“There never were any transfers made.  There has not been a town lot sold in ten years.”

“Real estate just a little dull?” laughed Barkley, sarcastically.

“We hadn’t noticed it,” said Dan Anderson, simply.

“But how about your courts?  Next thing you’ll be telling me there wasn’t any court.”

“There never was, except when we acquitted a man for shooting a pig.  I was his counsel, by the way.”

“Nor any town election?”

“Why should there be?”

“No government—­no nothing? for five years?”

“Over twelve years altogether, to be exact.  I’m rather a newcomer myself.”

“No organization—­no government—­” Barkley summed it up.  “Good God! what kind of a place is this?”

“It’s Heart’s Desire,” said Dan Anderson.  No man of that valley was ever able to say more, or indeed thought it needful to say more.

Porter Barkley gave a contemptuous whistle, as he turned on his heel, hands in pockets, his bulky form filling the doorway as he looked out.  “So you were a lawyer here,” he said.  “You must have had rather more leisure than law practice, I should think.”

“It left me all the more time for my reading,” said Dan Anderson, gravely.  “You’ve no idea how much a law practice interferes with one’s legal studies.”  Barkley looked at him, but could discover no sign of levity.

“Well, there is one thing mighty sure,” said he, shutting his heavy jaws tight; “this valley is, or was, open to settlement under the United States land laws.”

“Certainly,” assented Dan Anderson.  “The first men in here were mining men from every corner of the Rockies, and they knew their business.  All these mountains were platted, and ‘adversed,’ and litigated.  Then, before the second discoveries, and before any coal veins were located on the other side of the valley, the gold veins pinched out.  Everybody got broke, and nearly everybody got up and walked away.  Meantime, the courts had only been sitting over at Lincoln once in a while—­when Billy the Kid allowed it.  I’ll have to admit that things were a trifle tangled as to title.”

“Well, I should say so!” Barkley was irritable, Grayson, the engineer, silent and smiling.

“There was so much room after the mining boom broke, that nobody cared for a town lot.  Every fellow just picked out the place he liked, built where he liked, and went in as his own butler, chambermaid, and cook.

“You are seeing this country now, gentlemen,” he went on, “pretty much as God made it, and as Coronado saw it three hundred years ago.  I deprecate any undue haste on your part.  We’ve been three hundred years in getting this far along.  We’ve done very well without either a town site or a city council.”

Barkley was utterly unable to comprehend either Dan Anderson or Heart’s Desire.  “This is the absolute limit!” he rapped out.  “At least we’ll end this now.  Come on, Grayson, we three’ll go out and have a look at the place, and see what is the best way to lay out the streets.  I suppose, Anderson, you can tell us how we can get title under government patent—­mineral lands—­coal lands—­desert lands—­homestead—­whatever we can dig out the quickest?”