"
"Well," said the Tasajaran, looking curiously at the stranger, "I call
myself a pioneer of Tasajara. My name's Peters,--of Peters and Co.,--and
those warehouses along the wharf, where you landed just now, are mine;
but I was the first settler on Harcourt's land, and built the next cabin
after him. I helped to clear out them tules and dredged the channels
yonder. I took the contract with Harcourt to build the last fifteen
miles o' railroad, and put up that depot for the company. Perhaps you
were here before that?"
"I was," returned the stranger quietly.
"I say," said Peters, hitching his chair a little nearer to his
companion, "you never knew a kind of broken-down feller, called
Curtis--'Lige Curtis--who once squatted here and sold his right to
Harkutt? He disappeared; it was allowed he killed hisself, but they
never found his body, and, between you and me, I never took stock in
that story. You know Harcourt holds under him, and all Tasajara rests on
that title."
"I've heard so," assented the stranger carelessly, "but I never knew the
original settler. Then Harcourt has been lucky?"
"You bet. He's got three millions right about HERE, or within this
quarter section, to say nothing of his outside speculations."
"And lives here?"
"Not for two years. That's his old house across the plaza, but his
women-folks live mostly in 'Frisco and New York, where he's got houses
too.
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