"Now, listen here," said Noah as he saw signs of rebellion in the swing of her body and the grip on her revolver, "you go home and get your dad and your Chinaman ready. There's goin' to be water in them ditches before daylight or there will be one less hill billy in this vale of tears." During these fervid days Noah Ezekiel had not been asleep, although much of the time he looked as though he were on the verge of it. He had had his eye on both ranches--the Chandlers' and the Red Butte. Twice he had cautiously reconnoitred the full length of the water ditches. At a point on the Valley Irrigation Company's big canal, about seven miles below the intake from the Colorado River, two diverting ditches branched off; the larger of these furnished the main water supply of the Mexican side of the valley, the smaller was the Dillenbeck system. At these gates the Valley Company kept water keepers and guards day and night. As the Dillenbeck Company were merely private consumers, water was turned into this canal only on their orders, and charged for by the thousand feet. Four miles below where this canal began to branch to the various ranches it supplied was the Dillenbeck water station. It was the keeper in charge here who ordered water from the main canal and who opened the sluice gates and apportioned it to the various ranches. Noah Ezekiel on his reconnoitring discovered two things: The night water keeper had been reenforced by a Mexican guard; and besides Madrigal, the Mexican Jew, usually spent the night with these two. Expecting trouble, a company of twenty Mexican special guards was camped a quarter of a mile down the canal, in easy calling distance. These guards, while authorized by the comandante, were hired and paid by Reedy Jenkins. It was their duty to patrol the canal above and below by the main water gates and be ready at all times to repulse any threatened attack. Noah Ezekiel had been approached several times by infuriated ranchers with suggestions that they organize a mob. But American ranchers were too few and unpopular to make mobs highly hopeful. An attack on these guards would bring on a conflict with the whole Mexican garrison at Mexicali, consisting of several hundred well-trained troops. Noah Ezekiel advised strongly against this. Noah was opposed to strife of any kind. But he had been doing a little plotting of his own. He knew the Red Owl employed a number of boosters for the games--men who went from table to table and gambled with the house's money. The psychology of gambling is like the psychology of anything else--the livelier the game the more there are who want to get into it. The job of the booster is to stimulate business by gambling freely himself. These boosters are paid four dollars a day; and the ordinary Mexican, if given his choice between being secretary of state and a booster at the Red Owl, would pick the Owl every time.