Some few years before this he had drifted into that loop of the Little Colorado River, a place that for sterile barrenness could not be matched and that justified few visions. Armed with a single letter of authority, he had taken charge of the empty landscape. He pitched his tent beneath an old spreading cottonwood tree. I can imagine his lonely vigils and his planning under the brilliant desert stars. First, the well to tap the subcurrent of the river; then, one by one, the Government buildings, of rough rock quarried from the near-by mesas, meanwhile engaging and lodging and feeding rougher laborers, and disputing with contractors, and keeping them all from liquor, until a little town grew in this river-angle that for centuries had known only the withered trees, the cooing of many doves, and driftwood. The grounds were marked and leveled and drained. In springtime the river flooded the place, but he was not dismayed. An office, warehouses, shops, and barns were built. Then arose a well-appointed school, with dormitories for the Indian children, queer desert gamins that for a time were as frightened rabbits and wept for their smoky camps. There were kitchens, baths, a laundry, a plant to furnish light and ice and heat; for while the summer may be broiling, the winter brings its snow and bitter wind in that unprotected waste. He saw the sick and built a hospital. There were quarters for his staff of employees. He planted trees along cement walks; he broke ground for a farm, and planned an irrigation system with its pumping-plant. His barns held feed against the winter, and his commissaries flour and clothing. A trader came for license, and then another; and a grant was made to a little mission church. Last, but not the least necessary to his desert kingdom, was a guardhouse for those who disputed his sage counsels. High above it all floated the Flag, stoutly whipping in the desert wind. One day he folded up his tent and walked into his capital. The town was not finished—true; it was not perfect—true. Already he could see the mistakes of a pioneer hand, similar to those of the Mormons who had settled in that country generations before, and whose record was a graveyard. It is not finished to-day, and several successors have added their work to his. It may eventually be a folly and a failure in the sense of profits, for where the Mormons failed in those early days of zealotry who can hope to succeed? Ah! in the sense of material profits—Yes! But where had been nothing but the blind Desert and the savage river, nothing but the blow-sand and the horned toad, he had created an outpost of civilization to reach and serve and protect a helpless people who, theretofore, had only their desert demons.