'Beautiful,' he said, with enthusiasm. 'Valley as level as this floor, with just a little swell on, like the sea, and rich as cream. Just enough brakes to shelter the cattle in winter. Black loamy soil for six feet, and then clay. Holds water. A dozen nice little houses on it, with windmills and gardens. People pretty poor, I guess -- too far from market -- but comfortable. Never saw so many kids in my life.'
'They raise flocks?' inquired the Commissioner.
'Ho, ho! I mean two-legged kids,' lauched the surveyor; 'two-legged, and bare-legged, and tow- headed.'
'Children! oh, children!' mused the Commissioner, as though a new view had opened to him; 'they raise children!
'It's a lonesome country, Commissioner,' said the surveyor. 'Can you blame 'em?'
'I suppose,' continued the Commissioner, slowly, as one carefully pursues deductions from a new, stupendous theory, 'not all of them are tow-headed. It would not be unreasonable, Mr. Ashe, I conjecture, to believe that a portion of them have brown, or even black, hair.'
'Brown and black, sure,' said Ashe; 'also red.'
'No doubt,' said the Commissioner. 'Well, I thank you for your courtesy in informing me, Mr. Ashe. I will not detain you any longer from your duties.'
Later, in the afternoon, came Hamlin and Avery, big, handsome, genial, sauntering men, clothed in white duck and low-cut shoes. They permeated the whole office with an aura of debonair prosperity. They passed among the clerks and left a wake of abbreviated given names and fat brown cigars.
These were the aristocracy of the land-sharks, who went in for big things. Full of serene confidence in them- selves, there was no corporation, no syndicate, no rail- road company or attorney general too big for them to tackle. The peculiar smoke of their rare, fat brown cigars was to be perceived in the sanctum of every department of state, in every committee-room of the Legislature, in every bank parlour and every private caucus- room in the state Capital. Always pleasant, never in a hurry, in seeming to possess unlimited leisure, people wondered when they gave their attention to the many audacious enterprises in which they were knnown to be engaged.
By and by the two dropped carelessly into the Com- missioner's room and reclined lazily in the big, leather- upholstered arm-chairs. They drawled a good-natured complaint of the weather, and Hamlin told the Com- missioner an excellent story he had amassed that morn- ing from the Secretary of State.
But the Commissioner knew why they were there. He had half promised to render a decision that day upon their location.
The chief clerk now brought in a batch of duplicate certificates for the Commissioner to sign. As he traced his sprawling signature, 'Hollis Summerfield, Comr. Genl. Land Office,' on each one, the chief clerk stood, deftly removing them and applying the blotter.
'I notice,' said the chief clerk, 'you've been going through that Salado County location. Kampfer is mak- ing a new map of Salado, and I believe is platting in that section of the county now.'
'I will see it,' said the Comissioner. A few moments later he went to the draughtsmen's room.
As he entered he saw five or six of the draughtsmen grouped about Kampfer's desk, gargling away at each other in pectoral German, and gazing at something there- upon. At the Commissioner's approach they scattered to their several places. Kampfer, a wizened little Ger- man, with long, frizzled ringlets and a watery eye, began to stammer forth some sort of an apology, the Commis- sioner thought, for the congregation of his fellows about his desk.
'Never mind,' said the Commissioner, 'I wish to see the map you are making'; and, passing around the old German, seated himself upon the high draughtsman's stool. Kampfer continued to break English in trving to explain.
'Herr Gommissioner, I assure you blenty sat I haf not it bremeditated -- sat it wass -- sat it itself make. Look you! from se field notes wass it blatted -- blease to observe se calls: South, 10 degrees west 050 varas; south, 10 degrees east 300 varas; south, 100; south, 9 west, 200; south, 40 degrees west 400 -- and so on. Herr Gommissioner, nefer would I have -- '
The Commissioner raised one white hand, silently, Kampfer dropped his pipe and fled.
With a hand at each side of his face, and his elbows resting upon the desk, the Commissioner sat staring at the map which was spread and fastened there -- staring at the sweet and living profile of little Georgia drawn thereupon -- at her face, pensive, delicate, and infantile, outlined in a perfect likeness.
When his mind at length came to inquire into the rea- son of it, he saw that it must have been, as Kampfer had said, unpremeditated. The old draughtsman had been platting in the Elias Denny survey, and Georgia's likeness, striking though it was, was formed by nothing more than the meanders of Chiquito River. Indeed, Kampfer's blotter, whereon his preliminary work was done, showed the laborious tracings of the calls and the countless pricks of the compasses. Then, over his faint pencilling, Kampfer had drawn in India ink with a full, firm pen the similitude of Chiquito River, and forth had blossomed mysteriously the dainty, pathetic profile of the child.
The Commissioner sat for half an hour with his face in his hands, gazing downward, and none dared approach him. Then he arose and walked out. In the business office he paused long enough to ask that the Denny file be brought to his desk.
He found Hamlin and Avery still reclining in their chairs, apparently oblivious of business. They were lazily discussing summer opera, it being, their habit -- perhaps their pride also -- to appear supernaturally indifferent whenever they stood with large interests imperilled. And they stood to win more on this stake than most people knew. They possessed inside infor- mation to the effect that a new railroad would, within a year, split this very Chiquito River valley and send land values ballooning all along its route. A dollar under thirty thousand profit on this location, if it should hold good, would be a loss to their expectations. So, while they chatted lightly and waited for the Commissioner to open the subject, there was a quick, sidelong sparkle in their eyes, evincing a desire to read their title clear to those fair acres on the Chiquito.
A clerk brought in the file. The Commissioner seated himself and wrote upon it in red ink. Then he rose to his feet and stood for a while looking straight out of the window. The Land Office capped the summit of a bold hill. The eyes of the Commissioner passed over the roofs of many houses set in a packing of deep green, the whole checkered by strips of blinding white streets. The horizon, where his gaze was focussed, swelled to a fair wooded
