This Wallie considered a very remote possibility, although he did not say so. Once they left the town they turned toward the mountains and conversation ceased shortly, for not only were they obliged to ride single file through the sagebrush and cacti but the trot of the livery horse soon left Wallie with no breath nor desire to continue it. The vast tract they were traversing belonged to Canby, so Pinkey informed him, and as mile after mile slipped by he was amazed at the extent of it. Through illegal fencing, leasing, and driving small stockmen from the country by various methods, Canby had obtained control of a range of astonishing circumference, and Wallie's homestead was nearly in the middle of it. Although they had eaten before leaving Prouty, it was not more than two o'clock before Wallie began to wonder what they would have for supper. They were not making fast time, for his horse stumbled badly and the pack-horses, both old and stiff, travelled slowly, so at three o'clock the elusive mountains seemed as far away as when they had started. Unable to refrain any longer, Wallie called to ask how much farther. "Twelve miles, or some such matter." Pinkey added: "I'm so hungry I don't know where I'm goin' to sleep to-night. That restaurant is reg'lar stummick-robbers." By four o'clock every muscle in Wallie's body was aching, but his fatigue was nothing as compared with his hunger. He tried to admire the scenery, to think of his magnificent prospects, of Helene Spenceley, but his thoughts always came back quickly to the subject of food and a wonder as to how soon he could get it. In his regular, well-fed life he never had imagined, much less known, such a gnawing hunger. His destination represented only something to eat and it seemed to him they never would get there. "What will we have for supper, Pinkey?" he shouted, finally. Pinkey replied promptly: "I was thinkin' we'd have ham and gra-vy and cowpuncher perta-toes; and maybe I'll build some biscuit, if we kin wait fer 'em." "Let's not have biscuit--let's have crackers." Ham and gravy and cowpuncher potatoes! Wallie rode along with his mouth watering and visualizing the menu until Pinkey came to a halt and said with a dramatic gesture: "There's your future home, Mr. Macpherson! That's what _I_ call a reg'lar paradise." As Mr. Macpherson stared at the Elysium indicated, endeavouring to discover the resemblance, surprise kept him silent. So far as he could see, it in nowise differed from the arid plain across which they had ridden. It was a pebbly tract, covered with sagebrush and cacti, which dropped abruptly to a creek-bed that had no water in it. Filled with sudden misgivings, he asked feebly: "What's it good for?" "Look at the view!" said Pinkey, impatiently. "I can't eat scenery." "It'll be a great place for dry-farmin'." Wallie looked at a crack big enough to swallow him and observed humorously: "I should judge so."