The Iron Furrow Part 7

"I saw Charlie Menocal, who said to drive strangers off."

"Well, Charlie had best keep his fingers out of this dish, or he may find it full of pepper, and you tell him so next time you talk with him."

Bryant folded his map and restored it to his pocket, while the Mexican went away to his house.

That day the engineer worked until darkness shut down. At three o'clock next morning he routed his young a.s.sistant out of bed and by dawn they were in the fields again. Knowing that the Menocals had set about impeding and if possible altogether obstructing him, he proposed to be done, as quickly as careful surveying allowed, with the fenced part of the hillside where plausible controversies could be invented.

Toward the end of the second day he had progressed into the last tract of owned ground. He breathed more freely. In his statement to the Mexican concerning the right of way he had been exactly right; and he was following to a dot the original course taken by the early ditch.

He could have improved upon this section of the ca.n.a.l by another survey, but that would have involved him in a host of troubles, very likely unsolvable ones, in securing t.i.tle to another strip of ground across the fields. Without question Menocal's influence would prevent the owners from selling, even if Bryant had the money with which to buy a second right of way, which he had not. Dollar for dollar it would be cheaper in the long run to use the old line. Well, Dave was already across the last fence with his rod; they would soon be working entirely on government land; and with that, it did not matter for the present what the Mexican landowners thought or did.

Bryant had walked fifty yards or so away from his transit to call something to Dave, when the crack of a rifle sounded from the hillside and a bullet whined near by. The engineer pivoted about. Another shot followed, and he beheld a spurt of dust close by his instrument. The hidden rifleman was not seeking to murder him, but to destroy his tools.

There were no more shots and he resumed work. Later on, as he neared the fence and was establishing his last points within the field, a horseman with a gray moustache came galloping up along the stretch of barb wire. He nodded, inquired if the engineer was named Bryant, and announced that he had half a dozen injunctions to serve.

"I expected something like this; glad you didn't arrive any sooner,"

Lee remarked.

"Well, I was away from town, or I'd have been here by noon," the horseman, an American, stated. "The injunctions cover all these places between here and the river. You and any one you hire must keep off the tracts specified until the cases come up before the judge."

"All right, sheriff. Wait till I take a last squint or two and I'll vacate."

The horseman idly watched the engineer make his final measurements, then when Bryant had lifted his tripod over the wire and told his a.s.sistant Dave they would call it a day and stop, he dismounted and sat down for a smoke with the man on whom he had served his papers.

"Looks as if you've stirred up some interest in your doings," he remarked, expelling a thread of smoke. "All the Mexicans from here down to Rosita are gabbling about your ca.n.a.l. Don't seem pleased with you."

"There's one who doesn't, in any case," was the response. "He took a couple of shots at my instrument a while ago from up yonder in the sagebrush when I had stepped aside for a moment."

The sheriff gazed at the hillside.

"A few _hombres_ around here will bear watching," said he. For a little he meditated, then went on, "You're a white man and so am I; they don't like our colour any too well, at bottom. I s'pose you know that."

"Yes. But they needn't express their feelings with rifles. As far as these injunctions are concerned, they'll be dismissed eventually, for there's no question about my right of way through here. Menocal secured it himself and it's all a matter of record--the deeds, the certificate to the state, and the rest."

"Menocal got it, you say?"

"n.o.body else. Some time or other he must have expected to water Perro Creek ranch, which he owned until he sold it to Stevenson."

"I knew he had that place," said the visitor, "but I didn't know it carried a water right from the Pinas. Where does this move of yours. .h.i.t Menocal?"

"In his ranches down the river; he's been using this water for them,"

Bryant explained. "I suppose it's been taken for granted by nearly everyone that the water belonged to those farms down there, but it doesn't."

"How much water in this right?"

"Hundred and twenty-five second feet."

"Whew! That takes a chunk out of the Pinas. And I presume that by this time Menocal knows what you're doing?"

"Oh, yes; I told him. He doesn't like it, of course."

The sheriff turned for a full view of Bryant's face. In respect to features the two men were not unlike: both had the same thin curving nose and level eyes and cut of jaw.

"Well, let me say as between man and man," the elder spoke, "that Menocal won't let you take away that much water from him if he can help it. And I'll drop you some more news, in addition: several Mexicans are going to file on homesteads or desert claims along the base of the hills south of here, scattered along like and running part way up the mountain sides. I don't know where your ca.n.a.l to Perro Creek will go, but if its line follows the foot of the range, as may be likely, it might happen to find those claims in the way."

"Any idea in your mind where those fellows may locate their filings?"

"No; I can't say definitely. Shouldn't be surprised if they began stringing them along a couple of miles south of here till they reached Perro Creek."

Bryant gazed at the flank of the mountain. The gentle ridge where his ditch line left the hillside was but half a mile away. Beyond that the Mexicans could file to their hearts' content, for they would be left on one side by the ca.n.a.l. But in all this he perceived Menocal's cunning hand.

"Much obliged to you, sheriff," said he. "I'll see if I can't find some way to satisfy those chaps when the time comes."

His visitor rose and put foot in stirrup.

"If any of these Mexicans grow ugly, let me know," he remarked. "I'll tell them where to head in. Drop in at my office at the courthouse when you're in town; Winship's my name. I brought these notices over myself in order to look at you, for they were saying you are a trouble-maker, but that's what these natives frequently state when they want to fix an alibi for themselves before they start something.

I'll see if I can learn anything of the fellow who was up yonder shooting. These _hombres_ are altogether too free with firearms, anyway. Better feed that lad there with you a few more meals a day; looks as if he could use them."

Bryant laughed.

"Dave's a little lean, but he's all there. Looks don't count, do they, partner?"

"I do the best I can," Dave responded, solemnly.

"Not at meal-time, I reckon," the sheriff said. "Feed up and get fat.

A kid like you has no business having so many joints and bones sticking out."

"I been through a hard winter last winter, and this spring, too, till Mr. Bryant picked me up."

"How's that?" the horseman inquired.

"My mother died at Kennard. I didn't get on very well after that; not much there for a boy to work at. And I hadn't any folks."

"Hump. What's your last name?"

"Morris."

"Any relation to Jack Morris?"

"He was my father."

The sheriff nodded. "Knew him well; he died four years ago. And your mother died last winter? Little woman, I recall."

"Little, but a lot better than plenty of bigger ones I know of," Dave a.s.serted, stoutly. "She died of pneumonia."

"Boy, I've held you on my knee when you were about as high as my hand.

But I guess you don't remember that, and I'm mighty sorry to learn your mother's gone. Dave--is that your name? Well, now, Dave, fight your grub harder from now on."

The speaker gathered his reins, nodded, and rode away along the barb wire fence.