"I expected something like this; glad you didn't arrive any sooner,"
Lee remarked.

"Well, I was away from town, or I'd have been here by noon," the
horseman, an American, stated. "The injunctions cover all these places
between here and the river. You and any one you hire must keep off the
tracts specified until the cases come up before the judge."

"All right, sheriff. Wait till I take a last squint or two and I'll
vacate."

The horseman idly watched the engineer make his final measurements,
then when Bryant had lifted his tripod over the wire and told his
assistant Dave they would call it a day and stop, he dismounted and
sat down for a smoke with the man on whom he had served his papers.

"Looks as if you've stirred up some interest in your doings," he
remarked, expelling a thread of smoke. "All the Mexicans from here
down to Rosita are gabbling about your canal. Don't seem pleased with
you."

"There's one who doesn't, in any case," was the response. "He took a
couple of shots at my instrument a while ago from up yonder in the
sagebrush when I had stepped aside for a moment."

The sheriff gazed at the hillside.

"A few _hombres_ around here will bear watching," said he. For a
little he meditated, then went on, "You're a white man and so am I;