Our road was rising now and we were approaching Neenach. We were driving along the foothills on the high side of another great valley. As we came near Neenach we passed an orchard to our right, the trees loaded with beautiful, velvety green almonds. To the left was another orchard, filled with neglected, dying almond trees. We had not known whether we would find at Neenach a little town or a corner grocery store. It turned out to be simply a post office in the home of a young settler who with his wife was just making his start at ranching. He was a delightful young fellow with shining white teeth, clear eyes, and an enthusiasm that was pleasant to see. A big St. Bernard dog protected his wife, who looked very picturesque in her riding costume. Although the ranchman had been brought up in a city, he had come out to these foothills, bought one hundred and sixty acres at $17.50 an acre, driven his well forty feet, got his water, and planted his cottonwood trees for his first shade. He was soon to plant his orchard and start his garden. He told us that he would have plenty of water, as the mountains on whose foot-slopes the farm lay were nine miles deep and fifteen miles long. I asked him about the orchards which we had just passed, so fruitful on the right, so sad and neglected on the left. He said that the almond orchards on the left had been planted years ago by a little colony of people who had three bad years following their planting. They became discouraged and moved away, abandoning their orchards and houses. The orchards which we had seen full of fruit were of a later planting. We asked why it was that the great spaces of Antelope Valley which stretched below the hills and off to the mountains beyond had not been taken by settlers. Our young ranchman explained that the valley which looked to be about eight miles across was really thirty miles wide, and that it was too far from water for people to settle there. I looked over the immense stretches of the valley and at the masses of tall, spiky tree-yuccas, and wished that some way might be found to irrigate those thousands of acres. If some modern Moses could strike water from a rock, which would flow through Antelope Valley, our young settler would someday look down upon hundreds of houses and white tents instead of upon lonely forests of yucca.