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ir V*-' f. WhentW Colo Btlrst Its Banks flooded the Imperial VaUci of California • i m. 4 .*»' .Hi, w i si' > JO *5. £* Oopjrlghl, HabMbmlll Owptiif jkic.:. imnfufcn When Man and Nature Clashed. •K vihs but a short time ago that Ihe whole nation wn thrilled by new* of a mighty struggle in which man'i Ingenuity and strength were pitted against the aeemingly irresistible force# of nature. t The Greats Yellow Dragon, as the Indians termed the tricky Colorado river, for many years had defied all efforts to control it. Finally it threatened to overwhelm the rich Imperial valley of southern California. In a last desperate battle, man triumphed. The raging waters were curbed. The valley was saved. Ednah Aiken, a daughter of the West, realized that • wonderful story could be woven about this thrilling chapter of western history, and this is the stpry that she has given to the world In "The, River." It is a story of the out-of-doors, a story of strong mfcn Who forget their own differences in the battle for their lives and property, a story of women who place love and loyalty above comfort and convenience, and of other women who». in the smallness of their souls, fail to meet the test. It fa a story that you will enjoy fromstsrt to'flnlsli.-- E d i t o r ' s N o t e . >' : . : the next day. A month later and he | general manager of the company. He was shoveling coal on the steep grades of Wyoming. v "Marshall keeps his men with him!" rhe engineer's glance traveled around the fleckiess office. A stranger to Marshall would get a. wrong idea of the man who worked- In It! Those precise flies, the desk, orderly and polished, the gleaming linoleum--and then the was allowed to resign, to save his face, as the Chinese say, I may tell you that It was a case of firing. He'd made a terrible fluke down there." "I know," murmured Rickard. It was growing more difficult, more distasteful. If Marshall wanted him to supplant Hardfn! It had been Incredible, that*man's folly! Reckless gam- CHAPTER I. ^Marshall Sends for Rickard. vSSie large round clock was striking nine as "Casey" Riekard's dancing step curried him Into the outer office of Tod Marshall. The ushering clerk, c©atless and vestless in expectation of the third-hot spring day, made a critical appraisement of the engineer's get-up before he spoke. Then he stated that Mr. Marshall had not yet come. For a London tie and a white silk shirt belted into white serge trousers were smart for Tucson. The clerKs la the employ of the Overland" Pacific and of the Sonora and Yaqui railroads had stared at Rickard as he entered; they followed his progress through the room. He was a newcomer in Tucson. He had not yet acquired the apathetic habits of its citizens. He wore belts, instead of suspenders. His white trousers, duck or serge, carried a newly pressed crease each morning. The office had not reached a verdict en'the subject of K. C. Rickard. The Shirt-sleeved, collarless clerks would have been quick to dab him a dandy were it not for a page of his history that was puzzling them. He had held a chair of engineering in some eastern «ity. He had resigned, the wind-tossed page said, to go on the road as a fireman. His rapid promotion had been spectacular; the last move, a lew years ago, to fill an office position la Tucson. The summons had found Mm on the West coast of Mexico, 'where the Overland Pacific was pushing its tracks. "You can wait here," suggested the dferk, looking covertly at the shoes Of the man who a few years before had ibeen shoveling coal on a Wyoming engine. "Mr. Marshall said to wait." "Ribbons, instead of shoe laces!" carped the human machine that must «Mr write letters which other men Ktgm. "And a blue pin to match his tie! I call that going some!" <•••>• It would never have occurred to Rickard, hud. he thought, about it jst all that morning as he knotted his tie of dark, brilliant blue siik, that the •election of his lapis pin was a choice; It was an inevitable result, an instinctive discretion of his fingers. It warped, however, the suspended judgment of Marshall's men. 'who hud merer seen him shoveling coal, disfigured by a denim jumper. They did not know that they themselves were alovens, ruined by the climate that dolls vanity and wilts collars. . "Give him a year to change some of his fine habits!" wagered femythe, the stoop-shouldered clerk,, as the door of, the inner office closed. . .. . "To change his habits less!