lways use a man with a
team." Johnson nodded. "After haying is done, maybe. And remember, I'm
much obliged to you for looking after my little girl. I won't forget
that, either." He reached up diffidently and shook hands with the
engineer. Weir's grip was sympathetic and sincere.

CHAPTER IV

A SECRET CONFERENCE

On a certain afternoon Felipe Martinez, the lean and restless attorney
who had acted as the Mexican workmen's mouthpiece, observed through
the broad plate-glass window of the San Mateo Cattle Company's office
an incident that greatly interested him. For the moment he forgot the
resentment kindled by Sorenson's abrupt refusal and brutal words when
he asked for the nomination for county attorney. The election was in
the autumn; the nomination was equivalent to election; and Felipe
considered that he had too long been kept apart from that particular
spoil.

Martinez had once had a slight difference with the banker, and now
outrageously Sorenson had recalled it. He had stated that Martinez
should hold no political office; he gave offices only to men who did
exactly as he advised; his exact words were that the Mexican was
"tricky and no good." And picking up his hat Sorenson who had that day
returned home from the east went out of the bank, leaving Martinez to
stare out of the window and meditatively twist a point of his silky
black mustache.

It was before the window that there occurred the meeting between
Sorenson and the manager of the dam. Martinez perceived the two men
glance at each other and pass, but after a step or two both men
halted. As if worked by a single wire, they slowly swung about for a
second look. The Mexican's nimble brain calculated that they could not
have previously met and in consequence their behavior bespoke
something out of the ordinary.

The pair stood exactly where they had turned, three or four paces
apart, he noted. The Mexican's mind palpitated with a slight thrill of
excitement. The manner of each of the men was that of a fighting
animal looking over another animal of the same sort: neither uttering
a word, nor stirring a finger, nor yielding a particle in his fixed
unwinking gaze. Martinez could almost feel the exchanged challenge,
the cold antagonism, the hostile curiosity, the matching of wills, the
instant hate, between the men.

Though they had not met before, to be sure, nevertheless they were
enemies. Was it because of the discharge of the workmen? Then
Mart