He was not prepared, however, for a sudden realization of his imaginative prospects.  A few days after his arrival in Fair Plains, he received a letter from Clarence, explaining that he had not time to return to Hooker to consult him, but had, nevertheless, fulfilled his promise, by taking advantage of an opportunity of purchasing the Spanish “Sisters’” title to certain unoccupied lands near the settlement.  As these lands in part joined the section already preempted and occupied by Hopkins, Clarence thought that Jim Hooker would choose that part for the sake of his neighbor’s company.  He inclosed a draft on San Francisco, for a sum sufficient to enable Jim to put up a cabin and “stock” the property, which he begged he would consider in the light of a loan, to be paid back in installments, only when the property could afford it.  At the same time, if Jim was in difficulty, he was to inform him.  The letter closed with a characteristic Clarence-like mingling of enthusiasm and older wisdom.  “I wish you luck, Jim, but I see no reason why you should trust to it.  I don’t know of anything that could keep you from making yourself independent of any one, if you go to work with a long aim and don’t fritter away your chances on short ones.  If I were you, old fellow, I’d drop the Plains and the Indians out of my thoughts, or at least out of my talk, for a while; they won’t help you in the long run.  The people who believe you will be jealous of you; those who don’t, will look down upon you, and if they get to questioning your little Indian romances, Jim, they’ll be apt to question your civilized facts.  That won’t help you in the ranching business and that’s your only real grip now.”  For the space of two or three hours after this, Jim was reasonably grateful and even subdued,—­so much so that his employer, to whom he confided his good fortune, frankly confessed that he believed him from that unusual fact alone.  Unfortunately, neither the practical lesson conveyed in this grim admission, nor the sentiment of gratitude, remained long with Jim.  Another idea had taken possession of his fancy.  Although the land nominated in his bill of sale had been, except on the occasion of his own temporary halt there, always unoccupied, unsought, and unclaimed, and although he was amply protected by legal certificates, he gravely collected a posse of three or four idlers from Fair Plains, armed them at his own expense, and in the dead of night took belligerent and forcible possession of the peaceful domain which the weak generosity and unheroic dollars of Clarence had purchased for him!  A martial camp-fire tempered the chill night winds to the pulses of the invaders, and enabled them to sleep on their arms in the field they had won.  The morning sun revealed to the astonished Hopkins family the embattled plain beyond, with its armed sentries.  Only then did Jim hooker condescend to explain the reason of his warlike occupation, with dark hints of the outlying “squatters”