* amended the office wit. And then they fell I* speculating what Marshall was going to do with him. What pawn was he in the game that everyone in Tuc- Son followed with eager self-interested concern? Marshall's was the controlling hand in Arizona politics; the ttaker of governors, the arbiter of big corporations; president of a halfdozen railroads. Not V move of his III the board that escaped notice, '•"i. On the other side of the door Rlek- • tfrd was echoing the office question. This play job, where did It lead to? He had liked his work, under Stratton. There had been some pretty problems to meet--what did Marshall mean to do with him? The note had set the appointment jtfrr nine. Rickard glanced at his Match and took out his Engineering lieview. It would be ten before that fror opened on Tod Marshall! . He knew that, on the roadt Marshall's work began at dawn. "A man #on't break from overwork or rust Horn underwork If he follows the ex- Ctnple of the sun,"*Bickanl lmd often Ifeard him expound his favorite the- 1 ory. "It is only the players, the sybarites, who can afford to pervert the arrangement nature Intended for us." But In Tucson, controlled by the wifely solicitude of his Claudia, he was <|oerced into a regular perversion. His «ffice never saw >him until the incral tog was half gone. > ^ A half-hour later -Rickard finished V> feeding, a report on the diversion of a £reat western river. The name of him that it was the same Tom Hardin who had gone to college at Lawrence; had married Gerty Holmes. Queer business, life, that he should cross, even so remotely, their orbits again. That was a chapter he liked to skip. He walked over to the windows, shielded by bright awnings, and looked down on the city where the next few years of his life might be caught. Comforting to reflect that an engineer Is like a soldier, never can be certain about tomorrow. * Time enough to know that tomorrow meant Tucson! What was that threadbare pgpverb in the Overland Pacific that Tod Marshall always keeps his men until they lose their teeth? That defined the men who made themselves necessary! His eyes were resting on the banalities of the modern city that had robbed "old town" of its flavor. Were it not for the beauty of the distant hills, th£ jar and rumble of the trains whose roar called to near-by pleasure cities, twinkling lights and crowded theaters, stretches of parks and recreation grounds, he, who loved the thrill and confinement of an engine, who had found enticement in a desert, a chapter of adventure in the barrancas of Mexico, would stifle in Tucson! American progress was as yet too thin a veneer on Mexican Indifference to make the place endurable--as a city. "I'm good for a lifetime here, if I want It," his thoughts would work back to the starting place, "If I knuckle down to It, let him grow to man who made the negro janitor's life I bling, nothing else. Make a cut In the a proud burden! His clothes, always banks of a wild river, Without putcrumpled-- spots, too, unMs his Clau- ting in head gates to control it; a dia had had a chance at them! Black string tie askew, all the ontward visible signs of the southern gentleman of assured ancestry. Not even a valet would ever keep Tod Marshall up to the standard of that office. What did he have servants for, he had demanded of Rickard, if it were not to Jump after him, picking up the loose ends he dropped? Curious thing, magnetism. That man's step on the stair, and every man-jack of them would jump to attention, from Ben, the colored janitor, who would not swap his post for a sinecure so long as Tod Mashall's one lung £ept him In Arizona, to Smythe, the stoop-shouldered' clerk, who had followed Marshall's cough from San Francisco. It was said in Arizonahe himself had met the statement in Tucson--that any man who had ever worked for Tod Marshall would rather be warmed by the reflection of his child would guess better! It was a problem now, all right; the writer of the report he'd Just read wasn't the only one who Was prophesying failure. Let the river cut back, and the government works at Laguna would be useless; a pickle Hardin had made. Still to gain time he suggested that Marshall tell him the situation. "I've followed only the engineering side of it. I don't know the relationship of the two companies." '• "Where the railroad came in? The Inside of that story? I'm responsible I guaranteed to Faraday the closing of that break. There was a big district to save, a district that the railroad tapped--but I'll tell you that later." He was leisurely puffing blue, perfectly formed rings into the air, his eyes admiring them. 