ep; let me advise you.

"When the sheepmen come across the river do not fight, as Don Jeff
does continually, but let them pass. They are many and the cowmen are
few; they are rich and we are very poor; how then can a few men whip
many, and those armed with the best? And look--if a sheepman is killed
there is the law, you know, and lawyers--yes, and money!" He shrugged
his shoulders and threw out his hands, peeping ruefully through the
fingers to symbolize prison bars.

"Is it not so?" he asked, and for the first time an Americano agreed
with him.

"One thing more, then," said Don Pablo, lowering his voice and
glancing toward the house, where Creede was conversing with the
Senora. "The _papa_ of Don Jeff yonder was a good man, but he was a
fighting Texano--and Jeff is of the same blood. Each year as the sheep
come through I have fear for him, lest he should kill some saucy
_borreguero_ and be sent to prison; for he has angry fits, like his
father, and there are many bad men among the sheep-herders,--escaped
criminals from Old Mexico, _ladrones_, and creatures of low blood,
fathered by evil Americanos and the nameless women of towns.

"In Sonora we would whip them from our door, but the sheepmen make
much of their herders, calling them brothers and _cunados_ and what
not, to make them stay, since the work is hard and dangerous. And to
every one of them, whether herder or camp rustler, the owners give a
rifle with ammunition, and a revolver to carry always. So they are
drunk with valor. But our Jeff here has no fear of them, no, nor
decent respect. He overrides them when the fit is on him, as if they
were unfanged serpents--and so far he has escaped."

The old man leaned closer, and lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper,
acting out his words dramatically.

"But some day--" he clasped his heart, closed his eyes, and seemed to
lurch before a bullet. "No?" he inquired, softly. "Ah, well, then, you
must watch over him, for he is a good man, doing many friendships, and
his father was a _buen hombre_, too, in the days when we all were
rich. So look after him--for an old man," he added, and trudged
wearily back to the house.

CHAPTER V

HIDDEN WATER

The trail to Hidden Water leads up the Salagua, alternately climbing
the hard mesa and losing itself in the shifting sand of the river
bottom until, a mile or two below the mouth of the box canyon, it
swings in to the edge of the water. But the Salagua is no purli