y from the
ditches that crossed the disputed tracts so that the trespassers there
should have none in which to pan gold--or to pretend that they were
panning gold. Since the whole ranch was irrigated by springs running out
here and there from under the bluff, and all the ditches ran to meadow
and orchard and patches of small fruit, and since the springs could not
well be stopped from flowing, the thing was not to be done in a minute.

And since there were four boys with decided ideas upon the
subject--ideas which harmonized only in the fundamental desire to harry
the interlopers, the thing was not to be done without much time being
wasted in fruitless argument.

Wally insisted upon running the water all into a sandy hollow where much
of it would seep away and a lake would do no harm, the main objection
to that being that it required digging at least a hundred yards of new
ditch, mostly through rocky soil.

Jack wanted to close all the headgates and just let the water go where
it wanted to--which was easy enough, but ineffective, because most of it
found its way into the ditches farther down the slope.

Gene and Clark did not much care how the thing was done--so long as it
was done their way. At least, that is what they said.

It was Good Indian who at length settled the matter. There were five
springs altogether; he proposed that each one make himself responsible
for a certain spring, and see to it that no water reached the jumpers.

"And I don't care a tinker's dam how you do it," he said. "Drink it all,
if you want to. I'll take the biggest--that one under the milk-house."
Whereat they jeered at him for wanting to be close to Evadna.

"Well, who has a better right?" he challenged, and then inconsiderately
left them before they could think of a sufficiently biting retort.

So they went to work, each in his own way, agreeing mostly in untiring
industry. That is how Miss Georgie found them occupied--except that Good
Indian had stopped long enough to soothe Evadna and her aunt, and
to explain that the water would really not rise much higher in the
milk-house, and that he didn't believe Evadna's pet bench at the head of
the pond would be inaccessible because of his efforts.

Phoebe was sloshing around upon the flooded floor of her milk-house,
with her skirts tucked up and her indignation growing greater as she
gave it utterance, rescuing her pans of milk and her jars of cream.
Evadna, upon the top step, sat with h