Several men were at work with the sluice. They paid no attention to their visitors until Harry interrupted the nearest.
"Look here. You men have taken our water."
The man turned around short. He was the giant who had commented on Terry's big pan and on the condition in general of the Golden Prize prospect.
"What you talkin' about?" he growled. "Who are you an' where you come from? Oh, it's you, is it?" he added, to Terry--and Terry had the notion that he had known perfectly well who they were and where they were from, before speaking.
"Yes," answered Terry. "And this is my partner. You aren't leaving us any water for our own sluice."
"We haven't all that ought to come, though," answered Harry, a bit sharply because the giant's tone was decidedly rough. "You've dug the ditch to your sluice higher up than necessary, and it lowers the level of the spring so much that no water enters our gulch at all. The stream used to split, didn't it?"
"Split nothin'. Trouble is, your gulch is runnin' dry. You ought to've figgered on that, now that the snow's all melted off and sunk in. Most of those little gulches dry up, come toward summer."
"The stream used to split, and feed through this gulch, just the same," insisted Harry. "You can see the channel. I hold that we're entitled to a share of this spring. And if you'd move your ditch a foot or two we'd get enough, and you'd have plenty yourselves."
"You're entitled to just what drains into your gulch, an' we're entitled to what drains into ours," growled the giant. "This water's in our gulch, ain't it--spring and all?"
"I don't know that it is, by rights," retorted Harry. "The spring's pretty close to being at the dividing point. And anyway, we're not asking you for your water; we're asking for ours."
"Now look-ee here," and the giant tapped his revolver butt: "By miners' law we're entitled to a share o' what water comes down our gulch, an' by miners' law you're entitled to a share o' what water comes down your gulch, alluz considerin' there's any to share. If your claim was wuth a picayune I'd advise you to hold on till next spring, when mebbe you'd get a leetle water again from natteral drainage; but as it ain't wuth a picayune I'd advise you to get off an' look elsewhar. Anyhow, you get off this ground mighty quick; for if you're huntin' trouble you'll find it in a bigger dose than you can handle."