The ice had been broken.  Everybody laughed and joked.  Some of the men removed their coats in order to be more comfortable.  The young salesmen had laboured successfully to bring these strangers to a feeling of partnership in at least the aims of the Company, of partisanship against the claims of other less-favoured valleys than Lucky.  During a pause in the fun, one of the “prospects,” an elderly, white-whiskered farmer of the more prosperous type, nodded toward the brook.

“That sounds good,” said he.

“It’s the supply for the Lucky Lands,” replied Selwyn.  “It ought to sound good.”

“There’s mighty few flowing creeks in California this far out from the mountains,” interposed another salesman.  “You know out here, except in the rainy season, the rivers all flow bottom-up.”

They all guffawed at this ancient and mild joke.  The old farmer wagged his head.

“Water is King,” said he solemnly, as though voicing an original and profound thought.

A look of satisfaction overspread the countenance of the particular salesman who had the old farmer in charge.  When you can get your “prospect” to adopt your catchword and enunciate it with conviction, he is yours!

After the meal Bob, unnoticed, wandered off up the canon.  He had ascertained that the excursionists would not leave the spot for two hours yet, and he welcomed the chance for exercise.  Accordingly he set himself to follow the creek, the one stream of pure and limpid water that did not flow bottom-up.  At first this was easy enough, but after a while the canon narrowed, and Bob found himself compelled to clamber over rocks and boulders, to push his way through thickets of brush and clinging vines, finally even to scale a precipitous and tangled side hill over which the stream fell in a series of waterfalls.  Once past this obstruction, however, the country widened again.  Bob stood in the bed of a broad, flat wash flanked by low hills.  Before him, and still some miles distant, rose the mountains in which the stream found its source.

Bob stood still for a moment, his hat in his hand, enjoying the tepid odours, the warm sun and the calls of innumerable birds.  Then he became aware of a faint and intermittent throb—­put-put (pause) put (pause), put-put-put!

“Gasoline engine,” said he to himself.

He tramped a few hundred yards up the dry wash, rounded a bend, and came to a small wooden shack from which emanated the sound of the gas explosions.  A steady stream of water gushed from a pump operated by the gasoline engine.  Above, the stream bed was dry.  Here was the origin of the “beautiful mountain stream.”

Chair-tilted in front of the shack sat a man smoking a pipe.  He looked up as Bob approached.

“Hullo,” said he; “show over?”

He disappeared inside and shut off the gasoline engine.  Immediately the flow ceased; the stream dried up as though scorched.  Presently the man emerged, thrusting his hands into the armholes of an old coat.  Shrugging the garment into place, he snapped shut the padlock on the door.