The Desert Fiddler

He had been struggling with his ambitions a long time and never could quite figure why he did not get on faster. He had thought a great deal the last few days about Jim Crill, the old man with bushy eyebrows--and oil wells. Two or three things the gruff old chap had said stuck in Bob's mind. He had begun to wonder if it was not just as easy for a fellow to make a bad investment of his brains and muscles as it was with his money. "That's it," he said almost aloud at a definite conclusion; "I haven't been making a good investment of myself. I wonder if I could sublease that Red Butte Ranch?"

The more he thought of it, the more anxious he was to get hold of something he could manage himself. Of course, the idea of farming a five-thousand-acre ranch without capital was merely a pipe dream; but still, if Benson was losing money and wanted to get loose from his lease--it might be possible.

Reedy Jenkins' office was upstairs and on a back street. It had an outside stairway, one of those affairs that c