"Keep them here until I come back," Charley told him softly. "Come on, Walt, I am going to follow that rill up to its source."
They had not far to go. A couple of hundred yards from the machine they found the rill's source among a clump of willows. Here a little spring bubbled up from the ground. Near its mouth, fastened tightly to a stake, was an object that caused the boy to utter exclamations of surprise and relief. It was a muslin bag capable of holding eight or ten pounds and it was stained a bright red. It had been cunningly placed in a narrow part of the rill and the dirt banked up on both sides so that all the water from the spring would have to pass through or over it.
"Don't touch it," Charley said. "Go bring the machine men here. I want to make this an object lesson to them."
While Walter was gone on this errand, the lad gathered up several pasteboard packages that lay scattered around on the ground. He noted with satisfaction that the directions on them were printed in Spanish as well as English.
In a few minutes Walter was back with the wondering Spaniards. Relief began to replace the look of fright on their faces as Charley silently pointed out to them the red stained bag and, untying it from the stake, undid the string closing its mouth and shook out on the ground a mass of water-soaked red powder. He picked up three of the packages he had collected and gave one to each of the Spaniards. "Read," he said shortly. The Spaniards burst out laughing as they grasped the cause of the thing that had so frightened them.
"Our enemies want to stop us from building this road," Charley said in Spanish. "They are fools. They think by firing off their guns in the air at night, starting fires in the grass, and coloring water red with dyes, that they can frighten away the brave, noble sons of Spain. Surely they are fools."
"They are fools," agreed Bossie, now completely recovered from his fright. "They might frighten children, but Spaniards never. No other race is as brave and fearless as the sons of Spain."