The Octopus | Page 3

each date you
prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois Benedictine
College".
This "Small Print!" by Charles B. Kramer, Attorney Internet
([email protected]); TEL: (212-254-5093) *END*THE
SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

THE OCTOPUS A Story of California
by Frank Norris

Book 1

CHAPTER I
Just after passing Caraher's saloon, on the County Road that ran south
from Bonneville, and that divided the Broderson ranch from that of Los
Muertos, Presley was suddenly aware of the faint and prolonged
blowing of a steam whistle that he knew must come from the railroad
shops near the depot at Bonneville. In starting out from the ranch house
that morning, he had forgotten his watch, and was now perplexed to
know whether the whistle was blowing for twelve or for one o'clock.
He hoped the former. Early that morning he had decided to make a long

excursion through the neighbouring country, partly on foot and partly
on his bicycle, and now noon was come already, and as yet he had
hardly started. As he was leaving the house after breakfast, Mrs.
Derrick had asked him to go for the mail at Bonneville, and he had not
been able to refuse.
He took a firmer hold of the cork grips of his handlebars--the road
being in a wretched condition after the recent hauling of the crop--and
quickened his pace. He told himself that, no matter what the time was,
he would not stop for luncheon at the ranch house, but would push on
to Guadalajara and have a Spanish dinner at Solotari's, as he had
originally planned.
There had not been much of a crop to haul that year. Half of the wheat
on the Broderson ranch had failed entirely, and Derrick himself had
hardly raised more than enough to supply seed for the winter's sowing.
But such little hauling as there had been had reduced the roads
thereabouts to a lamentable condition, and, during the dry season of the
past few months, the layer of dust had deepened and thickened to such
an extent that more than once Presley was obliged to dismount and
trudge along on foot, pushing his bicycle in front of him.
It was the last half of September, the very end of the dry season, and all
Tulare County, all the vast reaches of the San Joaquin Valley--in fact
all South Central California, was bone dry, parched, and baked and
crisped after four months of cloudless weather, when the day seemed
always at noon, and the sun blazed white hot over the valley from the
Coast Range in the west to the foothills of the Sierras in the east.
As Presley drew near to the point where what was known as the Lower
Road struck off through the Rancho de Los Muertos, leading on to
Guadalajara, he came upon one of the county watering-tanks, a great,
iron-hooped tower of wood, straddling clumsily on its four uprights by
the roadside. Since the day of its completion, the storekeepers and
retailers of Bonneville had painted their advertisements upon it. It was
a landmark. In that reach of level fields, the white letters upon it could
be read for miles. A watering-trough stood near by, and, as he was very
thirsty, Presley resolved to stop for a moment to get a drink.

He drew abreast of the tank and halted there, leaning his bicycle against
the fence. A couple of men in white overalls were repainting the
surface of the tank, seated on swinging platforms that hung by hooks
from the roof. They were painting a sign--an advertisement. It was all
but finished and read, "S. Behrman, Real Estate, Mortgages, Main
Street, Bonneville, Opposite the Post Office." On the horse-trough that
stood in the shadow of the tank was another freshly painted inscription:
"S. Behrman Has Something To Say To You."
As Presley straightened up after drinking from the faucet at one end of
the horse-trough, the watering-cart itself laboured into view around the
turn of the Lower Road. Two mules and two horses, white with dust,
strained leisurely in the traces, moving at a snail's pace, their limp ears
marking the time; while perched high upon the seat, under a yellow
cotton wagon umbrella, Presley recognised Hooven, one of Derrick's
tenants, a German, whom every one called "Bismarck," an excitable
little man with a perpetual grievance and an endless flow of broken
English.
"Hello, Bismarck," said Presley, as Hooven brought his team to