The Yaqui meant gold. Gold! He meant he could retrieve the fallen
fortunes of the white brother who had saved his life that evil day
at the Papago Well. Gale thrilled as he gazed piercingly into the
wonderful eyes of this Indian. Would Yaqui never consider his debt paid?
"Go--me?" repeat the Indian, pointing with the singular directness
that always made this action remarkable in him.
"Yes, Yaqui."
Gale ran to his room, put on hobnailed boots, filled a canteen,
and hurried back to the corral. Yaqui awaited him. The Indian
carried a coiled lasso and a short stout stick. Without a word
he led the way down the lane, turned up the river toward the
mountains. None of Belding's household saw their departure.
What had once been only a narrow mesquite-bordered trail was now
a well-trodden road. A deep irrigation ditch, full of flowing
muddy water, ran parallel with the road. Gale had been curious
about the operations of the Chases, but bitterness he could not
help had kept him from going out to see the work. He was not
surprised to find that the engineers who had contructed the ditches
and dam had anticipated him in every particular. The dammed-up
gulch made a magnificent reservoir, and Gale could not look upon
the long narrow lake without a feeling of gladness. The dreaded
ano seco of the Mexicans might come again and would come, but never
to the inhabitants of Forlorn River. That stone-walled, stone-floored
gulch would never leak, and already it contained water enough to
irrigate the whole Altar Valley for two dry seasons.
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