“I walked, señor.”
“Walked! You must be dead. Get to bed. You’ll be all right in the morning.” A twenty-mile walk to escape the cruelty of the brute whom she would not divorce because of a few priest-mumbled words! Not hers the sacrament of love, of vows mutually kept, yet he knew that he could not depend on her testimony to convict that scoundrel down the river. One glance from his eye, and she would be a shivering lump of fear again.
He must trap the rogue. Some Indian, that was the plan. He would ask Coronel. Coronel, himself, could not play the game; Maldonado would not sell liquor to the white man’s friend. He was too wily for that. But some buck—Coronel would make the choice. An Indian who would go to the adobe, pretend intoxication; be clear-headed enough to betray him. That infernal place must be closed. The woman had come in the nick of time. Those tribes were to be guarded as restless children—
He went out to meet Forestier.
CHAPTER XXIX
RICKARD MAKES A NEW ENEMY AND A NEW FRIEND
THE coming of the Indians gave the impetus the work had lacked. Under Jenks, of the railroad company, a large force was put on the river; these, the weavers of the brush mattresses that were to line the river-bed. On the banks were the brush-cutters; tons of willows were to be cut to weave into the forty miles of woven wire cable waiting for the cross-strands. Day by day, the piles of willow branches grew higher, the brush-cutters working ahead of the mattress workers in the stream. In the dense undergrowth, the stolid Indians, Pimas and Maricopas and Papagoes, struggled with the fierce thorn of the mesquit and the over-powering smell of the arrow-weed. As tough as the hickory handles they wielded, they fought a clearing through dense thickets, in the intense tropic heat.
It was a glittering day. A copper sun rode the sky; the desert sand burned through the shoe leather. Down-stream, the Brobdingnagian arm of the dredge fell into the mud of the by-pass, dropping its slimy burden on the far bank. Twenty-four hours of sun, and the mud bank would resemble a pile of rocks that wind and sun again would disintegrate into a silt. Down the long stretch of levee, the “skinners” drove their mules and scrapers; two pile-drivers were setting in the treacherous stream the piles which were to anchor the steel-cabled mattresses to the river-bed. It was a well-organized, active scene. Rickard, in his office, dictating letters and telegrams to MacLean, Jr., felt his first satisfaction. Things were beginning to show the result of months of planning. Cars were rushing in from north and east; every quarry between Los Angeles and Tucson requisitioned for their undertaking.
A shadow fell on the pine desk. Ling, in blue ticking shirt and white butcher apron, waited for the “boss” to look up. He stood wiping the perspiration from his head, hairless except for the long silk-tapered queue.
“Well, Ling?”
“I go tamale.” His voice was soft as silk. “I no stay.”