CHAPTER IV.
IH WHICH A MAN IS SYMPATHETIC It was shortly after noon when Sanderson, urging Streak to the crest of an isolated excrescence of earth surrounded by a level of sage and cactus, saw within several hundred yards of him a collection of buildings scattered on a broad plain that extended back several hundred yards farther until it merged into the rock-faced wall of a butte that loomed upward many feet.
Sanderson halted Streak on the hilltop to glance around.

The buildings, evidently, belonged to the Double A ranch, and the country was all the Drifter had claimed for it.
The big stretch of plain--in fact, the entire basin--could be made fertile by the judicious use of water.

Sanderson was not an engineer, but he had sufficient natural knowledge of land to enable him to distinguish good land from bad.

Besides, near Phoenix he had inspected a gigantic irrigation project, and had talked long with the engineer in charge, and he had learned many things that would not have interested the average cowpuncher.
There was a break in the wall of the butte south of the group of buildings, and out of the break Sanderson could see water tumbling and splashing from one rock ledge to another until it rushed down, forming quite a large stream as it struck the level and swirled hurriedly between two sloping banks near the buildings.
From where Sanderson sat on Streak he could look far back into the break in the butte.

The break made a sort of gorge, which widened as it receded, and Sanderson suspected the presence of another basin beyond the butte--in fact, the Drifter had told him of the presence of another basin.
"She'd make some lake, if she was bottled up!" was Sanderson's mental comment after a long examination.
His gaze became centered upon the buildings and the level surrounding them.
The buildings were ordinary, but the country was rugged and picturesque.
Some foothills--which Sanderson had seen from the far side of the basin that morning--rose from the level toward the south, their pine-clad slopes sweeping sharply upward--a series of gigantic land waves that seemed to leap upward and upward toward the higher peaks of some mountains behind them.
Northward, fringing the edge of the plain that began at the foothills and stretched many miles, were other mountains; eastward the butte extended far, receding, irregular, its jagged walls forming a barrier; southwestward stretched the basin, in a gentle slope that was more noticeable to Sanderson now than it had been while he had been riding during the morning.
The land around the buildings was fertile, for here was water which could be utilized.