"All of which sounds pretty crazy to me. You are shouldering a big load, young man--a regular wildcat venture. There's one of you to myriads of sand-heaps. You'll have to take the Lord Almighty into partnership to work a miracle before you win out. I've known the Sage Brush since the first settler stuck in a plow, and I've never known one single miracle yet," York admonished him. "As to miracles," Joe replied, "they are an every-day occurrence on the Sage Brush, if you can only look far enough above money-loaning to see them, you Shylock." Calling York Macpherson a Shylock was standard humor on the Sage Brush, he was so notoriously everybody's friend and helper. "And I've had to take the Lord in for a partner all my life," Joe added, seriously. York looked at the stern face and stalwart form of the big, sturdy fellow before him, recalling, as he did so, the young ranchman's years of struggle through his boyhood and young manhood. "Of course you can win," he assured Joe. "Your kind doesn't know what failure means. It isn't the _work_, it is the stake that makes me uneasy." Joe looked up quickly and York knew that he understood. "I read your page clearly enough, my boy," he said, earnestly. "You are taking a hand in a big game, and the other fellow keeps his cards under the table. Blowouts are not as uncertain as women, Joe. Let me tell you something. You will find it out, anyhow. I can ease the thing up now. Back in Philadelphia a rich old widow has given two young lovers the opportunity to earn their living or depend on her bounty--a generous one, too. Being childless and selfish, she secretly wanted to hold them dependent on her, that she may demand their love and esteem. It is an old mistake that childless wealth and selfishness often make. The girl, being temperamentally romantic and inherently stubborn, voted to go alone. These things, rather than any particularly noble motive--I hate to disillusion you, Joe, but I must hold to facts--have landed her practically penniless in our midst; and she is not acquainted yet with either lack of means or the labor of earning. The young man, gifted in himself, which his sweet-heart is not, son of a visionary spendthrift, has chosen the easier way, a small clerkship and a luxurious home seeming softer to his artistic nature than the struggling up-climb with his real gift. This old lady won't last forever. Her disinherited niece won't want to work at teaching forever. The waiting clerk will come after the heir apparent just when she is most tired of the Sage Brush and the things thereof, and--they will live tamely ever after on the aunt's money. Do you see what you are up against, Joe? Don't waste energy on a dream--with nothing to show for your labor at last but debt and possible failure, and the beautiful Sage Brush Valley turned to a Sodom before your eyes." "Whenever you are ready I'll sign up the lease," was Joe's only reply. So the transaction was completed in silence. III