He was not afraid. He was ready for the struggle about the ranch at Aguas Grandes. But he hoped that that struggle would end the warring of Welch.
He understood now something that Jack Adeler had said: that some day, before long, he hoped that the whole Army would be busy with great engineering, with building Panama canals, and stringing wires, and setting up wireless-stations, and making great forests, instead of preparing for fighting.
That, too, was what Hike wanted to do. He hoped, some day before long, to be an engineer, in good, stout laced leather boots and a sombrero, building a fine big steel bridge across some dangerous pass in the High Sierras, with the good open air and the deep woods about him. He planned to know wireless and aeroplanes and steel—and he hoped that every new thing he did, every fine bridge or aeroplane that he built, would be one step toward making a more civilized world, which would not want war; which would prefer happiness and peace and the good brave mountain woods to fighting like clay-grimed savages.
It was the first time that Hike really knew how serious he could be. He didn’t feel much like a gay Santa Benicia boy, just then.
At last, exhausted, he fell asleep. He was awakened by the stopping of the motor, and, in the gray light of early dawn, saw that they were circling over a group of adobe buildings, with cattle corrals about, while a bunch of men were shouting, “He’s here! Adeler’s here!”
They were at Aguas Grandes.
CHAPTER XXIV
A SKIRMISH AT AGUAS GRANDES
“I don’t trust that greaser that’s guarding the south gate of the stockade,” objected Hike.
“He? Why he’s one of the safest men I’ve got,” laughed Lieutenant Adeler.
They were making a tour of inspection, about the high fence of close-set barb-wire that had been built around the buildings of Adeler’s ranch. They were dressed like cowpunchers, in furry chaps and sombreros.