'Perhaps you've heard how Estrada, the general, took a party of men into the desert to sell a mine he 'Owned. greatness than be given posts of peiv After the deal was made he decided sonal distinction. Was it office routine Marshall Intended him for? He admired without stint Tod Marshall, but he preferred to work by the side of the other kind, to let It slip. He'd found something bigger to do, more to his liking than I the sale of a mine. Estrada was a big man, a great man. He had the fldea Powell and others had", of turnthe strong men, without physical han- lpg the river, of saving the desert. He dicap, the men who take risks, the | dreamed himself of doing It. If sickmen who live the life of soldiers. That I . a* ittz*, %,-•« «• li r 1 was the life he wanted. He would wait long enough to get Marshall's Intention, and then, If it meant--this! he would break loose. He would go back to the front where he belonged-- back to the firing line. As (lie hands of the round clock in the outer office were pointing to ten the door opened and Marshall entered. His clothes, of indefinite blackish hue, would have disgraced an eastern man. His string tie had a starboard list; and his hat was ready for a rummage, sale. But few would have looked at his clothes. The latent energy of the dynamic spirit that would frequently turn . that quiet office into a maelstrom gleamed in those Indlanrblack (eyes. Benefcth the shabby ck>Qi one suspected the dally polished skin; under the old slouch hat was the mouth tW purpose, the lips that no woman, 'feven his Claudia, had kissed without the thrill of fenr. Marshall glanced back at thcrcioek, and then toward his visiter,. "On time!" he observed. Rickard, siqlliog^. po|j._ his pocket. , , £ .i t! book In CHAPTER II, t |fchonitt.s Hardin had sent him off on ;v |l tangent o jHardin whose efforts to bring water of memory. The Thomas "" to the desert of the Colorado had been ;r. ••jfto spectacularly unsuccessful was the \ "Tom Hardin he had known! The Bister had told him so, the girl with the odd bronze" eyeS; opal matrix they" . were, with glints of gold, or was it green? She herself was as unlike the * raw boor of his memory as a mountain lily is like the coarse rock of its " background. Even a half-sister to Hardin, as Marshall, their host at dinner the week before, had explained , it--no. even that did not explain it. 1 That any of the Hardin blood should be shared by the vtuus of that girl, why it was incredible! The name (' "Hardin" suggested crudity, loud- - mouthed bragging; conceit. He could understand the fallurfe of the river project "itwy the sister had, assured He Walked to the Window. depend pn me, it's as good as settled that I am buried In Tucson!" Hadn't he heard Marshall himself say that he "didn't keep a kinderg£ten--that his Office wasn't a training school for men !n He wanted his men to stay! That, one of the reasons of the great man's power; detail rested on the shoulders of his employees. It kept his own braid clear, rfeceptlve to big achievements. 1 "Perhaps as the work unrolls, as I see more of what he wants of me, why he wants me, I may like It, I may get to shout for Tucson!" It -Was impossible enough to smile over! Child's work, compared to Mexico. The distinction of servipg Marshall well certainly had Its drawbacks. He wanted to sweep on. Whether he had a definite terminal, a concrete goal, had he ever stopped to think? Specialization had always a fascination for him. It was that which had thrown him out of his instructorship into the firebox of a western engine. It had governed his course at college-- to know one thing well, and . then to ^rove that he knew it well! Contented in the Mexican barracks, here he wu chafing, restive, after, a few weeks of Tucson. For what was he getting here? Adding what scrap of experience to the rounding of his profession? Retrospectively engineering could hardly be said to be the work of his choice. Rather had it appeared to choose him. From boyhood engineers had. always been, to him, the soldiers of modern civilization. T© conquer and subdue mountains, to shackle wild rivers, to suspend trestles over dizzy heights, to throw the tracks of an ad vanclng civilization along a newly blazed trail, there would always be a thrill in It for him. It bad changed the best quarterback of his high school into the primmest of students at col lege. Only for a short time had he let his vanity sidetrack him, when the honor of teaching what he had learned stopped his own progress. A rut!