The little white stakes began to appear in the most unheard of places, miles from any building, absolutely isolated, deprived of any of the natural advantages necessary to human dwelling. But the climate and scenery were good. There were parcels laid aside for the Station, and the Post Office, and the City Hall, and the Court House, and the High School, and heaven knows what else, and people bought the rest in twenty-five foot lots, and the jack rabbits sat under the sagebrush and looked lonesome and wondered what were all those little white stakes.
No bit of country, within the natural habitat of the tourist, was so unpromising, that it could not be sold. It if were a dry wash, they boosted it for its abundance of building material; if in a desert, for its healthful climate; if on a hilltop for its view; if in a swamp for its irrigable possibilities or its opportunities for a harbour. Men would start actual construction on a railroad and carry it forward for miles, knowing perfectly well that it never could pay, aware indeed that they never would finish it, merely in order to help sell land at its alleged terminal- to-be! And they sold them. Why not? The one certain thing was that the East had at last waked up to the fact that it could live in an ideal climate instead of shivering and roasting in the horrible imitation heretofore provided it. Why should any sane man live where he was uncomfortable, when he could live where he was comfortable? No reason. A tremendous shift of population was imminent.
At first some of this land had been bought by people who intended to build houses and live on it. But latterly it was all purchased for resale at a profit to the mythical fellow who was coming after.
IV
In such lively times a space of six months may seem like the passage of years, so far as the stabilizing of conditions goes. It was so in 'Forty-nine; events moved so rapidly that in a half year they had become ancient history. So it was now. After a year of this sort of thing it took unto itself an aspect of permanence. It was the natural condition of life. People living in it came to look on it as the normal and enduring. They called it
