“I think I begin to understand a little.
I’m glad—glad that you would have
nothing to do with those men. It would have killed
me if you had had any part in this now.”
Presently the banker asked: “Have you seen
Abe Lee?”
“No, why? Do you think—have
they discharged him, too? He wouldn’t stay
anyway after their treatment of the Seer. I wouldn’t
want him to.”
“They won’t let him out if they can keep
him. Holmes will need him,” said Worth.
They he added: “You’d better tell
Abe to stay.”
Barbara gasped. “What do you mean?”
“Tell him to stay,” repeated Worth slowly.
ABE LEE RESIGNS.
In obedience to its master passion—Good
Business—the race now began pouring its
life into the barren wastes of The King’s Basin
Desert.
In the city by the sea at the end of the Southwestern
and Continental there was a suite of offices with
real gold letters on the ground-glass doors richly
spelling “The King’s Basin Land and Irrigation
Company.” Behind these doors there was real
mahogany furniture, solid, substantial and rich; a
high safe; many attractive maps; and a gentleman who—never
having traveled west of Buffalo before—could
answer with authority every conceivable question relating
to the reclamation of the arid lands of the great West.
When there were no more questions to ask he could still
tell you many things of the wonderland of wealth that
was being opened to the public by the Company, demonstrating
thus beyond the possibility of a doubt how many times
a dollar could be multiplied.
From this office went forth to the advertising departments
of the magazines and papers, skillfully prepared copy,
which in turn was followed by pamphlets, circulars
and letters innumerable. In one room a company
of clerks and book-keepers and accountants pored over
their tasks at desks and counters. In another
a squad of stenographers filled the air with the sound
of their type-writers. Through the doors of the
different rooms passed an endless procession; men
from the front with the marks of the desert sun on
their faces—engineers, superintendents,
bosses, messengers, agents —servants of
the Company; laborers of every sort and nationality
came in answer to the cry: “Men wanted!”;
special salesmen from foundry, factory and shop drawn
by prospective large sales of machinery, implements
and supplies; land-hungry men from everywhere seeking
information and opportunity for investment.
At Deep Well (which is no well at all) on the rim
of the Basin, trainloads of supplies, implements,
machinery, lumber and construction material, horses,
mules and men were daily side-tracked and unloaded
on the desert sands. Overland travelers gazed
in startled wonder at the scene of stirring activity
that burst so suddenly upon them in the midst of the
barren land through which they had ridden for hours
without sight of a human habitation or sign of man.
The great mountain of goods, piled on the dun plain;
the bands of horses and mules; the camp-fires; the
blankets spread on the bare ground; the men moving
here and there in seemingly hopeless confusion; all
looked so ridiculously out of place and so pitifully
helpless.