-- He remembered the day when it had burst on hlca, the realization of the rut he was In. He could see his Lawrence schoolroom, could see face under the red-haired mo; ing to Jerry Matson--queer bered the name after all thoi He could picture the look nation when he threw down and announced his desertioh. He had handed in his A Bit of Orst< Marshall threw hls hat on a chair, the morning paper on his desk. He aimed his burned-out cigar at the nearest cuspidor, but It fell foul, the ashes scattering over Sam's lately scoured linoleum. Instantly there was appearance of settled disorder. Marshall emptied his pockets of loose papers, spreading them out" oq his flat-top desk. "Sit down!" " Rickard took the chair at the other side of the desk. Marshall rang a bell. Instantly the shirt-sleeved clerk entered. "I shall not see anyone," the chief announced. "I don't want to be Interrupted. Take these to Smythe.' His eyes followed the shutting of the hoor, then turned square upon Rickard. "I need, you. It's a h--1 of a mess!" ' <"• The engineer wanted to know what kind of a "mess" it was. "That river. Jt'a running awjjy from them.' I'm golqg to send you down to stop it." '•The"Colorado!" exclaimed Rickard. It was no hose to be turned, simply, off from a garden bed. "Of course you've been following It? It's one of the biggest things that's happened In this part of the world. Too big for the men who have been trying to swing it. You've followed it?" 'Yes." Queer coincidence, reading that report Just now! 'Tve not been there. But the engineering papers used to get to me In Mexico. Tve read all the reports. His superior's question was unchar acterlstically superfluous. Who had not read with thrilled nerves of that wild river which men had been trying to put under work harness? Who. even among the stay-at-homes, had not followed the newspaper stories of the fallure to make a meek servant and water carrier of the Colorado, tliut wild steed of mountain' and desert? What engineer, no matter how remote, would not "follow" that spectacular struggle between men and Titans? "Going to senfl me to Salton?" he Inquired. The i^llroad had been kept Jumping to keep its feet dry. His job to be by that inland sea which last year had been desert! "No. Bralnerd is there. He can manage the tracks. I am going to send you down to the break." Rickard did not answer. He felt the questioning e$ps of his chief. The break--wh6re those Hardlns were--how In thunder was he going to get out of that, and save his skin? Marshall liked his own way---m "We'll consider It settled, men." "Who's In charge there?" Rickard as only gaining time. Be .thought knew the name he would hear, arshall's first word surprised him. 'No one. Up to a few months ago was Hardin, Tom Hardin. He was ness hadn't come to him the Colorado would be meekly carrying water ndw Instead of flooding a country.' Pity Eduardo, the son, is not like him. He's like his mother;--you never know what they are dreaming about. Not at all alike, my wife and Estrada's."' Then It came to Rickard that he had heard somewhere that Marshall and General Estrada had married sisters, famous beauties of Guadalajara. He began to piece together the personal background of the story. "It was a long time before Estrada could get it started, and it's a long story. As soon as he began* he was knocked down. Other mea took hold. You'll hear it all In the valley. Hardin took a day to tell It to me! He sees himself as a martyr. Promoters got in; the tiling' swelled Into a swindle, a spectacular swindle. They showed oranges on Broadway before a drop of water was brought In. Har din has lots of grievances! He'd made the original survey. So when he sued fojf his back wages her took the papers op the bankrupt company In settlernent. He's a grim sort of Ineffectual ulldog. He's clung with his teeth to the Estrada idea. And he's not big enough for it. He uses the optimistic method--gives you only half of a case half of the problem, gets started on a false premise. Well, he got up another company on, that method, the Desert Reclamation company, tried to whitewash the desert project; It was In bad odor then, and he managed to bring a few drops of water to the desert." "It was Hardin who did that?' "But be couldn't deliver enough The cut silted up. He cut again, the same .story. He was in a pretty bad hole. He'd brought colonists in al ready; he'd used their money, the money they'd paid for land with wa ter, to make the cuts. No wonder he was desperate." It recalled the maa Rickard had disliked, the rough-shod, loud-voiced student of his first class in engineer Ing. That, was the man who had made the flamboyant carpets of the Holmes boarding house Impossible apy longer to him. He had a sudden dlscon^rt ing vision of a large unfinished face peering through the honeysuckles at a man and a girl drawing apart In confusion from their first and last' kiss. He wanted to tell Marshall he was wasting his time. "Overwhelmed with lawsuits," Har* shall was saying. "Hardin had to deliver water to those .colonists. It was he'a a raw dancer, always starts off too quick, begins on the wrong foot.