CHAPTER VII

The defect in the ditch proved to be one of minor character, which Bryant corrected after a few observations and half an hour's work with a shovel. While he was thus engaged, Imogene Martin, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, strolled out to watch his operations. She was in a friendly and talkative mood, and asked questions concerning ditches and irrigation and surveying, and about Dave, and speculated on the ruins of the pueblo whither Ruth and Charlie Menocal had gone, and said she was glad Bryant had bought the ranch just north of their claims and would be their neighbour. Only, she added, she was sorry to learn that he was having trouble with the people about; Mr. Menocal had stated such to be a fact, though what he had further hinted of Bryant's endeavour to gain property to which he had no t.i.tle and of the engineer's being a trouble-maker, she did not for one instant believe.

"I'll be a trouble-maker for Charlie and his dad if they continue their present policy," Lee vouchsafed, tossing aside a shovelful of earth.

Imogene Martin carefully flattened a hill of bean plants for a seat, sat down, and locked her hands over her knees.

"I think you're to be trusted, so I'll tell you a secret," she remarked, smiling. "Charlie Menocal doesn't make a 'hit' with me, either. When you referred to the ford, I could scarcely keep my face straight; and my feeling ill this afternoon, though partly true, was also partly manufactured, because I didn't want to go to those old ruins with him. I don't care for men like him especially. I share the feeling of my uncle in Kennard--"

"You have an uncle there? I thought you were from the East."

"I am; from Ohio. But I've an uncle and aunt living in Kennard, which is the reason Ruth and I came to this section for homesteads. Ruth was crazy to take up a claim, having read how easily one is acquired, while my health was not very good and the doctor at home thought it would be improved by being in the open in a high alt.i.tude. Uncle said I'd better stay with him and aunt, but I knew how terribly disappointed Ruth would be if I did, because she couldn't homestead alone. So uncle declared that if homesteaders we had to be, then we must locate near him where he could have me under his eye, so to speak. I myself am not taking this claim business very seriously. And now uncle, who once had some controversy with the elder Menocal, wouldn't be very well pleased if he knew the son was making calls on us."

"So others besides myself have trouble with the Menocals," Bryant stated.

"Apparently. I don't know what this particular difficulty was about, but uncle is president of a bank in Kennard and so it may have been some financial matter. Or it may have been over politics; both of them mix in that. Anyway, he doesn't think highly of the elder Menocal, and has no use at all for the younger; so I know he would be vexed at Ruth and me for receiving this Charlie."

"You didn't know him that day he and I clashed at the ford," Lee suggested.

"Oh, no. Our meeting came about one afternoon about a week afterward.

He overtook us on the road a mile or so away from here and politely offered to bring us home in his car; we were walking and couldn't very well refuse his courtesy, and then he asked to call and Ruth at once gave him permission, and that's the way it came about. But I thought it wise to draw the line at going off miles and miles with him to see ruins. Of course, Ruth hasn't any uncle to consider, but uncle or no uncle I should have drawn the line just the same."

"A colour line, eh?" Lee asked, with a lift of his brows.

"Yes, that's it, though I hesitated to put it in just those words,"

she agreed, with a nod, while both her lips and her blue eyes smiled at him in amus.e.m.e.nt. "Really, Mexicans are of different blood and race, you know, and I feel the--gulf. That probably sounds foolish and ridiculous, still I can't help the feeling. When I look at a man like Charlie Menocal, I see the Mexican strain uppermost even if his mother was white; and I think what strange, savage, unguessed traits may lurk in his blood from a long time back; and I shiver. One dare not say they have ceased. There may be forces at work in his soul that are inherited from the very tribesmen who dwelt in that pueblo ages ago, whose ruins he and Ruth have gone to see. Who knows? And I'm never able to rid myself of the feeling that such forces exist in him and his kind."

The engineer thrust his shovel into the earth and seated himself beside the girl.

"Nor I," said he. "And I suppose that feeling will remain between persons of different races as long as the races themselves last. Those who ignore or deny it are simply blind. Why, look, there's antipathy between even white men of different nationalities! So what else is to be expected when the question is one of race and colour? Nor will one or two generations change what is infused in blood and sinew."

"Now, that's what uncle says," Imogene Martin declared, "and a.s.serts that's the reason why Mexicans born and raised here are in sympathy with those across the border in any trouble Mexico has with our country." Her face all at once became amused. "He says craniums were shaped long before governments."

