Dick’s way. Trust him, no matter how long unused, never to let a pistol freeze in its holster.

Back in the work room she wandered solemnly about, glancing now at the prodigious filing system, at the chart and blue-print cabinets, at the revolving shelves of reference books, and at the long rows of stoutly bound herd registers. At last she came to his books — a goodly row of pamphlets, bound magazine articles, and an even dozen ambitious tomes. She read the titles painstakingly: “Corn in California,” “Silage Practice,” “Farm Organization,” “Farm Book-keeping,” “The Shire in America,” “Humus Destruction,” “Soilage,” “Alfalfa in California,” “Cover Crops for California,” “The Shorthorn in