"Now," Noah again commanded the water keeper, "go to the telephone and order the water turned in. Tell 'em we are dry--that all the trouble is settled, and to shoot the water down banks full, right away, quick." The water keeper was shaking as though with the ague. He knew danger when he saw it and he was perfectly sure he saw it. He went to the telephone and called the keeper at the Valley Irrigation Company's office. As he started to speak Madrigal stirred on the floor as though trying to get up. Still keeping the water keeper covered with the shotgun, Noah looked round at Madrigal and drawled: "If I was you, Hebrew, I'd keep sayin' over that parable which reads: 'Once there was a Mexican who was shot in the stomach with half a pint of buckshot; and in hell he lifted up his eyes and said, "Father Abraham, send me a drop of water." And Father Abraham says, "Not a drop. Ain't you the man that helped burn up the Imperial Valley? Hell's too good for you, but it's all we've got."'" The telephone message was given. "It sounded all right," said Noah to the water keeper. "Sit down over there and be comfortable, while we wait and see; and keep your eye on the muzzle of the gun. It is the only way to keep it from smokin'." Forty minutes passed. Noah's eyes were on his prisoners, but his ears kept listening. Fifty minutes, then he heard a loud woosh--almost a roar. The water was coming! "Now let's go out and open up all gates," ordered Noah. The water keeper obeyed. "For the time being," drawled Noah, "you can lie down out there in the open beside the canal and take a nap. Shootin' craps has been sort of hard on your nerves. I'll look after the water for a spell." About nine o'clock at night Imogene Chandler came in from the cotton field. Out there in the dim starlight stretched the long rows of cotton, erect, green, luxuriant. The water had come in time. It had flowed into their ditches at four o'clock the morning after Noah Ezekiel passed. They had been ready for it. For three days it had flowed abundantly, and all their fields were watered. Imogene lifted her face to the wind. She loved the desert again. And yet there was restlessness in her movements; even in the stillness her ears strained to catch some other sound than the soft rustle of the wind. Nothing had happened to him of course or she would have heard. But she had watched for him that first night after the water was turned in; the next night she was expecting him, and last night she felt sure he would come. If he did not come tonight---- Maybe something had happened, maybe he had been shot by some of Jenkins' hired assassins? Fear, which really had been hovering about for three days, but put off by her faith in Bob's utter competence to take care of himself, swooped down on her suddenly. Her throat grew dry, her heart beat like a frightened bird's, she whirled and started to run for the house. She would start in search at once.