^ Oh, yes, he has reasons, lots of them, that fellow, but, as you say, they're not reasonable. He never waits to get ready." » Why was It that the face of the half-sister came td Rickard then, with that look of sensitive high breeding and guarded reserve? And she a Hardin ! Sister to the loud-spllling mouth! Queer cards nature deals! And pretty cards Marshall was trying to deal out to him. Go down there and finish Hardin's job, show him up to be the fumbler he was, give him orders, give the husband of Gerty Holmes orders--! "It was Hardin who came to me, but- not until he'd tried everything else. They'd worked for months trying to dam the river with a few lace handkerchiefs, and perhaps a chiffon veil!" Marshall, was twinkling over his own humor. "Hardin did put up good talk. It was true, as he said; we'd had to move our tracks three, no, four times at Salton. It was true that It ought to be one of the richest districts tapped by the O. P. But he clenched me by a clever bait--to put out spur In Mexico which would keep any other railroad off by a fiftymile parallel, and there the sandhills make a railroad impossible. •The government must eventually come to the rescue. Their works at Laguna hang on the control ot the river down at the heading. Once, he told me--I don't know how much truth there was In It--the service, reclamation service, did try to buy up their plant for a paltry sum. He wouldn't sell. The short Is, I recommended long-sighted assistance to Faraday. I promised to turn that river, save the district. We expected before the year was out to have the government tal^e the responsibility off our hands." Rickard made an impatient stfrug. an honor to be picked ont by yon for such a piece of work. Td like tp-- but I can't." IThe president of railroads, who knew men, had been watching the play of feature. "Take your time," he said. "Don't answer too hastily. Take your time." He was playing the fool, or worse, before Marshall, whom he respected, whose partisanship meant so much. But he cquldn't help it JXe couldn't1 tell that story--he knew#that Marshall would brush It aside aa»a child's episode. He couldn't make it clear to the man whose stare was balancing him why he could not oast {torn Hardin. "Is It a personal reason?" Marshall's gaae had returned to his ring making. Rickard admitted It was personal. "Then I don't accept it. I wouldn't be your friend if I didn't advise yon to disregard the . little thing, to take A nice problem Marshall had taken unto himself. He wanted none of it. Hardin--the thing was impossible. He met laggardly Marshall's story. He heard him say: "Agreed with Faraday. The Desert Reclamation company was as helpless as a swaddled Infant. We made the condition that we reorganize the company. I was put In Hardin's place as president of the Corporation, and he was made general manager. Of course we had to control the stock. We put up two hundred thousand dollars -- Hardin had estimated it would cost us less than half that! It's cost us already a million. Things haven't been going right. .Faraday's temper hurst out, nud Hardin a while back was asked to resign." "And it Is Hardin's position that you want me to fill?" His voice sounded queer to himself--dry, mocking, as if anyone should know what an absurd thing he was being asked to do. He felt Marshall's sharp Indian eyes on him, as If detecting a pettiness. Well, he didn't care how Marshall Interpreted it. That place wasn't for him. "I want you in control down there." jRickard knew he was being ajppralsed, balanced all over again. It made no difference-- . "j'm sorry," he was. beginning, when 'Marshall cut In. "Good Lord, you tfre not going to turn it down?" He met Marshall's incredulous stare. "It\ a job I'd jump at under most circumstaQceis. But I can't go sir." ' Tom Marshall leaned back the full swing of his swivel chair, blankly astounded. His eyes told Rickard that he had been found wanting--he had white blood In his veins. "It is good of- you to think of m pshaw! it Is absurd to say these thlngB. You know that I know It is MODEL ON AMERICAN CLUBS "Just Stop That River!* the big thing. Maybe you are going to fee married." He did hot wait for Rickard's vigorous negative. "That can wait. The river won't. There's river running away do^n yonder, ruining the valley, ruining the homes of families men have carried In with them. I've asked you to save them. There's a debt of honor to be paid. My promise, I have asked you to pay It. There's history being written in that desert I've tasked you to write It And you say 'No--' "No! I say yes I" clipped Rickard. The Marshall oratory had swept him to his feet. , The dramatic moment was Chilled by their Anglo-Saxon self-consciousness. An awkward silence hung. Then: "When can you go?" ' "Today, tomorrow, out" ,,, "Good!" - J % "Any Instructions?