. Men on watch of his
movements could have prepared it against his return; and, indeed, he
thought he detected a pair of flitting shadows behind a row of willow
bushes lining a Mexican irrigation ditch, but in the dusk he could not
be sure. On running thither, he found no one.

The camp was not of a temper, however, to allow the attacks to be all
on one side. Atkinson, the superintendent, came to Weir one morning
towards the end of the week and informed him workmen were drifting
down to San Mateo nightly in hope of trouble.

"They'll get a knife put into them," Steele Weir replied, with a frown
that did not entirely hide his satisfaction at this evidence of
support.

"Maybe; and again maybe not," the superintendent stated, grinning. "A
bunch jumped some of our boys last night and I guess when the dust
settled there were a couple of Mexicans beaten nearly to death."

"Call the men all together this noon," Weir ordered.

At that hour he gave them a talk for what he called their long-eared
cussedness, and laid down a little law and wound up with a number of
reasonable explanations for the same. Every man who went out hunting
trouble was a camp liability, and would be fired. He did not propose
to give the town authorities a chance to jail workmen and impair the
dam work, just the thing they were waiting to do. The men should keep
away from San Mateo, or at least avoid disputes and rows. If they
spent no money there whatever it would sting the town where it would
hurt the most, in its pocket-book; and he himself was transferring the
company bank account to Bowenville, by way of example. If any man felt
the need of change from camp, he could have two days off at the end of
the month to spend at Bowenville. But keep away from the Mexicans!

"And if they come up here huntin' us when we show up no more?" yelled
the same big Irishman who had paid his respects to Vorse.

"In that case, tear their heads off," was the reply. "But put on your
gloves first or you'll dirty your fingers." Which bit of rough humor
caught the crowd's fancy and won a roar of laughter.

Later as the crowd dispersed to eat Atkinson said to Meyers, "The boss
knows how to handle men all right, all right; he put sugar on the
pill. The gang went off grinning. They know they've got to be
good--but only up to a limit."

Meantime Felipe Martinez had not been idle. He rode up to engineering
headquarters on his pony one evening and carried Weir out into the