“Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Williams want to transfer from this Divide to the Mesas above the Rim Rocks,” continued Wayland.

“Well, Mr. Forest Ranger, that is your business!  The Rim Rocks are National Forest, tho’ to save my life, I have never seen one tree on those Mesas.  What in the world they are in the National Forest for, I don’t know!  You know very well I think there oughtn’t to be any National Forests—­each State look after its own job.  Have you issued the grazing permits, Wayland?  I don’t see that it’s any of my business.”

The Senator had leisurely seated himself on the slab.  Eleanor knew now why he wielded such power in the Valley.  He was human:  he was the man in the street:  something with red blood giving and taking in a game of win and lose among men.  In a word, she had to acknowledge, the Dragon of the Valley was decidedly likable; and behind the genial front were the big hands that would crush; behind the plausible eyes, the craft that would undermine what the hands could not crush.  Anaemic teachers and preachers might as well throw paper wads at a wall as attempt to dislodge this man with argument.  Right was an empty term to him.  Might he understood; not right.

He sat waiting for them to go on.  She remembered afterwards how he made them play down from the first; and how, all the time that he was watching them, plans of his own were busy as shuttles in behind the plausible eyes.

“The point,” continued Wayland, “is to get fifteen-thousand sheep up there.”

“Fifteen-thousand.”  It was the number, not the getting there that touched him.

“A deep stone gully runs between the Holy Cross and the bench of the Rim Rocks,” explained the Missionary.  “Look—­behind the cabin—­you can see where the cut runs through the timber, a notch right in the saddle of the sky line.”

“How many of those fifteen-thousand are yours, Mr. Missionary?”

The Senator was gazing down in the Valley.  Just for a second, Eleanor thought the genial look hardened and centred.

“About two-thousand, Senator!  I’ve just brought a thousand angoras in to see if we can’t teach weaving to the Indians.  It would mean a good deal if we could teach them to be self-supporting—­”

“It would mean the loss of a lot of possible patronage to this Valley,” said the Senator absently.  “Are you still determined not to accept Government aid?”

“Absolutely sir:  my work is to Christianize these Indians, not just leave them educated savages.”

“Hm,” from the Senator.  “What do you suppose they think we are?”

“I don’t see very well how I can train them to be honest men if, out of every dollar assigned to aid the Indian school, sixty cents goes to Government contracts and party heelers?”