CHAPTER THREE
Ysleta was booming and was being boomed. Avenues of graded sand, cleared of their desert growth, stretched in prim right angles far out into the horizon. White posts with staring, black numerals heralded city lots and bounded patches of cactus and chaparral which were thus protected from further molestation, and gave asylum to gophers and prairie dogs who had not lost their wits in the booming hubbub for the sole reason that nature had given them none to lose. Straining teams dragged great ploughs that tore through matted roots and turned furrows which slid back behind the parting share. Other sweating horses pulled scrapers of sand from dusty hummocks and plumped their loads in dustier hollows. Rows of bedraggled palms trailed out behind gangs of burrowing men or gathered in quincunx clumps where a glaring signboard proclaimed a city park. Thumping hammers and clinking trowels were raising uncouth buildings around the central plaza, adding other grotesque monstrosities to those which had already attained perfection in every detail that rebelled against a sense of beauty. Throngs of men and women trailed ankle deep through the new-turned sand and broke up into knots of animated discussion, or paused before a map of Ysleta to listen to a perspiring real estate agent repeating with tireless enthusiasm "the beauties of eternal sunshine in a land where burning heat and blasting cold never entered; a land where perennial spring went hand in hand with perennial autumn, where seed time and harvest trailed side by side, where dividing lines between summer and winter solstice were but meaningless numerals in the cycles of succeeding years; a land that for untold ages had slumbered and waxed fat with accumulated richness and where the sun had stored its genial warmth against the day when suffering humanity should wake to the knowledge of what California was and hasten to enjoy her stored up treasures."
Blaring trumpets and booming drums accompanied aligned men, gorgeous with purple and gold; beribboned four-in-hands with varnished carriages trailed along behind, and a brazen-throated herald proclaimed a bounteous repast free to all who would honor his master by partaking.
"Fall in! Fall in!" and knots of men balanced to the swing of the band and wheeled into line, choked with dust, blinded with dust, and covered with dust which the tearing ploughshares had softened up, and which eager feet were beating into the air.
Into this bustle and blare, Elijah Berl rode as he had ridden many times of late. Unmoved, save for a contemptuous pity, he looked down upon the hurrying crowd, crazed by the lust of wealth, who bought today to sell tomorrow, each knowing that some would be caught in the reaction that was sure to come, but each steadfast in the confidence that his own good sense would protect him from the general ruin. He looked down to where the Sangre de Cristo, no longer an impetuous torrent, seeped lazily through its bed of shining sand; at the mass of tangled shrubs and clinging vines quickened by its waters into a riotous growth that blossomed and fruited in the sensuous sun. Over his shoulder, he looked at the distant slopes from which he had come. At the open door of a redwood cottage he dismounted and entered.
"Hello, Ralph!"
At the salutation, Winston's compact athletic figure straightened from his drawing-board.
"Oh, hello, Elijah! You're just the man I wanted to see."
"Have you decided yet?" Elijah's voice was eager.
"Do you still want me?"