*^ tX "Just stop that river!" • "The expense?" demanded the engf neer. "How far can I go." "D- o the expense!" cried Tod Marshall. "Just go ahead" first train m: Rickard "goes in" and as he goes he begins to* comprehend something of the difficulties of the job that he has undertaken. He learns why the valley distrusts the D. R., as the valley calif the oompany which Hardin fathered and which peopled the desert. "Go in" with Ricluu'd in the next Installment. (TO BE CONTINUED.) vast: "I Am Going to Send You Down to the ^ Brealc.« then that he ran over Into Mexico, so as to get a better gradient for his canal, and made his cut there. Yo? know the rest. It ran away from him. It made the Salton sea." "Did he ever give you any reason," frowned Rickard remlnlscently, "any reasonable reason why he made that cut without any head gate?" "No money!" shrugged Marshall, getting out another cigar. "I told you France Considering Adoption of Our Methods of Teaching* Farming to " Boys and Girlfc fVi^ee Is considering the-adoption of Uncle Sam's methods of teaching better farming and hon\e making to boys and girls. Representatives from the French high commission, lately in this country, made a point of studying carefully the methods of the federal department of agriculture and the state agricultural colleges in conducting boys' and girls' clubs. Much of the information thus collected has been widely reprinted by the French press, accompanied by editorial comment expressing the view that the man or woman power of France having been depleted or disorganized by war service, France for some time to come will be depeodent in large part upon Its younger population for its food supply and suggesting the formation In France of a nation-wide system of boys' and girls' chibs patterned on those in America. It is expected that these clubs will grow staple products --garden produce, Wool, farm grain and forage crops, pewltry and farm animals on farms not devastated, the very soil of which jinust first of all be put In condition. They will stimulate production by the young people of France through organized contests not only in farming but In home enterprises audi as breed making, garment making, cooking and home management .• . T:' ' fprf and Bad Men. Good* men can easily see ttironlh bad men, but bad men can't always •ee through good men. Perhaps It's because there's no goodness In the bad man that the good man can through him, and because there Is In the good man that the bad maa cant an through him. Muskrat Stops Train. The marshes around the Boston & Maine railroad yards in Boston are full of muskrats. Charley Brown, a yard brakeman, has been realizing over $100 a season since the war by shooting rats on his spare time and sellinjg the* fur, which now commands a high price. Brown has been known to shoot a muskrat from the top - of a moving freight car with a rifle. A short time ago a muskrat tied up the interlocking switch system at signal tower C. The big rat crawled into the swltchpoints to eat out the grease used to lubricate the switches jiist as the lever man In the tower tried to close the switch for a fast express passenger train. The rat had wedged la ao cloee the switch wouldn't close and the plant was .tied up. The mechanic found the rat wedded Into the points and crushed Into a mass of fur and flesh. Opportunities of Western Cana Knowfk- 3$ ^ L v* Fertile Sod on Which Can Be Pife dviced Record Crops Offered to Se»»- * . -1 tiers at Prices Attractive ta.- ^ Farm Seekpra. In the early months of 1919 tber»j was a demand for farm lands In West* ern Canada, the greatest that has ever v^, ^ been In the history of the country. *"v|| This despite the fact that farm lands thive Increased In price, as the value of the farm product*has Increased and the virility and productive value o£ Western Canada farm lands have come more and more into evidence. Farming there Is no longer an experiment. Good #crops can be grown in all localities, some probably a little more fa^ vorable than others, but On the whole good--more than good--general average. Land elsewhere on the continent Is used |or the developing of one hundred and twenty dollar steers, thirty-five dollar hogs, two dollar and twenty cent wheut and eighty-ttve cent oats, and Its price Is anywhere from one hundred and fifty to three hundred ftoliars an acre. Western Canada land sells at from twenty to forty dollars an acre, and the farmer cultivating It gets one hundred and twenty-flve dollars for his steer, thirtyfive dollars for his hog, two dollars and twenty cents for his wheat spd eighty-five cents for his oats. And he ( can grow corn, too, but Western Canada Is saylhg no' more about It than North Dakota did fifteen years ago, when It was an experiment there, and see what North Dakota is doing to* day. The prediction Is that in less than a decade corn will be grown successfully In all parts of Western Canada. It Is, therefore, easy to account