Houston studied the flume.
"We'll have to get some men up here and rip out this connection," came at last. "They've broken off our end entirely."
"Ah, oui! But we will stay here. By'm'by, Medaine come. We will send her for men."
"Medaine? That was she I heard talking?"
"Oui. She had come to ask me if she should bring me food. She was riding. Ba'teese sen' her away. But she say she come back to see if Ba'teese is all right."
Houston shook his head.
"That's good. But I'm afraid that you won't find her doing anything to help me out."
"She will help Ba'teese," came simply from the big man, as the iron-bound cant hook was examined for the fiftieth time. "Why they no come, huh?"
"Search me. Do you suppose they've given it up? It's a bluff on their part, you know, Ba'tiste. They haven't any legal right to this land or flume or anything else; they just figured that my mill was burned and that I wouldn't be in a position to fight them. So they decided to take over the flume and try to force us into letting them have it."
"Here comes somebody!" Ba'tiste's grip tightened about the cant hook and he rose, squaring himself. Houston seized the club and stood waiting a few feet in the rear, in readiness for any one who might evade the bulwark of blows which Ba'tiste evidently intended to set up. Far in the woods showed the shadowy forms of three men, approaching steadily and apparently without any desire for battle. Ba'tiste turned sharply. "Your eye, keep heem open. Eet may be a blind."