"Yes. She hates the desert. I wouldn't take her back there into that raw mining town--I wouldn't think of such a thing." Baker Cole finished his cigar. Very deliberately he put out his hand, drew the ash tray closer and laid the cigar butt exactly in the middle of the tray, moving it twice, fractions of an inch to the center. Bill, his eyes fixed upon him, knew that Baker Cole was not conscious of tray, cigar, or mathematical measurements. "Bill, I've made money all my life," he said, drawing a long breath as if an important matter had been successfully accomplished. "As far as it's possible to make money honestly, I've made it. Silver in Mexico, copper in Michigan and Montana and Colorado, crude petroleum here in California; I've taken more millions from the ground, Bill, than you'd dare believe if I told you. Had half a million when I was born. Then I was taught how to take care of what I had--and I learned how to make more. "This Parowan of yours, now, would be something in my line; only, I'd want to take it in the start and handle it myself. I wouldn't invest a dime in the other fellow's game--not if he were my own brother. I'm not afraid of losing money--I _can't_ lose money, seems like. It's the game. I see a chance to get something out of the ground that the world has use for, and I go after it like a dog after a ground squirrel. Money piles up when I've got it--but I've had the fun of the getting. And of course the money helps to play again. Dollars, you know, are mostly what you dig with. Dollars are the master tool of industry--and I don't see why the working men howl so about the man that can furnish that master tool. You take Parowan, now. Leaving out the gamblers that are risking their money, you've helped many a poor man to a job at top wages. Ain't that so?" "I reckon it is," Bill assented perfunctorily. "There's always big wages where there's a boom, and many a man got his start that way. But you've hit the spot that hurts. It's the fun of doing things that I want. The money's coming in fast enough for all we want, but I'm a loafer for the first time in my life, Baker. My Lord! Think of a grown man putting in day after day just taking a horseback ride in the morning and a swim in the afternoon; and calling that exercise! "When I was prospecting, Baker, I put in my time from dawn to dusk, hiking over the hills or swinging a pick. I ate because I was hungry. Now, by gosh, folks don't get hungry--they don't give themselves a chance. They eat because somebody's paid a big price to make grub taste good! This is a mighty pretty place to play around in, Baker--but I can't make a business of doing nothing." He made himself a cigarette--rolling his own whenever he was not under Doris' watchful eye--and lighted it absently. "Doris likes this sort of thing," he added pensively. "It's all right for women--but I'll be damned if it's any kinda life for a man!"