"I think such a condition would make me wish that Russian had been given time to finish what he started. By the way, I knew all of the stockholders in the First National Bank, of El Toro. Your father is a newcomer. He must have bought out old Dan Hayes' interest." She nodded affirmatively. "Am I at liberty to be inquisitive--just a little bit?" he queried.
"That depends, Sergeant. Ask your question, and if I feel at liberty to answer it, I shall."
"Is that Japanese, Okada, a member of your party?"
"Yes; he is traveling with us. He has a land-deal on with my father."
She glanced across at him with new interest.
"There was resentment in that last observation of yours," she challenged.
"In common with all other Californians with manhood enough to resent imposition, I resent all Japanese."
"Is it true, then, that there is a real Japanese problem out here?"
"Why, I thought everybody knew that," he replied, a trifle reproachfully. "As the outpost of Occidental civilization, we've been battling Oriental aggression for forty years."
"I had thought this agitation largely the mouthings of professional agitators--a part of the labor-leaders' plan to pose as the watch-dogs of the rights of the California laboring man."
"That is sheer buncombe carefully fostered by a very efficient corps of Japanese propagandists. The resentment against the Japanese invasion of California is not confined to any class, but is a very vital issue with every white citizen of the state who has reached the age of reason and regardless of whether he was born in California or Timbuctoo. Look!"
He pointed to a huge sign-board fronting a bend in the highway that ran close to the railroad track and parallel with it:
"This is entirely an agricultural section," he explained. "There are no labor-unions here. But," he added bitterly, "you could throw a stone in the air and be moderately safe on the small end of a bet that the stone would land on a Jap farmer."
"Do the white farmers think that sign will frighten them away?"
"No; of course not. That sign is merely a polite intimation to white men who may contemplate selling or leasing their lands to Japs that the organized sentiment of this community is against such a course. The lower standards of living of the Oriental enable him to pay much higher prices for land than a white man can."