CHAPTER IV 

 THE RIO BRAVO, IRRIGATION AND CROPS 



Once it was my good fortune to stand close 

 beside the River when it was starting out on one of 

 its rampages. A neighbor had business concerned 

 with a bosqiie, one of many bordering our ca- 

 pricious stream, and suggested that I should ac- 

 company him on the long drive, and see for myself 

 what " was doing." By the time we reached our 

 destination the growling of many waters was plain- 

 ly audible and the horse's feet already making 

 splashy noises. However, the river bank rose safe- 

 ly upward, and on this he left me while he proceeded 

 to transact his business. My part was to unpack 

 the lunch, but the fascination of the scene was too 

 great for such trivialities. 



This at last was the Rio Grande, the Rio Bravo ; 

 no longer a lick and a promise but a full flood, dark 

 and angry, muttering, roaring even in places — hur- 

 rying, hurrying, with a threat in its voice and in the 

 shifting quicksands over which it rolled. Already 

 its swirling eddies were eating into the bank on 

 which I stood, and a little higher up a tree fell with 

 a crash, either undermined, or cut down by shouting 

 men engaged in strengthening the river's boun- 

 daries. The wind sang gaily in the swaying cotton- 

 woods overhead, their young children swinging 

 tender branches in the brown flood. 



