Early on Monday morning, three days later, Saxon and Billy took an electric car to the end of the line, and started a second time for San Juan. were in the road, but the sun shone from a blue sky, and everywhere, on the ground, was a faint hint of budding green. At Benson's Saxon waited while Billy went in to get his six dollars for the three days' .  
“Kicked like a because I was quittin',” he told her when he came back. “He wouldn't listen at first. Said he'd put me to drivin' in a few days, an' that there wasn't enough good four-horse men to let one go easily.”
 
“And what did you say?”
 
“Oh, I just told 'm I had to be movin' along. An' when he tried to argue I told 'm my wife was with me, an' she was blamed anxious to get along.”
 
“But so are you, Billy.”
 
“Sure, Pete; but just the same I wasn't as keen as you. Doggone it, I was gettin' to like that plowin'. I'll never be scairt to ask for a job at it again. I've got to where I the burro, an' you bet I can against most of 'm right now.”
 
An hour , with a good three miles to their credit, they edged to the side of the road at the sound of an behind them. But the machine did not pass. Benson was alone in it, and he came to a stop alongside.
 
“Where are you bound?” he inquired of Billy, with a quick, measuring glance at Saxon.
 
“Monterey—if you're goin' that far,” Billy answered with a .
 
“I can give you a lift as far as Watsonville. It would take you several days on shank's with those loads. Climb in.” He addressed Saxon directly. “Do you want to ride in front?”
 
Saxon glanced to Billy.
 
“Go on,” he approved. “It's fine in front.—This is my wife, Mr. Benson—Mrs. Roberts.”
 
“Oh, ho, so you're the one that took your husband away from me,” Benson accused good humoredly, as he tucked the robe around her.
 
Saxon shouldered the responsibility and became absorbed in watching him start the car.
 
“I'd be a poor farmer if I owned no more land than you'd before you came to me,” Benson, with a twinkling eye, jerked over his shoulder to Billy.
 
“I'd never had my hands on a plow but once before,” Billy confessed. “But a fellow has to learn some time.”
 
“At two dollars a day?”
 
“If he can get some alfalfa artist to put up for it,” Billy met him .
 
Benson laughed .
 
“You're a quick learner,” he complimented. “I could see that you and weren't on speaking acquaintance. But you took hold right. There isn't one man in ten I could hire off the county road that could do as well as you were doing on the third day. But your big asset is that you know horses. It was half a joke when I told you to take the lines that morning. You're a trained horseman and a born horseman as well.”
 
“He's very gentle with horses,” Saxon said.
 
“But there's more than that to it,” Benson took her up. “Your husband's got the WAY with him. It's hard to explain. But that's what it is—the WAY. It's an instinct almost. Kindness is necessary. But GRIP is more so. Your husband grips his horses. Take the test I gave him with the four-horse load. It was too complicated and severe. Kindness couldn't have done it. It took grip. I could see it the moment he started. There wasn't any doubt in his mind. There wasn't any doubt in the horses. They got the feel of him. They just knew the thing was going to be done and that it was up to them to do it. They didn't have any fear, but just the same they knew the boss was in the seat. When he took hold of those lines, he took hold of the horses. He gripped them, don't you see. He picked them up and put them where he wanted them, swung them up and down and right and left, made them pull, and slack, and back—and they knew everything was going to come out right. Oh, horses may be stupid, but they're not altogether fools. They know when the proper horseman has hold of them, though how they know it so quickly is beyond me.”
 
Benson paused, half at his volubility, and gazed keenly at Saxon to see if she had followed him. What he saw in her face and eyes satisfied him, and he added, with a short laugh:
 
“Horseflesh is a hobby of mine. Don't think otherwise because I am running a engine. I'd rather be along here behind a pair of fast-steppers. But I'd lose time on them, and, worse than that, I'd be too anxious about them all the time. As for this thing, why, it has no nerves, no delicate nor tendons; it's a case of let her rip.”
 