Bryant laughed on hearing that concise summing up of the case. And then they continued to talk of this and other subjects, while Dave Morris drew near and silently drank in the conversation, most of which pa.s.sed above his head. As for the engineer, he found in his companion a peculiar charm that he never would have suspected from their first meeting at the ford; a pleasure begotten of a quick intelligence and a keen, trained mind.

"I've delayed you in your work," she exclaimed, at length.

"Except to throw out a few shovelfuls of dirt, and that will take but a moment. I was done. I didn't sit down until it was practically put in shape. I hope we shall have another talk soon; this one has been a great treat for me. Let me help you up."

When he had cleaned the last clods from the ditch, he set off with tripod and shovel on shoulder to walk with her to the cabins, while Dave followed with d.i.c.k. At the houses Bryant cast an appraising look at the scanty heap of chopped wood and wound up his visit by seizing the axe and attacking the store of dry poles hauled from the canon by the man who had built the cabins.

"There, that will keep you going for awhile," he stated, when he had produced a large pile of sticks. "I don't believe you're strong enough to handle an axe, Miss Martin; and it would grieve me deeply to learn you had removed a toe in the attempt. Really, this homesteading game isn't for women and girls."

"Oh, we've made out fairly well."

"Your spirit is admirable, but I can't say as much for your judgment in the matter," he returned, good-naturedly. "Still, we all go hunting trouble in our own individual fashion; if not in one way, why, then in another."

It was after five o'clock when Lee Bryant and Dave, once more leading the loaded horse, took their departure and followed Sarita Creek down to the mesa trail. When they had struck into the latter and travelled it for half a mile, they saw a long distance ahead someone walking toward them, also leading a horse. In a land where men saddle a mount to ride a few hundred yards, the singular coincidence excited their curiosity. They wondered why the fellow walked, as doubtless he was wondering the same thing of them. But as they drew nearer they perceived the pedestrian to be not a man but a woman; and when they met Bryant recognized in her the girl who had sat by Charlie Menocal in his automobile at the ford. Her gray corded riding habit was dusty; she appeared both hot and tired; and her countenance showed a deep dejection. The horse she led was limping.

Bryant raised his hat and addressed her.

"Your horse has gone lame, I see. Can I be of any service to you?"

"I'm afraid not; he acts as if he had strained a tendon," she replied.

"So I'm leading him home. Our ranch is on Diamond Creek."

"But you had a fall! There's blood on your glove."

"No, it's not from that," she said, with a shake of her head.

Bryant again remarked the exquisite molding of her face as he had noted it at their first meeting, and her wide brow and clear brown eyes and the fineness of her skin, and her warm, sensitive lips, at this instant moving in the barest tremble imaginable. She was gazing at him with a curious, troubled look.

"Bring d.i.c.k here," Lee bade Dave.

He swiftly untied the ropes and removed tripod, rod, and saddle. Then he unfastened the hitch of the saddle of the horse the girl led.

"Why, what are you doing?" she exclaimed.

"Giving you a fresh horse. You can ride mine home and send him back to me to-morrow; I live just ahead on Perro Creek at the Stevenson place."

"I wondered if you weren't the new owner, for I had learned that the ranch had been sold by Mr. Stevenson. Father bought his sheep. You are Mr. Bryant, aren't you? This is most kind to lend me your horse."

"You'll find d.i.c.k gentle; and you can lead your own mount. Walking appears to have exhausted you."

Again she shook her head, with an odd expression growing upon her face--anxiety, distress, just what Lee could not exactly decide. But as she made no explanation, he gave her a hand and swung her upon d.i.c.k, after which he handed her the reins and advanced the hope that she should arrive home without further misadventure.

She made no move to depart, however, but sat regarding the engineer.

"I was at your house," she stated, finally.

"To see me?"

"To find you, or someone, who could help me. When my horse went lame near the ford, I found that he had picked up a stone which I couldn't remove. So I led him to your house, seeking a.s.sistance. When I reached there----"

She stopped in her recital, compressing her lips and gazing off across the sagebrush.

"Well?" the engineer encouraged.

"When I reached there, I heard a dog whining."

Bryant stiffened.

"I left my dog Mike behind," said he.

"The sound was really more like a moaning," she went on. "At first I could see nothing, but when I looked everywhere I found that it came from one of the three cottonwood trees. Somebody had hurt him, and the poor creature was suffering terribly. I--I can hardly tell what had been done to him!" And she shuddered.