The daylight was then admitted.

“Now, gentlemen,” concluded the lecturer, still in his brisk, time-saving style, “the weekly excursion to Lucky will take place to-morrow.  One fare both ways to homeseekers.  Free carriages to the Lands.  Grand free open-air lunch under the spreading sycamores and by the babbling brook.  Train leaves at seven-thirty.”

In full sight of all he threw the packet of tickets into a hat and drew one.

“Mr. John Smith, of Reno,” he read.  “Who is Mr. Smith?”

“Here,” said Bob.

“Would you like to go to Lucky to-morrow?”

“Sure,” said Bob.

One of the attendants immediately handed Bob a railroad ticket.  The lecturer had already disappeared.

To his surprise Bob found the street door locked.

“This way,” urged one of the salesmen.  “You go out this way.”

He and the rest of the audience were passed out another door in the rear, where they were forced to go through the main offices of the Company.  Here were stationed the gray man and all his younger assistants.  Bob paused by the door.  He could not but admire the acumen of the barker in selecting his men.  The audience was made up of just the type of those who come to California with agricultural desires and a few hundred dollars—­slow plodders from Eastern farms, Italians with savings and ambitions, half invalids—­all the element that crowds the tourist sleepers day in and day out, the people who are filling the odd corners of the greater valleys.  As these debouched into the glare of the outer offices, they hesitated, making up their slow minds which way to turn.  In that instant or so the gray man, like a captain, assigned his salesmen.  The latter were of all sorts—­fat and joking, thin and very serious-minded, intense, enthusiastic, cold and haughty.  The gray man sized up his prospective customers and to each assigned a salesman to suit.  Bob had no means of guessing how accurate these estimates might be, but they were evidently made intelligently, with some system compounded of theory or experience.  After a moment Bob became conscious that he himself was being sharply scrutinized by the gray man, and in return watched covertly.  He saw the gray man shake his head slightly.  Bob passed out the door unaccosted by any of the salesmen.

At half-past seven the following morning he boarded the local train.  In one car he found a score of “prospects” already seated, accompanied by half their number of the young men of the real estate office.  The utmost jocularity and humour prevailed, except in one corner where a very earnest young man drove home the points of his argument with an impressive forefinger.  Bob dropped unobtrusively into a seat, and prepared to enjoy his never-failing interest in the California landscape with its changing wonderful mountains; its alternations of sage brush and wide cultivation; its vineyards as far as the eye could distinguish the vines; its grainfields seeming to fill the whole cup of the valleys; its orchards wide as forests; and its desert stretches, bigger than them all, awaiting but the vivifying touch of water to burst into productiveness.  He heard one of the salesmen expressing this.