The hour that followed was the worst I ever endured, as we crouched there in the darkness and the silence, not knowing what had occurred up above.
At length the shadow moved across the face of the sun, it was brilliant day once more, when, the moment we thought it safe to venture, down we jumped and set off up the line of the ditch. We had not gone a quarter-mile when we saw two men coming down, running frantically. In a few seconds they had reached the spot where we stood waiting for them, not knowing exactly what we were to expect of them.
Never have I seen such panic terror as these men exhibited; they were white and trembling and speechless. For two or three minutes we could get nothing out of them, but at length one of them recovered himself enough to tell us what had happened.
The wolves had caught them in that narrow, precipitous arroyo, coming from both ends at once. The two men, themselves, had succeeded in scrambling up to a safe place, but Galvez, attempting to do the same, had lost his hold and fallen back. Before he could recover his feet the wolves were upon him, and then——!
Well—no wonder those men were sick and pale and trembling!
That the padron's designs against us had been evil there could be no doubt—in fact, his shivering henchmen admitted as much—but, quite unsuspicious of the coming of the midday darkness, and knowing nothing of the fierce nature of these "island" wolves, he had run himself into that fatal trap. It was truly a dreadful ending.
Does any one wonder now that the date of the eclipse of '78 should be so indelibly stamped on our memories?
There being now nothing to interfere with us, we went down to Hermanos and took possession of the Casa, and from that time forward the work on our irrigation system moved along without let or hindrance from anything but the seasons.
But though it was now plain sailing, and though we eventually got together a force of twenty Mexicans to do the digging, the amount of work was so great that we had not nearly finished that part of the ditch which wound over the foothills when frost came and stopped us. We at once moved everything down to the village and began again at that end, keeping hard at it until frost stopped us once more, and finally for that year.