CHAPTER VII
I
BOYD returned to Arguello on the Santa Rosa very thoughtful. He was too shrewd, too experienced, too well balanced to be swept off his feet. The situation, once he had drawn aside from the glamour, was plain enough to him. Two things he realized thoroughly. The first was that this epidemic was sure to reach Arguello sooner or later, and when it hit it would hit hard. The second was that until the boom broke, and until genuine prosperity had had a chance to struggle to its feet after being knocked flat by the explosion, his irrigated twenty-thirty acre farm scheme was as dead as Pharaoh. Few people were thinking farm.
He debarked in the early morning and drove up the long main street behind a leisurely livery horse. The high fog, also leisurely, was drawing away, permitting glimpses of the mountains. Along the street shopkeepers, or their assistants, were sweeping their sidewalks. As yet no business could be expected, although it was after nine o'clock. Near the First National Bank building stood the street car, its motive power dozing with dangled ears, the reins wound around the brake handle, the driver absent on some mysterious errand of his own. After the feverish atmosphere of Los Angeles there seemed here to dwell an ineffable peace. Even Patrick Boyd's practical spirit felt its influence; though, characteristically, he misinterpreted it and was impatient with it.
"Mañana, mañana!" he muttered disgustedly. "If I don't watch out, it'll get me, too. Here, driver, I won't go home. Let me out at Spinner's office."
The lank, birdlike real estate man listened with gleaming eyes to Boyd's analysis of what he had seen.
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