"Polite beggar," Rob commented, laughing as they set spurs to their horses and rode on.
It was nine o'clock when, after crossing the foothills, they sighted, far to the south, the oasis of shadow that indicated the poplar trees of Ludlum's siding. The railway crosses the Snake River there, full forty miles south of Camas Prairie, in the heart of the sand-and-sagebrush desert. When a new irrigation tract was opened, and a rush of settlers came in the siding began to gather a settlement round itself. Their ranches lay below the big ditch along the base of the foothill rise, and their scattered forties and eighties of alfalfa were the first verdure that the travelers from the hills had seen.
As Harry gazed forward along the road winding through the sagebrush toward Ludlum's, she saw in fancy the slow-moving string of cattle that would soon be coming back over that road to her. Her herd! Already she thought of them as hers; for when she had made the second payment in December it would be no time at all until the increase from the herd would pay the rest of the debt.
"Things are getting pretty dry already," Rob remarked, as he gazed at the passing country. "If the irrigation water fails these fellows, and it may easy enough, there was so little snow last winter, they won't get much late hay."
"Why, I think the crops look fine," Harry answered gayly; "and as for us, we have all the water we need. Our springs were never known to fail, now, were they? We've miles of free range that should last into October, and we can certainly buy all the hay we need down on the flat."
"I hope you're right," Rob answered. "Just the same, I'm going to stop at some of the ranches along here and see what they're asking for the first crop of alfalfa."
The next ranch was an eighty-acre square of silk-green, rippling verdure, with a small unpainted frame house at the edge of it, like a raft anchored on the border of turbulent water. Unfortunately, there was only a woman at home, and she explained that the men from that and the next two ranches on the road had gone to put up hay on the Constable place across the river.
"If we can get through with Ludlum in time, I believe I'd better ride across to Constable's," Rob said as they turned the last corner and rode along Ludlum's fence.
Harry assented vaguely. She was absorbed in admiring the splendid ranch before them. The house grounds of the thousand-acre farm lay facing the road; the railway ran along the other side of the place where the new town had been laid out. For half a mile behind the house extended a double row of immense Lombardy poplars, making a windbreak against the violent west winds; and in their shelter were ranged the orchard, garden and the group of barns, sheds, bunk houses, cookhouse and other out-buildings that pertained to an old-time ranch.