"Wonder if the blamed thing's drying up," he hazarded. "Well, we've got a pailful for drinking and cooking, anyway. And after breakfast we'll try to find out what's happened."
They had not yet explored the little draw down which the water drained; it was shallow and uninteresting; but they did not need to go far to find out "what had happened." Around the shoulder of the first bend they arrived at a branch draw on the other side of their low hill, and were in the midst of some more claims.
Water from a spring had been feeding the little draw and the branch draw both; but now a sluice had been set up, taking away so much that there was none left for the little draw.
Several men were at work with the sluice. They paid no attention to their visitors until Harry interrupted the nearest.
"Look here. You men have taken our water."
The man turned around short. He was the giant who had commented on Terry's big pan and on the condition in general of the Golden Prize prospect.
"What you talkin' about?" he growled. "Who are you an' where you come from? Oh, it's you, is it?" he added, to Terry—and Terry had the notion that he had known perfectly well who they were and where they were from, before speaking.
"Yes," answered Terry. "And this is my partner. You aren't leaving us any water for our own sluice."
"You have all that comes, haven't you?"
"We haven't all that ought to come, though," answered Harry, a bit sharply because the giant's tone was decidedly rough. "You've dug the ditch to your sluice higher up than necessary, and it lowers the level of the spring so much that no water enters our gulch at all. The stream used to split, didn't it?"