I’ll learn much by watchin’ him.  Maybe through Nash I can catch Glidden.  An’ so, gentlemen, here we have a plain case.  An’ the menace is enough to chill the heart of every loyal citizen.  Any way you put it, if harvests can’t be harvested, if wheat-fields an’ lumber forests are burned, if the state militia has to be called out—­any way you put it our government will be hampered, our supplies kept from our allies—­an’ so the cause of Germany will be helped.

“The I.W.W. have back of them an organized power with a definite purpose.  There can hardly be any doubt that that power is Germany.  The agitators an’ leaders throughout the country are well paid.  Probably they, as individuals, do not know who pays them.  Undoubtedly a little gang of men makes the deals, handles the money.  We read that every U.S. attorney is investigating the I.W.W.  The government has determined to close down on them.  But lawyers an’ law are slow to act.  Meanwhile the danger to us is at hand.

    “Gentlemen, to finish let me say that down in my country we’re goin’
    to rustle the I.W.W. in the good old Western way.”

CHAPTER V

Golden Valley was the Garden of Eden of the Northwest.  The southern slope rose to the Blue Mountains, whence flowed down the innumerable brooks that, uniting to form streams and rivers, abundantly watered the valley.

The black reaches of timber extended down to the grazing-uplands, and these bordered on the sloping golden wheat-fields, which in turn contrasted so vividly with the lower green alfalfa-pastures; then came the orchards with their ruddy, mellow fruit, and lastly the bottom-lands where the vegetable-gardens attested to the wonderful richness of the soil.  From the mountain-side the valley seemed a series of colored benches, stepping down, black to gray, and gray to gold, and gold to green with purple tinge, and on to the perfectly ordered, many-hued floor with its innumerable winding, tree-bordered streams glinting in the sunlight.

The extremes of heat and cold never visited Golden Valley.  Spokane and the Bend country, just now sweltering in a torrid zone, might as well have been in the Sahara, for all the effect it had on this garden spot of all the Inland Empire.  It was hot in the valley, but not unpleasant.  In fact, the greatest charm in this secluded vale was its pleasant climate all the year round.  No summer cyclones, no winter blizzards, no cloudbursts or bad thunderstorms.  It was a country that, once lived in, could never be left.

There were no poor inhabitants in that great area of twenty-five hundred miles; and there were many who were rich.  Prosperous little towns dotted the valley floor; and the many smooth, dusty, much-used roads all led to Ruxton, a wealthy and fine city.

* * * * *

Anderson, the rancher, had driven his car to Spokane.  Upon his return he had with him a detective, whom he expected to use in the I.W.W. investigations, and a neighbor rancher.  They had left Spokane early and had endured almost insupportable dust and heat.  A welcome change began as they slid down from the bare desert into the valley; and once across the Copper River, Anderson began to breathe freer and to feel he was nearing home.