for the Increased demand for West- ; ern Canada lands. The war Is ended, and the food that the American ahd Canadian farmer sent across to the soldier, holding up his strength and maintaining his vitality, won the war. No! It was Just a factor In winning It, as was the soldier of Italy, of France, of Belgium, of Great Britain, of Canada and of the United States. An Important factor, nevertheless. People generally have begun to realize what food means, means to everybody-- and It Is grown on the farm. So people today want farm lands, and tney want those that are good. The great, wide, open stretches of wonder^ fully productive soil of Western Canada are the chief attraction of the land seekers of today, and it will be so tomorrow, and of all days, until these vacant Inviting acres are brought Into fruition by the hand of man and the multiplied effort of steam and gas* cllne power, to the tofluence and operation ot which these lands present such tx splendid opportunity. The pulse of today's desire to secure farm lends may be seen to beat In *be columns of the local newspaper, recording sales of many tracts of lands, ranging from 100 to 1.200 acres. A Reglna (Sask.) paper says, "In farm lands there Is so brisk a business being done that It might be considered a boom." Another paper reports the sale of a section of raw prairie seven miles east of Regina for $35 an acre, snd 200 acres at $50 an acre. One real-estate firm handled In threes weeks' time over 8,500 acres of farm .lands, the turnover being upward of j$100,000. AD improved farm near Kegina changed hands at $47 an acre* /'For the first time in the history of Ithe Moose jaw district farnf land has been sold for $100 an acre/ when J. S. Cameron of Victoria, B. C., sold half a section, known as the Lett farm, to John Logan. The farm was bought a year ago for $85 an acre and Is located thr*e*mlles from the city. It Is highly Impit ved and has fine build- Ings." An extract from a local paper says: ."The movement of farm lands is opening up well this season and there Is every indication that a large area of prairie property will be turned over durlfig the months intervening before seedtime. "The price received for farm lands In each Instance Is considered as go»*l. particularly for unimproved raw prairie, and shows a considerable improvement on prices for similar properties sold during t^e years of the war,?--* Advertisement' Out of the Mouthe of Babee. The trouble was ciusef by father's chickens and his habit of calling them "chicks" for short At least Bobby thinks It WHS. He and mother were on the car when one of mother's mendp entered. She wore a new hat which was adorned with a beautiful green feather. Bobby was eyeing the feather when he heard mother say to the woman, "You're so chic, you know.'" So he drew his own inferences a acted accordingly when the cross nextdoor neighbor, resplendent in new yellow furs, came to cull. He looked at the furs on the woman and then at his mother. Then 5, » ,1*Now, yon can -call her a eat, er,".he Informed her. Virtue Can Be Overdone. Selflessness and complaisance • ate tee beautiful virtues, but do not forgot that a virtue carried to excess may become the Toosr iCTitaOng aad dUBcatt gt falMffi HAD WORK FOR THE "DOCTOR" Indiana Woman's Request Should Have Put an End to Annoying In- ^ sistence on Telephone. In South Bend they have maiy party telephones. A matron on one uses hers to talk to her sister. Often their conversation Is Interrupted by a young treble tolce demanding the line "to call the doctor." » - Becoming suspicious, the matron one day listened to the call \Vhlcli followed , the one the treble had interrupted. And lo! Instead of the doctor the young lady called a young carpenter. « who was her best friend. Again and again this happened--the request for^ the phone to call a physician and then Its use to coin verse with the young carpenter. • i| Then the fnatfon became provokcfl-- - righteously so. She had one day Just reached an Important place In her conversation with her sister when came the usual Interruption. I brought thl* retort from the matron: "Yes, /on . • v;! may have the phone to call him. iind * while you're talking, please tell him " that I'd like for him to stop on his waitig^ j; to call at your house and repair -:iv • '{ kitchen table legs." -- Indlanapoll* ^ , :4 • ' & • His Reason." < Ascum--There goes poor old Peck. I understand he took up dentistry after he was married. Strange thing to do, wasn't it) Tellum--Not at all. He told me be wanted to be In a position to do all ?ne talking himself at leut part oi the day. ' ; * £ 1 • Exception. "There,.I*, nothing so rare as a ths*» ^ ^ I mighly gObd men." -Oh, yes, there | It's the way our cook broila steak." V' •-*. ' M