originally were before the commissioners made the cut, and it is
so ordered.' That's our friend S. Behrman again," added Harran,
grinding his teeth. "He was up in the city the whole of the time
the new schedule was being drawn, and he and Ulsteen and the
Railroad Commission were as thick as thieves. He has been up
there all this last week, too, doing the railroad's dirty work,
and backing Ulsteen up. 'Legitimate profit, legitimate profit,'"
he broke out. "Can we raise wheat at a legitimate profit with a
tariff of four dollars a ton for moving it two hundred miles to
tide-water, with wheat at eighty-seven cents? Why not hold us up
with a gun in our faces, and say, 'hands up,' and be done with
it?"

He dug his boot-heel into the ground and turned away to the house
abruptly, cursing beneath his breath.

"By the way," Presley called after him, "Hooven wants to see you.
He asked me about this idea of the Governor's of getting along
without the tenants this year. Hooven wants to stay to tend the
ditch and look after the stock. I told him to see you."

Harran, his mind full of other things, nodded to say he
understood. Presley only waited till he had disappeared indoors,
so that he might not seem too indifferent to his trouble; then,
remounting, struck at once into a brisk pace, and, turning out
from the carriage gate, held on swiftly down the Lower Road,
going in the direction of Guadalajara. These matters, these
eternal fierce bickerings between the farmers of the San Joaquin
and the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad irritated him and
wearied him. He cared for none of these things. They did not