The miles flew past and Saxon was soon deep in talk with her host. Here again, she discerned immediately, was a type of the new farmer. The knowledge she had picked up enabled her to talk to advantage, and when Benson talked she was amazed that she could understand so much. In response to his direct , she told him her and Billy's plans, the Oakland life , and on their future intentions.
 
Almost as in a dream, when they passed the nurseries at Morgan Hill, she learned they had come twenty miles, and realized that it was a longer stretch than they had planned to walk that day. And still the machine hummed on, eating up the distance as ever it flashed into view.
 
“I wondered what so good a man as your husband was doing on the road,” Benson told her.
 
“Yes,” she smiled. “He said you said he must be a good man gone wrong.”
 
“But you see, I didn't know about YOU. Now I understand. Though I must say it's extraordinary in these days for a young couple like you to pack your blankets in search of land. And, before I forget it, I want to tell you one thing.” He turned to Billy. “I am just telling your wife that there's an all-the-year job waiting for you on my . And there's a tight little cottage of three rooms the two of you can in. Don't forget.”
 
Among other things Saxon discovered that Benson had gone through the College of Agriculture at the University of California—a branch of learning she had not known existed. He gave her small hope in her search for government land.
 
“The only government land left,” he informed her, “is what is not good enough to take up for one reason or another. If it's good land down there where you're going, then the market is . I know no railroads tap in there.”
 
“Wait till we strike Pajaro Valley,” he said, when they had passed Gilroy and were booming on toward Sargent's. “I'll show you what can be done with the soil—and not by cow-college graduates but by uneducated foreigners that the high and mighty American has always at. I'll show you. It's one of the most wonderful in the state.”
 
At Sargent's he left them in the machine a few minutes while he business.
 
“Whew! It beats hikin',” Billy said. “The day's young yet and when he drops us we'll be fresh for a few miles on our own. Just the same, when we get settled an' well off, I guess I'll stick by horses. They'll always be good enough for me.”
 
“A machine's only good to get somewhere in a hurry,” Saxon agreed. “Of course, if we got very, very rich—”
 
“Say, Saxon,” Billy broke in, suddenly struck with an idea. “I've learned one thing. I ain't afraid any more of not gettin' work in the country. I was at first, but I didn't tell you. Just the same I was dead leery when we pulled out on the San Leandro pike. An' here, already, is two places open—Mrs. Mortimer's an' Benson's; an' steady jobs, too. Yep, a man can get work in the country.”
 
“Ah,” Saxon , with a proud little smile, “you haven't said it right. Any GOOD man can get work in the country. The big farmers don't hire men out of charity.”
 
“Sure; they ain't in it for their health,” he grinned.
 
“And they jump at you. That's because you are a good man. They can see it with half an eye. Why, Billy, take all the working tramps we've met on the road already. There wasn't one to compare with you. I looked them over. They're all weak—weak in their bodies, weak in their heads, weak both ways.”
 
“Yep, they are a pretty measly bunch,” Billy admitted modestly.
 
“It's the wrong time of the year to see Pajaro Valley,” Benson said, when he again sat beside Saxon and Sargent's was a thing of the past. “Just the same, it's worth seeing any time. Think of it—twelve thousand acres of apples! Do you know what they call Pajaro Valley now? New Dalmatia. We're being squeezed out. We Yankees thought we were smart. Well, the Dalmatians came along and showed they were smarter. They were immigrants—poorer than Job's turkey. First, they worked at day's in the fruit harvest. Next they began, in a small way, buying the apples on the trees. The more money they made the bigger became their deals. Pretty soon they were renting the on long leases. And now, they are beginning to buy the land. It won't be long before they own the whole valley, and the last American will be gone.
 
“Oh, our smart Yankees! Why, those first Slavs in their first little deals with us only made something like two and three thousand per cent. profits. And now they're satisfied to make a hundred per cent. It's a if their profits sink to twenty-five or fifty per cent.”
 
“It's like San Leandro,” Saxo............