YUMA TO BLYTHE 329 



been made, but abandoned. The bitter dust rose 

 listlessly from the road and hung about like an an- 

 noying companion. A team crept along half hidden 

 in its own gray cloud. As we passed I noticed that 

 the load was burlap, for baling the cotton-crop of 

 the northern end of the valley. 



A new, vacant store-building with one house ad- 

 joining proved to be a "town" named Rannells. 

 The law of supply and demand cannot be the simple 

 thing many of us suppose, for here was a man who 

 thought, apparently, that a store automatically 

 produces customers. But the mind of the land- 

 boomer is one of the last puzzles that philosophy 

 will solve. Meanwhile one shakes the head and 

 passes by. 



Gradually the look of things improved. The 

 patches of cotton seemed less hopelessly starved, 

 and here and there a decent house appeared. At a 

 little homestead I noticed half a dozen thrifty 

 young date-palms bearing a good crop. As I stood 

 admiring, an old woman smoking a clay pipe came 

 out of the shack and invited me to inspect her treas- 

 ures at close range. Did I ever see such dates as 

 them? No, she'd bet half a dollar I never did. Them 

 was reel Deglets and raised by hand. Laws, I 

 would n't believe the water they took, them six! 

 and did I notice them offshoots, five of 'em? That 

 would make near double the number when she set 

 'em out; and in three or four years they 'd double 

 again, and keep a-doin' it till, laws! in like no time 

 she and her old man would have a date place folks 

 'd come from Los Angeles in their autos to look at. 



