There are times when torture of the body heals the suffering of the
mind, and times when mental agony blots out physical pain. But there
are other times when the two run together. It was so with Bob as they
toiled doggedly through that long night across the desert toward the
river. He kept his course by the North Star, and lost little distance
by getting off the compass. It was just daylight when they reached the
river. The stream was bank full--midsummer is high water for the
Colorado--and was very muddy. But its water was more beautiful than
jasper seas to those four men.
After they had drunk and cooled themselves in it, they crawled under a
clump of willows beside the road to rest through the day. Bob had just
stretched out on his back and covered his face with a handkerchief,
ready to sleep, when a chuck-chuck and a grinding noise came down the
road. He was up instantly, and so were the three Mexicans.
"A machine!" they exclaimed. Relief! They would not have to walk that
other twenty miles.
The deep chug of the engine indicated a powerful machine pulling
heavily. It was coming rather slowly. The road was hidden by miles of
rank wild hemp; but directly the machine came round a curve.
It was a motor truck loaded high with cotton bales!
Bob's heart beat quick. They were in time to save at least part of it,
after all.
The captain bristled. Here was work to do, authority to display. He
stepped into the middle of the road, put his hand on his gun, and gave
a ringing call to halt.
The Mexican driver came to a sudden stop. He knew _el capitan_. And
whatever faults may be attributed to the governor of Baja California,
all admits he is a governor. When he speaks in person or by messenger
there is never any hesitancy about obedience.
The captain read his orders to the chauffeur and commanded him to turn
round. The four climbed on, and the truck started back.
The driver told them that only two trucks had gone on ahead; sixteen
were behind, with Senor Jenkins on the last, and each truck carried
twenty bales of cotton.
They stopped the next truck when they met it, and then waited until all
seventeen were backed up the road.
Reedy Jenkins leaped from the rear one, nervous and violent of temper,
swore, and hurried forward to see what was the trouble. To his
unutterable wrath he saw the end truck headed about.
"What the hell! you damned greasers." But then he quit. Something was
wrong here. He strode forward angrily.
"Rogeen, get off that truck and do it damn quick."
"I'm getting off," said Bob. With a quick leap he landed in the road
and went straight for Reedy. The secretary and the captain followed.
"I have a writ of attachment here," said Bob, bringing out the paper
issued by the governor, "for your cotton in favour of Ah Sing. I have
further orders from the governor to deliver the cotton to the compress
on the American side and sell it in the open market.
"Captain," Bob turned to the officer, "order the drivers to turn back.
You ride on the front one with the driver, and I'll ride on the back
one with my kind friend Senor Jenkins."
That night after Bob Rogeen had left her with the telegram Imogene
Chandler was too wrought up to sleep. And the longer she thought of
it, the more determined she became to take action herself. She had
some faith that the telegram would bring results, but not much faith
that those results would come in time to save their crop. While Bob
was riding through the days and nights, fighting for them, she and the
other ranchers were doing nothing but watch their cotton burn for water.
About eleven o'clock Imogene went to the corral and bridled and saddled
a horse. With the bridle reins in her left hand and her revolver in
her right, she galloped off north toward Rogeen's ranch to consult Noah
Ezekiel.
A mile up the road she met Noah riding south.
"What's the matter? Your dad not sick?" He was much astonished to see
her riding out at this time of night.
"No," replied the girl, "it is our cotton that is sick. And I'm going
after a doctor. Noah, I want you to go with me and show me where those
water gates are. I'm going to have water or fight. They wouldn't
shoot a woman."
"Oh, wouldn't they?" said Noah. "That shows how naturally scarce of
information you are.
"No," said the hill billy determinedly but with a current of tenderness
in his tone, "you ain't goin' to the water gates; you are goin' back to
your ranch. You are just naturally sweet enough to gentle a horse, but
you ain't cut out to fight Mexicans."
She had turned her horse round and was riding beside him back toward
her ranch.
"Now, listen here," said Noah as he saw signs of rebellion in the swing
of her body and the grip on her revolver, "you go home and get your dad
and your Chinaman ready. There's goin' to be water in them ditches
before daylight or there will be one less hill billy in this vale of
tears."
