Celinda was uttering sharp cries to excite her horse; it seemed as though she must share her delight with him. In a little while she was going to meet what interested her most in that whole wide countryside! As she followed a turn in the river bank, the surface of the stream suddenly widened before her eyes, forming a quiet and solitary lake. At its farthest limit, at the point where the banks pressed in and disturbed its waters, were outlined the iron profiles of several great derricks, and the tin or straw roofs of a settlement. This was the little town that had grown up near the dam, a town of houses that had risen but a slight distance above the ground, with not a single second story to break the monotonous level of its roof line.
But Celinda’s curiosity stopped short of the settlement. Reining in her horse, she walked him through several squads of men working at some distance from the river, at the point where the level of the ground began to rise abruptly.
These peons, some of them Europeans, others half-breeds, were removing and heaping up the soil which they took from the ditches that were to become part of the irrigation system. Two ditching machines, with a great roar of motors, were also attacking the ground in an attempt to facilitate this human labor.
Celinda looked about her with keen exploring eyes, and turning her back on the workmen she went toward a man she had spied on a small elevation of ground. He sat on a canvas folding chair, before a small table; his sombrero lay at his feet which were encased in thick muddy boots, as rough and serviceable as the rest of his clothing. His head on his hand, he was studying the charts spread out before him.
He was one of those blond clear-eyed young men who remind us of the Greek youths immortalized in sculpture, and who for some unexplainable reason reappear, with surprising frequency, in the northern races of Europe. Straight-nosed, with curly hair growing low over his forehead, and a firm and powerful neck line, he was an unexpected apparition in that barren spot. So absorbed was he in his calculations that he did not notice Celinda’s arrival.
She still had her lassoo in her hand, and with the cunning and noiseless step of an Indian, she began to climb up the slope. Not the slightest sound betrayed her approach. Within a few yards of her goal she straightened up, laughing silently at her prank, and giving the lassoo a few vigorous preliminary swings, she suddenly let it fly. The noose poised over the youth and descended upon him in a flash. Then it tightened, pinning down his arms, and a slight jerk nearly upset him.
Angrily he looked about him, his fists doubled up, his muscles tense; then suddenly he burst out laughing. To complete her impudent performance, Celinda was gently tugging at the lassoo, and in order not to be overturned, there was nothing for the youth to do but move towards her. When he stood close beside her she looked up at him apologetically.
“It’s such a long time since we’ve seen one another ...! Tanto tiempo! I thought I’d better get you on the other end of this rope, so you can’t get away!”
The youth looked his astonishment. In a drawling voice that made his slow Spanish sound amusingly foreign, he exclaimed.
“Such a long time! Why, what about this morning?”