They worked their ranches as a quarter of a century before they had worked their mines.

To husband the resources of their marvellous San Joaquin, they considered niggardly, petty, Hebraic.
To get all there was out of the land, to squeeze it dry, to exhaust it, seemed their policy.

When, at last, the land worn out, would refuse to yield, they would invest their money in something else; by then, they would all have made fortunes.

They did not care.

"After us the deluge." Lyman, however, was obviously uneasy, willing to change the subject.