“And somebody else holding the sack, eh?” Bryant’s aquiline nose came down a little as he asked the question.  “No, Gretzinger, you haven’t persuaded me, and you never will by that argument.  A pretty rotten scheme, that of yours.  I shall go right ahead and use concrete.”

“Then you don’t intend to consider bondholders as having a voice in matters?”

“No.”

“Well, they’re stockholders as well.”

“Minority stockholders, that’s all,” Lee stated, coolly.  “You’ve said this is a matter of cold business.  Very well; I’m the majority stockholder and have the control.  I consider it cold business to build the drops of concrete as planned.  I consider it cold business and good business to provide the farmers with a safe system.  And I shall do that.”

Again came Ruth’s call, urging Gretzinger to hurry.  He answered and spoke a last word to Bryant, with a suddenly altered mien.

“You’re an obstinate devil, Lee,” he exclaimed, cheerfully.  “I’ll have to think up some new arguments to get you over, I find.  Now I must run along, or the ladies will be up in arms—­and not my arms, either.”

Bryant helped him to button the curtains on the hood of the car, found an instant when he could press Ruth’s hand unobserved and murmur a word in her ear, and stated that if the rain did not last he would run down (he had picked up a second-hand Ford in Kennard) to Sarita Creek after supper.

“I don’t see half enough of you,” Ruth said, giving him a pat on the cheek with the gloved finger that now wore a diamond solitaire.  To Mr. Gretzinger she continued, “If you get us home without a wetting, you may stay and eat with us; but if you don’t, why, you can go straight on to town.”

Off the car sped down the trail toward Bartolo where it would gain the well-travelled mesa road, a hand thrust through the curtains waving back at Bryant.

The engineer did not go to Sarita Creek that night, for the rain settled into a steady drizzle that lasted until well toward morning.  After supper he went, however, to the adobe dwelling of the Mexican who once had warned him from his field.  The man’s seven-year-old boy had fallen from a horse the day previous and fractured a leg; half fearfully, half recklessly, the parent had come running to camp for medical aid; and Lee had despatched the camp doctor, a young fellow recently graduated, to treat the injury.  Bryant was admitted into the house.  The youngster, he learned, was resting comfortably and had been visited by the doctor that afternoon.  Lee was even conducted to the bedside, where the boy’s leg thick with splints and wrappings was exhibited for his benefit.

“The doctor, he said I was to speak to you about his pay,” the Mexican stated after a time, when he and Bryant had talked awhile in Spanish.

Bryant waved the words aside.

“There’s no charge, nothing,” said he.  “I was delighted to send the doctor.  I hope your son improves rapidly.  The physician will continue to pay you calls until the boy no longer requires them.  Those are very pretty geraniums you have in the window, senora.  Are they fragrant?” Lee crossed the room and bent his face above them.