Page:The Valley of Adventure (1926).pdf/38

 tempt. "This land belongs to the fathers, who came into a wilderness full of dumb savages and brought it to both spiritual and material fruitfulness. The secular government looks on this prosperity with jealous eyes, and thinks of colonies. But where is it to establish these colonies? There must be water for the orchards and herds, and that is to be found only in rivers. Every river has its mission, there are no rivers unoccupied. What would the government do? Rob the missions of water and starve them? Certainly, there is not room for any more pastoral and agricultural enterprises in this country; already this miserable pueblo below us is complaining that we have shut the water of the river from them behind our dam. Well, let them complain. It is our water; we had it first."

"The Pueblo de Los Angeles complains, then, that you cut off the water?"

"They have threatened to break down our dam," Don Geronimo said, resentful of their necessity. "Well, our herds must drink."

"How many cattle run on your ranges, Don Geronimo? if a soldier may ask."

"Not more than forty thousand, while San Gabriel has a hundred thousand, I am told. Our sheep are but a mouthful, eight or nine thousand. You can see that we are poor, Sergeant Olivera, and if the pueblo continues to increase we shall be poorer, our little river divided to give it water."

"And there is the stubble of grain in the big field behind the adobe wall," the sergeant said.