n the
cheek with the gloved finger that now wore a diamond solitaire. To Mr.
Gretzinger she continued, "If you get us home without a wetting, you
may stay and eat with us; but if you don't, why, you can go straight
on to town."

Off the car sped down the trail toward Bartolo where it would gain the
well-travelled mesa road, a hand thrust through the curtains waving
back at Bryant.

The engineer did not go to Sarita Creek that night, for the rain
settled into a steady drizzle that lasted until well toward morning.
After supper he went, however, to the adobe dwelling of the Mexican
who once had warned him from his field. The man's seven-year-old boy
had fallen from a horse the day previous and fractured a leg; half
fearfully, half recklessly, the parent had come running to camp for
medical aid; and Lee had despatched the camp doctor, a young fellow
recently graduated, to treat the injury. Bryant was admitted into the
house. The youngster, he learned, was resting comfortably and had been
visited by the doctor that afternoon. Lee was even conducted to the
bedside, where the boy's leg thick with splints and wrappings was
exhibited for his benefit.

"The doctor, he said I was to speak to you about his pay," the Mexican
stated after a time, when he and Bryant had talked awhile in Spanish.

Bryant waved the words aside.

"There's no charge, nothing," said he. "I was delighted to send the
doctor. I hope your son improves rapidly. The physician will continue
to pay you calls until the boy no longer requires them. Those are very
pretty geraniums you have in the window, senora. Are they fragrant?"
Lee crossed the room and bent his face above them.

The man's wife rubbed her hands together under her apron with much
pleasure. Thus politely for him to notice and praise her flowers! In
her heart, as in the heart of her husband, there formerly had been
resentment at this white canal-builder for cutting their field with a
big ditch, an occurrence which the county judge somehow had stupidly
permitted. But now she did not know what to feel. Yesterday he had
sent them a doctor for nothing, and this evening was smelling her
flowers admiringly. He could not be exactly a monster. Removing one
hand from beneath her apron, she inserted a finger-nail in her black
hair and scratched her scalp, considering the subject. Winter was
coming, too. Food would be needed--and besides, she long had desired
one of those loud phonographs at Menocal's