"I thought you were mining," said Ernest.
"I came to the desert to dry-farm but I got sidetracked with turquoise mining up the mountain yonder. Nothing in that, but alfalfa is thirty dollars a ton and we get five crops a year."
"Which way does the government land lie?" asked Roger.
Dick grinned. "Look in any direction! You'll have no trouble locating yourselves. Let's go in to breakfast."
Charley and Felicia were sitting at the breakfast table and the meal was quickly eaten.
"What do you two do first?" asked Charley as Ernest finished his second cup of coffee.
"Locate the camp site and set up housekeeping, so as not to intrude on you any longer," replied Ernest.
"Shucks! You wouldn't talk that way if you'd lived here a few years," exclaimed Dick.
"You're the first human beings," remarked Charley, "except Dick and a few Indians and old Von Minden that I've seen in six months."
"But don't you ever go to town?" asked Roger.