestion began to usurp the landscape. To the far Northerner, brought up in only a common-school knowledge of olive trees, palms, eucalyptus, oranges, banana trees, pomegranates and the ordinary semi-tropical fruits,