"Do you like my Desert?" she asked, after a little time had passed.
His mind caught at the expression. "Do you mean to say that that is The
King's Basin—that we are going there to work?"
"Why, of course." She laughed uneasily. "Don't you like it?"
"Like it?" he repeated. "But is there anyone living out there?"
She was amazed at his words. "Living there? Of course not. But you are going to make it so that thousands and thousands can live there—you and the others. Don't you understand?" Her voice expressed a shade of impatience.
"I'm afraid I did not realize," he answered slowly.
"That's just it!" she cried, thoroughly aroused now and speaking passionately. "That's just the trouble with you eastern men; you don't realize. For years the dear old Seer and a few others have been trying to make you see what a work there is to do out here, and you won't even look up from your little old truck patches to give them intelligent attention. You think this King's Basin is big? Why, the Seer says that if every foot of that land was under cultivation it wouldn't be a posy bed beside what there is to do in the West. I suppose you must have done some great things in your profession, Mr. Holmes, or those capitalists wouldn't have sent you out here; but you can't have done anything that will mean to the world what the reclamation of The King's Basin Desert will mean one hundred years from now, because this work is going to make the people realize, don't you see?"
The young engineer's face flushed under her words, and as he watched her strong face glowing with enthusiasm for the Seer's dream, he felt the sweet power of her personality sweep over him as he felt the breeze from off the desert. He was held as though by some magic spell—not by the lure of her splendid womanhood, but by that and something else—something that was like the country of which she spoke so passionately. And he remembered wondering if this girl could talk!
He relieved the tense strain of the situation by holding out the reins and saying, with a whimsical smile:
"Here, you can drive."