The Iron Furrow | Page 3

a tinge of the sun's fiery burn, was
regular of feature and delicately formed.
She walked to the rill languidly, where stooping she drank from her
palm. Most of the water that she dipped escaped before reaching her
lips; and Bryant doubted if she were really successful in quenching her
thirst. The heat, the dust, and the ride appeared to have been almost too
much for her strength, exhausting her slender store of vitality. The
other girl, who had coiled herself down by the trickling stream and bent
forward resting her hands in the water, drank directly from the rivulet.
"There, that's the way to do it, Imo," she declared, when she had
straightened up, hat-brim, nose, chin, all dripping. "Like the ponies! I
hope I haven't lost my handkerchief." And she began to search about
her waist.
"I'd fall flat in the water if I tried it, as sure as the world," the taller girl
responded.
They rose to their feet and joined Bryant.

"You're the young ladies who are homesteading just south of here,
aren't you?" he inquired, politely.
"Yes, two miles south on Sarita Creek," the smaller answered. Then
after an appraising regard of him she continued, "We took our claims
only last April. And they're not very good claims, either, we're
beginning to fear; the creek goes dry about this time. That's why no one
had filed on the locations before. Have you a ranch somewhere near?"
"No. That is, not yet. I'm a civil engineer, but I'm thinking strongly of
settling down here. If I do, we shall be neighbours. My name is Lee
Bryant; this is my horse Dick; and I've a dog called Mike, which
stopped aways back on the road to investigate a prairie dog hole. Now
you know who we are," he concluded, with a smile.
The girl thereupon told him her name was Ruth Gardner and that of her
companion Imogene Martin.
"We'll be very glad to have you call at our little ranch when you're
riding by," Ruth Gardner said, graciously. "Aside from Imogene's uncle
and aunt, who live in Kennard and who've come to see us several times,
we've not had a single visitor in the three months and a half we've been
there, except once an old Mexican who was herding sheep near by and
came to ask for matches. Of course, not many people know we're there,
I imagine. From the road one can't see our cabins--we had to have two,
you know, one for each claim, and they sit side by side--because they're
in the mouth of the cañon among the trees. It's really cool and pleasant
there during the heat of the day. Any time you come, you'll be
welcome."
"Yes, Mr. Bryant," Imogene Martin affirmed. "A man now and then in
the scenery will help out wonderfully."
"I'll stop the first time I'm passing," he stated.
Lee Bryant understood the significance of the invitation: they were
starved for company and would be grateful for the society of a person
they believed respectable. He had seen a good deal of homesteading

conditions in the West; he knew the hardships involved in "holding
down" claims, of which the dreary monotony and loneliness of the life
were not the least. One earned ten times over every bit one got of a free
government homestead. For men it was bad enough; but for woman, for
girls like these, who had probably come from the East in trustful
ignorance and with rosy visions, the homestead venture impressed him
not only as pitiful but as tragic.
"I'll certainly ride down to see you," he assured them again.
"And perhaps, being an engineer, you'll show us why the water doesn't
run downhill in our bean patch, as it ought to do," Imogene Martin
remarked.
Bryant laughed and nodded agreement.
"You'll find that it's your eyes, and not the water, that have been
playing tricks," he said. "Ground levels and ditch grades are deceiving
things close to the mountains, because the latter tilt one's natural line of
vision. That's why water seems to run uphill when you look toward the
range. I'll soon fix your ditch line when I set an instrument in your bean
patch and sight through it once or twice. The water will behave after
that, I promise you."
They continued to chat of this and of the failing of Sarita Creek, until
the automobile that Bryant had earlier sighted shot into view on the
northern bank of the creek, whence at decreased speed it descended
into the bottom and ground its way across through sand and gravel.
Driving the hooded car was a man of about thirty years, of slim figure
and with a pale olive skin that betrayed an admixture of American and
Mexican blood. Beside him in