“Well, here I am!”
“And a sorry sight to show you. Look a’ that now. Isn’t that a regular coyote piece of work?”
Along this face of the canyon descended a line of small wooden troughs, closely joined, and supported upon slender but strong cedar uprights. This flume connected with the distant reservoir of an irrigating company and had been built by Jessica’s dead father at a great and ill-afforded expense. But of all good things there was nothing so precious to the tillers of that thirsty land as water, and the cutting off of this supply meant ruin to Sobrante.
Young as she was, Jessica fully understood this, though she could not understand that any human being should do a deed so dastardly.
“John Benton, you mustn’t say that. Some of the cattle have done it. It’s an accident. It can be mended. I’m sorry, of course, but so thankful you found it. And I see you’ve got your tools.”
“Oh! I can mend it, all right, but it won’t stay mended. You’ll see. ’Tisn’t the first break I’ve patched, not by any means.”
“Of course it isn’t. Only last week in that stampede, when the boys were changing pasture, the creatures ran against it and you fixed it, good as new. There isn’t anything you can’t do with an ax and a few nails.”
John passed the compliment by unheeding.
“There’s breaks and there’s cuts. Reckon I can tell the difference quick enough. This is a cut and isn’t the first one I’ve found, I say. ’Twas a fresh-ground blade did this piece of deviltry, or I’m no judge of edges. Now, who did it? Why? And how’s old Pedro?”
Despite her faith in her friends, the small ranchwoman’s heart sank.