“What do you mean, Mr. Lance?” cried Dorothy.
“Them minin’ people have got a gang to put in a few dynamite ca’tridges where they’ll do the most good—for them. They intend to blow out enough rock at the head of that gorge you seen the surveyors working in, to drain the current of Lost River out of its bed.”
“Oh! the wicked things!” gasped Tavia.
“You don’t mean it?” was Dorothy’s comment.
“So it was give to me, Miss Dale,” said Lance. “Them surveyors was workin’ for the Consolidated Ackron Company. I got it from the feller that kerried the chain.”
“We saw him,” interrupted Tavia. “A bushy whiskered man.”
“Gil Patrick. That’s him,” said Lance, with emphasis. “When I got the straight tip I reckoned you folks oughter know it. For once let them mining people turn the river their way (they kin get it to their works a sight easier than the Desert City folks kin handle it) and yuh aunt would have a stiff fight on her hands in the courts. Possession is all of nine p’ints of the law—specially in water-rights,” added Lance, nodding vigorously.
“They must be very wicked men,” said Dorothy, “to wish to rob the poor farmers down there in the desert of water. And they will be robbing us, too.”
“I expect they’ll settle at a fair price—only yuh aunt won’t git Lost River back intuh its banks—no, sir!”