Then he passed on into his study and closed the door behind him.
A few days later the mail carrier brought him a Denver newspaper of ancient date with ink lines drawn round a divorce notice. The paper had been sent to his address by Sibyl. Clayton read the marked notice carefully, and thrusting the paper into the stove touched a lighted match to it.
CHAPTER V
THE INVASION OF PARADISE
Lemuel Fogg made other visits to Paradise Valley, as the seasons came and went, and Justin learned to look forward with pleasure to his coming. Always he stayed over night, and talked long with Clayton, for whom he had conceived a liking.
Clayton continued to cling to his lonely home. Though more than once tempted to depart he had never been able to make up his mind to do so. He averred to Fogg, and to other acquaintances, that, having been dropped down into Paradise Valley quite by chance, mental and physical inertia held him there; he was lazy, he said, and the indolent life of Paradise Valley had strong attraction for him.
Yet, as his reputation as an excellent doctor spread, he often rode many weary miles to visit a patient. Always the studies went on, and the writing, and the little glass slipping out of and into his pocket made the whole earth radiant with life and beauty. And Justin became a stalwart lad, whose strong handsome face, earnest blue eyes, and attractive personality, won new friends and held old ones.
The few farmers who remained had learned well some lessons with the passing of the years. Ceasing to rely on the uncertain rainfall, they had decreased the areas of their tilled fields and pushed them close to the stream, where the low-lying soil was blest with sufficient sub-irrigation to swell the deep taproots of the alfalfa. They kept small herds of cattle, and some sheep, which they grazed on the bunch grass. The few things they had to sell, honey rifled from the alfalfa blooms by the bees, poultry, eggs and butter, they found a market for in the town, or shipped to Denver.
Sloan Jasper was of those who remained, and Mary, a tall girl now, had taken the place of her mother in the farmer’s home. Mrs. Jasper had given up the struggle with hard climatic conditions, and had passed on, attended in her last illness by the faithful doctor.
With Lemuel Fogg there came, one day, a ranchman named Davison; and in their wake followed herds of bellowing, half-wild cattle, and groups of brisk-riding, shouting cowboys, who rode down the fields in the moist soil by the stream, as they galloped in pursuit of their refractory charges.
The advent of the cattle and the cowboys, the establishment of the Davison ranch, the erection of houses and bunk-rooms, stables and corrals, filled Justin’s life to the brim with excitement. He fraternized with the cowboys, and struck up a warm friendship with Philip Davison’s son Ben, a lively young fellow older than himself, who could ride a horse not only like a cowboy, but like a circus athlete, for he could perform the admirable feat of standing in the saddle with arms folded across his breast while his well-trained broncho tore around the new corral at a gallop.