rlie Menocal's patronizing air and the sudden thundercloud hanging
on his visage attested that the charge had gone home.

Ten minutes later the automobile passed the garden, but Bryant, who
had set up his tripod and stationed Dave with his rod some distance
off, did not see the hand Ruth Gardner waved. His eye was where an
engineer's eye should be, at his transit.

"She waved at you," Dave called.

"Who?"

"That girl with the Mexican."

"Well, what of it?"

When Bryant used that tone, Dave recognized the wisdom of silence. He
pretended that he had not heard. Even his employer, whom he
worshipped, had strange, mysterious moods.

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 title 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. R