CHAPTER I

WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT A YOUNG AMERICAN HAD THE COURAGE TO COME INTO A
NEW COUNTRY; HOW FATE PLAYED AGAINST HIM, AND A NEIGHBOR LOOKED LONGINGLY
AT HIS RANCH


Looking back now, after so many months of struggle and foreboding, he
wondered how he had ever had the high courage to come to this strange
country. Had he been a few years older he would not have started forth--he
was sure of that now. But the flame of youth was in him, the sure sense
that he could conquer where others had miserably failed; and, like all
virile young Americans, he had love of adventure, and zest for the unknown
was in his blood. The glamour of Arizona lured him; the color of these
great hills and mountains he had come to love captivated him from the
first. It was as if a siren beckoned, and he had to follow.

For days he had been worried almost to the breaking point. Things had not
shaped themselves as he had planned. Event piled upon event, and now
disaster--definite disaster--threatened to descend upon him.

All morning, despite the intense heat, he had been about the ranch,
appraising this and that, mentally; pottering in the shed; looking at his
horses--the few that were left!--smiling at the thought of his wheezing
Ford, wondering just when he would clear out altogether.

Not that young Gilbert Jones was a pessimist. And yet he wasn't one of