During these fervid days Noah Ezekiel had not been asleep, although
much of the time he looked as though he were on the verge of it. He
had had his eye on both ranches--the Chandlers' and the Red Butte.
Twice he had cautiously reconnoitred the full length of the water
ditches.
At a point on the Valley Irrigation Company's big canal, about seven
miles below the intake from the Colorado River, two diverting ditches
branched off; the larger of these furnished the main water supply of
the Mexican side of the valley, the smaller was the Dillenbeck system.
At these gates the Valley Company kept water keepers and guards day and
night. As the Dillenbeck Company were merely private consumers, water
was turned into this canal only on their orders, and charged for by the
thousand feet.
Four miles below where this canal began to branch to the various
ranches it supplied was the Dillenbeck water station. It was the
keeper in charge here who ordered water from the main canal and who
opened the sluice gates and apportioned it to the various ranches.
Noah Ezekiel on his reconnoitring discovered two things: The night
water keeper had been reenforced by a Mexican guard; and besides
Madrigal, the Mexican Jew, usually spent the night with these two.
Expecting trouble, a company of twenty Mexican special guards was
camped a quarter of a mile down the canal, in easy calling distance.
These guards, while authorized by the comandante, were hired and paid
by Reedy Jenkins. It was their duty to patrol the canal above and
below by the main water gates and be ready at all times to repulse any
threatened attack.
Noah Ezekiel had been approached several times by infuriated ranchers
with suggestions that they organize a mob. But American ranchers were
too few and unpopular to make mobs highly hopeful. An attack on these
guards would bring on a conflict with the whole Mexican garrison at
Mexicali, consisting of several hundred well-trained troops. Noah
Ezekiel advised strongly against this. Noah was opposed to strife of
any kind. But he had been doing a little plotting of his own.
He knew the Red Owl employed a number of boosters for the games--men
who went from table to table and gambled with the house's money. The
psychology of gambling is like the psychology of anything else--the
livelier the game the more there are who want to get into it. The job
of the booster is to stimulate business by gambling freely himself.
These boosters are paid four dollars a day; and the ordinary Mexican,
if given his choice between being secretary of state and a booster at
the Red Owl, would pick the Owl every time.
After a reasonable wait to see if water was coming in by the due
process of law and growing doubtful about it, Noah Ezekiel had begun
carefully laying plans.
That morning he had gone to the Red Owl and had a secret session with
Jack the Ace of Diamonds, one of the game keepers. Jack and the hill
billy had become good friends, and Jack was more than willing to
accommodate a friend.
"Now, Ace," said Noah, "the idea is like this: This afternoon you send
a Mexican out to that camp on the Dillenbeck canal with the information
that the Owl wants to hire about eleven good boosters to begin work at
twelve o'clock to-night; and have the messenger casually but secretly
give each of them a slip of paper that is dead sure to get him one of
the jobs.
"And," Noah grinned, "you give every one of 'em that applies a job for
two days--as a treat on me. You can fix it with the boss."
"Sure," grinned Jack, "I'll fix it." And a Mexican messenger had been
dispatched on the spot.
Noah sat at the ranch shack as dark came on and counted them as they
went by down the road. As he guessed, the officer would get away
first, and the rest begin to drop away from camp one or two at a time
soon after dark. By eleven o'clock he had counted seventeen: and then
Noah saddled his horse. When he had met Imogene, he had thought she
was another Mexican, but he was not alarmed at one or even three.
A little before one o'clock Noah tied his horse to a cottonwood tree a
half mile below the Dillenbeck water gates.
He skirted through the fields round the deserted guard camp. His
caution was not necessary, not a Mexican soldier was left. He grinned
to think of the boosters about now in the Red Owl. Two hundred yards
from the little open shack that served as office and home for the water
keeper Noah took off his shoes and left his hat, and slipped toward the
light. In his hands, muzzle forward, was the double-barrelled
shotgun--the riot gun sure to hit its mark at close range that Bob had
got for him with which to guard the Chandler ranch.