CHAPTER XXII.

The following day Mr. Norton's companions came out from the village and the entire day, although it was Sunday, was devoted to a trip over the adjoining country, where the party was given an excellent opportunity to judge for themselves what the country was like.

They expressed themselves as being favorably impressed and predicted that at some time in the not very far distant future it would develop into a great agricultural and stock center.

Mr. Norton and Jack, together with Travis Gully, who had accompanied them on their tour of inspection, were brought back to the Gully place and left, while the rest of the party continued their trip toward Spokane, where they expected to take the train for their homes.

Burns Norton, after telling his friends of his intention of having Jack and Ida hurry their marriage and accompany him home, explained that this would probably delay his return for a week or ten days, but he hoped to rejoin them at the end of this period in their homes in the south. He bade them goodbye, as did Jack and the Gullys, and the party continued their trip, leaving him behind.

As for Jack, he had so far figured out the details of his plans for the wedding that he had persuaded Dugan to lay over in Spokane upon his arrival there until he and Ida joined him, at which time he would have Miss Anderson accompany them, and he wanted her and Dugan to attend them at the marriage. Dugan agreed to this, and he now knew what the important matter was of which Jack wished to speak. Jack, however, had said nothing of this arrangement, not even to Miss Anderson.

For the next few days Mrs. Gully and Miss Anderson's time was taken up in making preparations for Ida's departure. Old Mr. Norton entered a protest against any preparations whatever, it having been decided that Mrs. Gully's plan of having the marriage take place in Spokane being the most feasible, be adopted, and she and Miss Anderson were to accompany Ida. Mr. Norton insisted that all the necessary arrangements could be made after their arrival in the city.

The days before their departure were not only busy days for the ladies--the men too had all they could attend to.

Mr. Norton, after seeing the effect produced by the application of water on this land, and realizing how simple a matter it was to secure the necessary supply from the inexhaustable subterranean reservoir that underlay the territory that constituted the desert area, did not hesitate to invest a few thousand dollars in bringing about the reclamation of his land. He arranged before he left to have a well and pumping plant installed on each forty acres of his holdings.

Two of these wells were to be drilled during the winter that the work of developing the first two units of his project might start early the following spring. And he was farsighted enough to appreciate the fact that when these two units were brought into a state of productiveness they could be sold in fractions of ten acres each, which was sufficient land to keep one man occupied with intensive farming, for an increased value, sufficient to pay for the reclamation of the rest of his land.

This work he arranged for Gully to attend to until Jack's return, when they would both be busy looking after the project.

At last the day came for the departure of the party for the city, and all were ready and Ida and her mother had kissed each of the girls and Joe goodbye, and Jack had faithfully promised Joe that they would have an automobile when he returned, the party, consisting of Ida, her mother, Miss Anderson, Jack and his father, were driven to the station by Travis Gully, who saw them off on their trip and returned home to his lonesome children, who had never been left by their mother before.

Upon the arrival of the wedding party in Spokane they were met at the station by the thoughtful Dugan, who Jack had advised by telegram the time of their departure and the number in the party, and then upon seeing Dugan at the station, had evidenced as much surprise as the rest.

They immediately went to the hotel, where Dugan had engaged apartments for them, and that night Ida and her mother attended the theater for the first time in their lives. Miss Anderson, being escorted by Dugan, made the party complete.

Two days later Jack and Ida were quietly married in the parlor of the hotel where they had been stopping and Mr. Dugan and Miss Anderson were their attendants, just as Jack had planned. A few hours afterward they were on their way to Galveston under the care of Mr. Norton and Dugan, who occupied the smoking compartment, while the young couple were left alone to assume as much as was possible an air of indifference to the actions of their fellow passengers, who had in some mysterious way discovered the fact that a wedding had just occurred, and were enjoying themselves at the young couple's expense.

Mrs. Gully and Miss Anderson returned to their homes the following day, tired but happy and loaded down with trinkets, both useful and ornamental, which Mr. Norton, Jack and Ida had entrusted to their care for distribution among the family as a token of their best wishes.

Short messages and post cards mailed along the route were received from Jack and Ida in almost every mail, but it was nearly two weeks before the first real letter reached the home folks. They had been in Galveston for several days, but father Norton had kept them on the go so constantly they had not had time to write, and the letter, when it did come, was filled with accounts of their many trips and delightful time they were having. "Oh! mamma," wrote Ida. "Just think! I have been on board the 'Magnolia,' the very yacht on account of which Jack left home. There was some paint missing from the wheel, and Jack told me it was where he had worn it off in his effort to keep her off the point, but of course I know he was joking. He has promised me a trip in this very boat, if we get time, but I have made him agree to call the regular crew, and I mean to see that he does it too." Then after a bit she wrote: "I am just dying for one breath of burning sagebrush; everything here smells like fish or tar."

These letters from Jack and Ida always contained messages of love to Miss Anderson, who received them in quiet happiness, as if her life's work was completed when these young people were wedded.

Just a while after the Holidays Ida wrote: "By the time you receive this letter we will have started on our return trip. We leave here for New Orleans and from there we go to Chicago, and Jack has promised me one whole week or longer, if I want it, with grandpa and grandma, and Jack says he is going to bring them back with us."

When Minnie Gully received this letter she could hardly content herself, and immediately wrote to her parents notifying them of the coming of Jack and Ida, and renewed her plea for them to come.

Travis Gully was progressing nicely with the work Mr. Norton had arranged for him to have done, and the first well was almost complete when he came home from the Norton land one night and had just finished his supper, when hearing a call at the gate, he went out and was handed a package of mail by a neighbor who was returning late from the village. Going into the house, he looked over the several letters, found one for his wife from Ida, and handed it to her, saying: "See how the youngsters are."

Minnie Gully took the letter, and looking at the address, the date of mailing, and then carefully seeing if the stamp had been properly cancelled, just as most women do upon receiving a letter, opened it and read from Ida:

"We are well and happy; happy because we leave here tomorrow on the final stage of our journey home. And listen to what I am going to tell you, mother--grandpa and grandma are coming with us. This is no joke, for their baggage is at the depot and we are to stay at the hotel tonight. Jack said to please ask papa to meet us next Wednesday."

There was joy in that desert home that night. The final link in their chain of happiness was being forged, and would be welded the following Wednesday.

Travis Gully looked up and remarked: "Well, this is Monday night; day after tomorrow; it won't be long. It will soon come."

And it did. Gully, with his own family, met them at the station and those of the passengers who witnessed the meeting from the smoky car windows knew that happiness reigned in that little desert village for a time at least.

The following fall Mr. Norton and Dugan came back to attend Gully's making of final proof on his claim, at which time he proposed to celebrate. Why Dugan came was a question that was to be answered later, but it was a well known fact that Miss Anderson had been receiving numerous letters that bore a Texas postmark.

Burns Norton's project to irrigate one entire section of this desert land was well under way, and the success of the venture was so well assured that he had received many flattering offers from his capitalist friends who had accompanied him on his former trip, to purchase an interest in his holdings. These he promptly refused.

But the credit for the practical demonstrations that had grounded his faith in the future of the country he gave to Travis and Minnie Gully, the homesteaders.

THE END