watching.

"Say, she's all right, ain't she?" observed Jeff, when his partner
looked up.

"That's right," said Hardy, "and she says to take you on again as
foreman and pay you for every day you didn't carry your gun."

"No!" cried Creede, and then he laughed quietly to himself. "Does that
include them days I was prizin' up hell down in Bender? Oh, it does,
eh? Well, you can tell your boss that I'll make that up to her before
the Summer's over."

He leaned back and stretched his powerful arms as if preparing for
some mighty labor. "We're goin' to have a drought this Summer," he
said impressively, "that will have the fish packin' water in canteens.
Yes, sir, the chaser is goin' to cost more than the whiskey before
long; and they's goin' to be some dead cows along the river. Do you
know what Pablo Moreno is doin'? He's cuttin' brush already to feed
his cattle. That old man is a wise _hombre_, all right, when it comes
to weather. He's been hollerin' '_Ano seco, ano seco_,' for the last
year, and now, by Joe, we've got it! They ain't hardly enough water in
the river to make a splash, and here it's the first of June. We've
been kinder wropt up in fightin' sheep and sech and hain't noticed how
dry it's gittin'; but that old feller has been sittin' on top of his
hill watchin' the clouds, and smellin' of the wind, and measurin' the
river, and countin' his cows until he's a weather sharp. I was
a-ridin' up the river this afternoon when I see the old man cuttin'
down a _palo verde_ tree, and about forty head of cattle lingerin'
around to eat the top off as soon as she hit the ground; and he says
to me, kinder solemn and fatherly:

"'Jeff,' he says, 'cut trees for your cattle--this is an _ano seco_."

"'Yes, I've heard that before,' says I. 'But my cows is learnin' to
climb.'"

"'_Stawano_,' he says, throwin' out his hands like I was a hopeless
proposition. But all the same I think I'll go out to-morrow and cut
down one of them _palo verdes_ like he show'd me--one of these kind
with little leaves and short thorns--jest for an expeeriment. If
the cattle eat it, w'y maybe I'll cut another, but I don't want to
be goin' round stuffin' my cows full of twigs for nothin'. Let 'em
rustle for their feed, same as I do. But honest to God, Rufe, some of
them little runty cows that hang around the river can't hardly
cast a shadder, they're that ganted, and calves seems to be
gittin' kinder scarce, too. But here--git busy, now--here's a