Joshua Logan was dead, all right. Big rain drops splattered upon his upturned face without effect. Even the stoic leader of the Logan Clan had been known to blasphemy when a sudden summer storm threatened to drown the fields the family had reclaimed from what once had been a swamp.

They really were not a family, related by blood. They had come from a plantation in Louisiana that itself had been reclaimed from an abandoned slough of the Mississippi River. All had been slaves, released by the dying wish of their owner and master. Joshua had been Alfred E. Logan, Esquire's, favorite. Some said, his own son.

When he was young the boy had been taught to read and write. He understood the meaning of "organic soil," and "sub-irrigation," words most of their planter neighbors, educated and white, had never heard. Indeed, they had a hard time reconciling to Logan's folly, and smart little Nigra.

This is how, and why, when the blacks suddenly found themselves free, the young man knew where to take his family. He had read accounts of former slaves making good in the gold fields of the Sierra. Joshua led them off in search of a California swamp.

Somewhere along the long route West, they heard of the Klamath Basin, and tule lakes that had well-supported numerous Indian tribes, so they turned north after crossing the Nevada desert. Wandering through the pines and lava of Northern California the Logans found what they were looking for. A shallow lake. A natural catch basin, that one drained, would still provide enough moisture to produce good crops in a very rich, but otherwise dry soil.

Best of all this land was free, and remote enough not to have any disgruntle neighbors that would object to an educated freeman and his family trying to provide for themselves.