"This Mr. Holliday?" asked the stranger. "My name's Joyce."
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Joyce." Rob sat down on the grass and took off his hat. "Got any fresh water there, Harry?" he asked.
"Fencing's a big job," he said, as he drained the dipper. "The ground's getting dry now, too, so I have to work fast."
"Yes. It's a hard proposition all through," answered Joyce. He was silent a moment, and then began abruptly, "I've been telling your sister here what you could do over on the south side; how much better off you would be with forty acres there than with a hundred and sixty here."
"You an agent for the Twin Falls' tract?" asked Rob, with a smile.
"No, sir. I'm a sheepman; but I've got eighty acres down there, and I know what it's going to be. A young fellow like you with brains and spunk could make a fortune there in a few years. Here you'll spend a lifetime gettin' a living."
He went on to give a glowing account of the farming on the south side of the Snake River—a tract that an irrigation company had lately opened.
"See here," he said suddenly, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll exchange forty acres there, all proved up on, only a few payments left, for your homestead, if you'll commute on it. And I'm offering you the biggest price you'll ever get for it."
"Why do you offer it if it's so big? Why don't you keep your forty?"
"Well, it's just this way: I've got to have a water hole here for lambing. I've been coming here on my way to the reserve for twenty years. Never thought of filing on this land it's so poor, nothing but the water here but that's what makes it valuable to us stockmen."