"And would you risk this enormous sum on one experiment? Suppose your melons would not be sweet?" "There is no such possibility," the young enthusiast declared. "Their sweetness depends solely on two things--the quality of the seed and the quantity of rain which falls on them while they are growing. We are wasting a supreme opportunity. No rain falls in Ventura during the summer. We get our water to the roots by irrigation, not by rainfall. Get the right seed and your melons must be perfect. This is a scientific fact I have seen demonstrated. Try it on a vast scale and success is sure." They voted unanimously against the proposition. Norman insisted. The superintendent resigned and appealed to the executive council. Wolf and Catherine, Tom and Barbara advised against placing so much capital in a single enterprise. "I've got to make you rich and successful in spite of yourselves," Norman finally declared. "For the present I control these funds and I'm going to plant this crop. So that settles it. I'm sorry we can't agree." His instantaneous decision fairly took Wolf's breath. Barbara laughed and congratulated him. "At least you have the courage of your convictions. I can't help admiring it." As further opposition was useless, the order was put into execution. The superintendent finally caught the young man's spirit, withdrew his resignation, and undertook the work with enthusiasm. At the end of the summer the success of the colony was astounding. The wildest prediction of the young leader fell below the facts. The crop of cantaloups averaged one hundred and five crates to the acre, and brought three dollars and a half a crate. The net profit on the melons reached the enormous total of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The men who raised the crop and added this wealth to the treasury of the colony were not slow in demanding an immediate readjustment of the scale of wages. Two hundred and fifty men had done all the work of planting, cultivating, harvesting this crop and added ten times as much to the year's income as the combined labour of all the other members of the colony. Brick-masons were receiving two dollars a day and farm-hands one dollar. The miners who were digging for gold in the mountain ranges and on the beaches were receiving five dollars a day and had added as yet not a single dollar to the wealth of the community. They had discovered gold in three new districts and thousands of dollars had been wasted in vain efforts to make it pay. The farmers protested bitterly against such waste, and demanded the equalization of wages. Their spokesman astonished Norman by the vehemence and audacity of their demands: "If Socialism means justice," he shouted, "now is the time to prove it! Labour creates all value. We have created one hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of wealth for the colony and we have received a mere pittance. If we created this wealth----"