“It was you said that!” exclaimed the brooding, helpless Lolita.
“So I did. And it was you said no. Well, we found something to disagree about.” The man in the flannel shirt was plainly attending to his tormentor. “No sabe cuantos son cinco,” Luis whispered, stepping close to Lolita. “Your gringo could not say boo to a goose just now.” Lolita drew away from her cousin, and her lover happened to turn his head slightly, so that he caught sight of her drawing away. “But what do you say yourself, Don Ruz?” inquired Luis, pleased at this slight coincidence—“will the Tinaja go dry, do you think?”
“I expect guessing won’t interfere with the water’s movements much,” finally remarked Don Ruz—Russ Genesmere. His drawl and the body in his voice were not much like the Mexican’s light fluency. They were music to Lolita, and her gaze went to him once more, but he got no answer. The bitter Luis relished this too.
“You are right, Don Ruz. Guessing is idle. Yet how can we help wondering about this mysterious Tinaja? I am sure that you can never have seen so much of the cross out of water. Lolita says—”
“So that’s that place,” said Genesmere, roughly.
Luis looked inquiring.
“Down there,” Genesmere explained, with a jerk of his head back along the road they had come.
Luis was surprised that Don Ruz, who knew this country so well, should never have seen the Tinaja Bonita until to-day.
“I’d have seen it if I’d had any use for it,” said Genesmere.
“To be sure, it lay off the road of travel,” Luis assented. And of course Don Ruz knew all that was needful—how to find it. He knew what people said—did he not? Father Rafael, Don Ramon, everybody? Lolita perhaps had told him? And that if the cross ever rose entirely above the water, that was a sign all other water-holes in the region were empty. Therefore it was a good warning for travellers, since by it they could judge how much water to carry on a journey. But certainly he and Lolita were surprised to see how low the Tinaja had fallen to-day. No doubt what the Indians said about the great underground snake that came and sucked all the wells dry in the lower country, and in consequence was nearly satisfied before he reached the Tinaja, was untrue.