Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/252

240 Tourists came, looked, saw, returned, and boosted. Of those who listened, the many smiled and murmured something about "California Liars," but the few took a trip for themselves. The rumour thus grew rapidly. The despised "cattle country" of Southern California took on a new interest. People who were not tourists actually began to come out, not to spend the winter, but to look around. They made the astonishing discovery that the summers also were pleasant! Heretofore the tourist had fled home on the approach of spring. If the winter was warm, the summer must be intolerably hot. Nobody but bookish experts knew anything about a cooling polar current. After they had looked around, and acquired much knowledge and statistics, they returned home. And whereas the simon-pure tourist had noted and told about the birds and flowers and sunshine, this new type of visitor had bestowed most of his attention on acreage, and costs, and methods, and profits.

Thus in these two years the travel to California had wonderfully increased. The old regulars were augmented by the professional tourists who abandoned Europe for a season to see this newly talked-of land; by the wealthy business man who had heard so much of the new country that he thought he might as well combine business with pleasure and take a little jaunt to see if there was anything to be picked up; by the one-time visitor who had liked it and had gone away reluctantly in the dream at coining back if he could afford it, but who now plucked up hope of coming back to make a living; by invalids and climate seekers following the glowing stories; by hundreds of farmers who had long been sick of the uncertainties and discomforts of their lives, and were now pursuing the rumour of heaven. And also, just a trifle later, by the big capitalists and the little sharpers who followed the scent of prosperity to see what could be done about it.

Such movements come to notice suddenly, though they may have been in process and under way for some time. They resemble in this the dropping of stones into a puddle. One may drop in a great many without the slightest visible result. Then all at once they appear, and every pebble adds to the size of the pile.

By good fortune the season in which the rock pile began to show