"
"Indians pikeway--ketchum fish. Come back, mebbyso tellum
watchum."
Miss Georgie drew in her breath for further argument, decided
that it was not worth while, and touched up her horse with the
whip. "Good-by," she called back, and saw that Peppajee was
looking after her with his eyes, while his face was turned
impassively to the front.
"You're just about as satisfying to talk to as a stump," she paid
tribute to his unassailable calm. "There's four bits wasted,"
she sighed, "to say nothing of the trouble I had packing that
candy to you--you ungrateful old devil." With which unladylike
remark she dismissed him from her mind as a possible ally.
At the ranch, the boys were enthusiastically blistering palms and
stiffening the muscles of their backs, turning the water away
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.
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