“Anything else?”

“Thus endeth the first lesson, Miguel.  At that it’s only a vague suspicion.  Get out of my way, boy.  I’m going out to build a dam and you’re not ready to stop me—­yet.”

“Bill, I’m serious about this.  I want you to cease operations.”

Bill Conway turned upon him almost angrily.  “What for?” he demanded.

“I own the Rancho Palomar.  I forbid it.  I have a good and sufficient reason.”

“But, son, I can finance the confounded dam.  I have it financed already.”

“So have I—­if I cared to accept favors.”

Bill Conway approached and took his young friend by each shoulder.  “Son,” he pleaded, “please let me build this dam.  I was never so plumb interested in any job before.  I’ll take a chance.  I know what I’m going to do and how I’m going to do it, and you aren’t going to be obligated the least little bit.  Isn’t John Parker stuck for it all, in the long run?  Why, I’ve got that hombre by the short hair.”

“I know, but long before you can collect from him you’ll be financially embarrassed.”

“Don’t worry.  I’ve been a miser all my life and I’ve got a lot of money hid out.  Please, son, quit interfering with me.  You asked me to help you out, I accepted and I’m going to go through until stopped by legal procedure.  And if you have the law on me I’ll never speak to you again.”

“Your attitude doesn’t fit in with my plans, Bill Conway.”

“Yours don’t fit in with mine.  Besides, I’m older than you and if there was one thing your father taught you it was respect for your elders.  Two heads are better than one.  You crack right along and try to save your ranch in your way and I’ll crack right along and try to save it my way.  You pay your way and I’ll pay mine.  That’s fair, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but—­”

“Fiddlesticks; on your way.  You’re wasting your breath arguing with me.”

Don Mike knew it.  “Well, let me have a set of the plans,” he concluded sulkily.

Bill Conway handed him out a roll of blue-prints and Farrel mounted Panchito and returned to the hacienda.  The blue-prints he hid in the barn before presenting himself at the house.  He knew his absence from the breakfast-table would not be commented upon, because for a week, during the round-up of the cattle, he and Pablo and the latter’s male relatives who helped in the riding, had left the hacienda at daylight after partaking of a four o’clock breakfast.

CHAPTER XXIX

“We’ve been waiting for you, Miguel, to motor with us to El Toro,” Kay greeted him as he entered the patio.

“So sorry to have delayed you, Kay.  I’m ready to start now, if you are.”

“Father and mother are coming also.  Where have you been?  I asked Pablo, but he didn’t know.”

“I’ve been over to Bill Conway’s camp to tell him to quit work on that dam.”