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August came and for nine months not a drop of rain had fallen. The earth looked burned up, and the grass was so dry that in travelling through it it flew into dust which the wind sent whirling over the plain. No crop promised to be a good one. The sun beat pitilessly down on the brown fields and cattle subsisted mainly on mesquit beans that dangled their long pods in the never-ceasing wind.

"All in the world this country needs is water," thought Jack who was studying irrigation schemes. Water from the streams was impracticable and he now decided to bore on his tract of one hundred and sixty acres just northeast of Brockman's Point, and have his irrigation plant ready and in operation by the middle of September, superintending the work himself. But it was well into December before the work was completed, and he