Though Lucy Davison would not admit it, she was anxious to hasten on to Paradise Valley; so she remained but a day with Mary Jasper. Yet in that time Sibyl contrived to exhibit to her the carriage, the magnificent horses and the liveried driver, taking her as she did so on a long drive through some of the fashionable streets and avenues. As the carriage swung them homeward Sibyl made a purchase of fruits and flowers, with which she descended into a shabby dwelling. When she came out she was followed to the door by a slatternly woman, who curtsied and thanked her volubly with a foreign accent. “She’s an Italian—just a dago, as some people say—but her husband has been sick for a month or more, and I try to brighten her home up a bit. I don’t know what he does when he’s well; works for the railroad, I believe.” Then the carriage moved on again, away from the cheap tenements, and into the wealthier sections once more, where Sibyl lived. “You mustn’t tell father that I’m sick,” was Mary’s parting injunction to Lucy. “If he knew he might want me to come home. I will be entirely well by another week. I write to him every Sunday, just as if I was in the best of health; and so long as I don’t tell him he thinks I’m as well as ever. And truly I am as well as ever, or will be in a few days. If you tell him anything, tell him I’ll be down to see him this fall. I thought I should go last winter, but those awful storms came on, and I was so busy besides, that I just didn’t. But I do think of him often, and you may tell him that, too, if you tell him anything.” CHAPTER XIII WHEN AMBITION CAME Lucy Davison was seldom absent from Justin’s mind; and he was thinking of her as he drove to town to make some purchases for Pearl, who, though married, was still the housekeeper at the ranch. The knowledge that Lucy was to arrive at home in a short time filled him with longing and delight. As he drove along he could but note the appearance of the valley, and the houses of the new settlers and the old. Sanders had purchased more land, and had moved his dug-out close up to the trail and much nearer to the river. He had been indefatigable in his efforts to induce settlers to come into the valley, and successful to a degree that surprised Justin and the Davisons, Of the newer arrivals several were men of force and intelligence. They had given the valley their approval, and had set to work. Sanders, it now appeared, had sold his land at Sumner for a considerable sum of money. At Sumner, irrigation was being practiced successfully. He was firm in his belief that Paradise Valley could be irrigated as easily, and would make an agricultural section as rich. Therefore, he and the new farmers, joined by certain of the older ones, among them Sloan Jasper, had built a dam across the stream near Jasper’s and turned the water thus secured into some small canals, from which laterals conveyed it to the places where it was required.