fat land." Divers things he saw that did not please him and that won a
note in his scribble pad. Completing the circle about the Big House
and riding beyond the circle half a mile to an isolated group of sheds
and corrals, he reached the objective of the ride: the hospital. Here
he found but two young heifers being tested for tuberculosis, and a
magnificent Duroc Jersey boar in magnificent condition. Weighing fully
six hundred pounds, its bright eyes, brisk movements, and sheen of
hair shouted out that there was nothing the matter with it.
Nevertheless, according to the ranch practice, being a fresh
importation from Iowa, it was undergoing the regular period of
quarantine. Burgess Premier was its name in the herd books of the
association, age two years, and it had cost Forrest five hundred
dollars laid down on the ranch.

Proceeding at a hand gallop along a road that was one of the spokes
radiating from the Big House hub, Forrest overtook Crellin, his hog
manager, and, in a five-minute conference, outlined the next few
months of destiny of Burgess Premier, and learned that the brood sow,
Lady Isleton, the matron of all matrons of the O. I. C.'s and blue-
ribboner in all shows from Seattle to San Diego, was safely farrowed
of eleven. Crellin explained that he had sat up half the night with
her and was then bound home for bath and breakfast.

"I hear your oldest daughter has finished high school and wants to
enter Stanford," Forrest said, curbing the mare just as he had half-
signaled departure at a gallop.

Crellin, a young man of thirty-five, with the maturity of a long-time
father stamped upon him along with the marks of college and the
youthfulness of a man used to the open air and straight-living, showed