The man’s wife rubbed her hands together under her apron with much pleasure.  Thus politely for him to notice and praise her flowers!  In her heart, as in the heart of her husband, there formerly had been resentment at this white canal-builder for cutting their field with a big ditch, an occurrence which the county judge somehow had stupidly permitted.  But now she did not know what to feel.  Yesterday he had sent them a doctor for nothing, and this evening was smelling her flowers admiringly.  He could not be exactly a monster.  Removing one hand from beneath her apron, she inserted a finger-nail in her black hair and scratched her scalp, considering the subject.  Winter was coming, too.  Food would be needed—­and besides, she long had desired one of those loud phonographs at Menocal’s store, and also needed a new stove.  She perceived that her husband was staring at Bryant’s back with a thoughtful air.  Undoubtedly he was thinking the same thing as she.

“You yet want men and teams for your work, senor?” she inquired.

“All I can get.”

“If a man falls sick while at work, would he have the services of the doctor?”

“Yes, without charge.  There will be work on the dam most of the winter, where the building is only a matter of stone and brush.  I can use all who want employment.  Then in the spring there will be the digging of the ditch on the mesa.”

“Five dollars for a man and his team, is it not so?” the Mexican inquired.

“Yes.”

“What if a man’s wife or children fall sick?” the woman asked.

Bryant hid a smile at this shrewd bargaining.  Yet he was perceiving an opportunity.  There were no Mexicans at work on the project; one and all they had held off.  Likewise they refused to sell him grain and hay, which necessitated the hauling of feed from a distance.  But now this accident to the boy might prove a heaven-sent chance to break Menocal’s monopoly of influence.

“In case of sickness in the man’s family, the doctor shall attend free,” he stated.

The woman took thought afresh.

“And if the man’s horses are taken sick?”

“Nay, he’s not a horse doctor,” said Lee, smiling.  And even the woman smiled.

“But there’s another matter.  I fear it prevents,” the man remarked.  “It is a note for fifty dollars that the bank holds against me.  If I work, Menocal will make trouble about that.  I think we had best talk no more of employment.”

“Suppose I advance the amount in case he does, letting you work out the debt.  I could keep, say, two dollars out of each day’s five until you owed nothing.”

“That would be agreeable to me, senor.  But what if he then refuses to sell me goods from his store?”