"Certainly. I am running four cattle-ranges, using close to eighty
thousand acres doing it, too. That, of course, you know. But that is
getting to be a side issue with me. I am doing something else which is
going to be a thousand times bigger--ten thousand times more worth
while. Have you been to Crawfordsville?"
"No. I have been within a couple of miles of it. I saw it one day from
Blue Ridge."
"Well, then you know something of it. It is in a valley ten miles long
which has always been one of the richest valleys I ever saw; sheltered
by the mountains, watered by the springs which create the source of
Indian Creek. The climate is like that of the California foothills.
And the soil is fertile--anything will grow there. I saw that twenty
years ago. I knew that the place was made for a town-site--and I made
the town. There are a lot of smaller valleys about it; there are
orchards there now and vineyards. There are mines, paying mines. There
is no end to the herds of cattle running through the valleys and at
the bases of the hills. The town has a railroad, a narrow-gage from
Bolton on the Pacific Central & Western. Building such a town, giving
it railroad connection, electric lights, and all the things which go
with unlimited water-power was simple enough."
Conniston sat back and watched the man who spoke of city building as
of the making of a summer home.
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