"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 h.e.l.l! you d.a.m.ned greasers." But then he quit. Something was wrong here. He strode forward angrily.

"Rogeen, get off that truck and do it d.a.m.n 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 b.u.t.te.

Twice he had cautiously reconnoitred the full length of the water ditches.

At a point on the Valley Irrigation Company's big ca.n.a.l, 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 ca.n.a.l only on their orders, and charged for by the thousand feet.

Four miles below where this ca.n.a.l 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 ca.n.a.l 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 ca.n.a.l, 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 ca.n.a.l 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 ca.n.a.l 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.

CHAPTER x.x.x

Noah, bent low, slipped forward in utter silence--more silence than necessary. The American water keeper, Madrigal, and the Mexican guard were too profoundly busy with a c.r.a.p game on the floor under the lantern to be disturbed by the mere breaking of a twig.

But all at once from out the night came a drawling voice:

"Brethren, let's raise our hands." Three pairs of eyes leaped up from the dice and looked into the muzzle of the most vicious shotgun they had ever seen--not ten feet away. Six hands went up without a word.

"Stand up," was the next drawling command. "Turn your backs." Noah flung two small ropes at their feet.

"You," he ordered Madrigal, "tie the Mex's hands behind him--and stand him over by the wall."