For half an hour she sat so, her chin on her hand, thinking.
Then at last she straightened and called Minnie Pine from the inner regions.
“Send me Caldwell,” she said briefly.
When presently the foreman came from the corrals and stood before her, his hat in his hand, his attitude one of strict attention, she spoke swiftly with a certain satisfaction.
When she had finished, he said, “Sure. It’s a pretty long trick, but it can be done.”
“Then do it,” said Kate Cathrew, “when I give the word. We’ll wait a little, however—until the corn shows green from here. The better it looks one day the greater will be the contrast next. That’s all.”
“The devils are working in the Boss’s head again,” said Minnie Pine, who had listened behind the window, speaking to old Josefa in their polyglot Spanish and Pomo, “and hell’s going to pop for the sun-woman on Nameless.”
“How do you know?” asked the ancient dame, weaving a basket in dim green grasses.
“Because I heard what she said to Caldwell.”
“You hear too much. An overloaded basket—breaks.”