“The Hardin property was first of all a quarter section of Government land—one hundred and sixty acres—that the Colonel took up and proved upon when he obtained his discharge from the army. Then he bought up neighboring sections and finally obtained control of a vast, wild park in the foothills adjoining his cattle range.
“Of late years cattle have gone out and farming has come in. All between the Hardin land and Desert City are farms. They need irrigation for their developement.
“Colonel Hardin told me he held the water supply for the whole region in his hands. It would cost a large sum, he said, to make the water available for Desert City and the dry farming lands.”
“How is that, mother?” asked Ned, interested.
“I do not just know?”
“Can’t they dig wells and get water?” demanded Roger Dale.
“It strikes me,” said the Major, chuckling, “that in some of those desert lands, they say it is easier to pipe it in fifty miles than to dig for it. It’s just as far under the surface, or overhead, as it is latitudinally!”
“I suppose it must be something like that,” agreed Aunt Winnie. “I only know that Colonel Hardin said when the City and the farmers could raise the money necessary he stood ready to lease the water rights to them. Such lease would add vastly to the income from his property.
“Now, his lawyers have informed us that the will giving all this great estate to the Major and me, has been probated, and that somebody must come out there and look over the property and meet the people who want the water, and all that.”
“And somebody means us, mother?” cried Nat, joyfully.