"Then I won't," said Kitty Wade, "for I think you believe what you say. Which," she added to herself, "is more than I do, young lady."
CHAPTER XVI
On all the ranches along the Coldstream there was water in plenty. The ditches ran brimful. In the fields the soil was dark with grateful moisture; the roots of the grain drank deep, fed full on the stored fertility of ages magically released by the water, and shot suddenly from small, frail plants, apparently lying thinly in the drills, into crowding, lusty growths, vigorous, strong-stemmed, robust, throwing millions of green pennants to the warm winds. Down the length of the fields at narrow intervals trickled little streams like liquid silver wires strung against a background of living emerald. Pullulation was forced, swift, marvellous; one could almost hear the grain grow.
Though everything pointed to a bumper crop, this depended on a continued water supply, and the ranchers took full advantage of the present, for none could tell how long the conditions would endure. As soon as one piece of land had sufficient moisture the water was shifted elsewhere; they allowed no overflow, no waste. This meant long hours, continuous, if not arduous work.
Naturally each ranch's main ditch was the heart of its water supply. From these, smaller ditches carried the supply to the different fields. These represented the arteries. The small streams trickling down the long irrigation marks through the grain and root crops might be likened to veins. To supply these it was necessary to tap the arteries every few yards; and the adjustment of these outlets, as ditches always lower during the heat of the day when suction and evaporation are the greatest and rise in the cooler hours of the night, was a matter of some skill and difficulty.
Dunne and his entire force worked overtime, taking all they could get while they could get it. Glass, the timorous would-be investor, paid him several visits. The first time Casey himself showed him over the ranch, explaining the theory and practice of irrigation, telling him what crops could be grown, what could not be grown, and what might perhaps be grown but as yet had not been proven. Glass absorbed this information like a sponge. Once more he recited his doubts and fears, going over the same ground with wearying detail. Casey, on the second visit, handed him over to Tom McHale, who listened pityingly.
"This here Glass sure needs a guardian or a nursemaid or something," he told Casey afterward. "He don't seem to know which way to string his chips. He makes me that tired I sorter suggests maybe he'd better pray about it; and he says he's done that, too, but don't seem to git no straight answer. So I tells him if the Lord don't know I surely don't. And then he says he'll ask his wife. His wife! Whatever do you think of that? I quit him right there!"
But Glass wandered from ranch to ranch, a harmless bore, relating his perplexities to people too busy to listen. Finally he announced that he had bought land and sent for his family. And on the strength of this began his rounds again, eager for agricultural information.
At this time Casey received a letter from Wade giving the date of his long-promised visit to Coldstream. He added that his wife and Miss Burnaby would accompany him. They would stay, he said, in town, at the hotel. Immediately Casey went into committee with Tom McHale.
"Wade was coming here," he said. "The ladies complicate matters, but we'll have to do the best we can. It's the house that worries me. It's not furnished the way I'd like to have it. And then it's small. I guess we'll have to move out, Tom."