His father shook his head sadly.

“That makes no difference, my son; you planned a wicked deed,” he said, in a barely audible voice.

Morgan pushed the young man back upon his chair and Bryant went on.  As he proceeded, he had found it harder and harder to address the parent; and his task was no easier now.  The eyes of the father had gone to the slender, sagging figure of his son and seemed to be the eyes of an expiring man; his plump cheeks were working under an excess of emotion; then his head went down suddenly as under the blow of a club.

“Because of the character of the act,” Lee said, “it wasn’t only a stroke at me but at every animal and man in the entire south camp.  I want to make this clear in order to show how black and dastardly the thing was.  Whether Charlie understood or intended the destruction of all the lives and property there is no excuse; it was a deed that would have carried terrible results in its train.  I don’t even let my mind conceive them.  All this has followed, Mr. Menocal, from the single fact that your son disliked me in the beginning.  To that may be added an idea that I was depriving you of something to which I had no right, namely, the title to the Perro Creek canal appropriation.  And there, I think, responsibility for his course touches you.”

He paused to gaze at the Mexican, whose face had become drained of colour.

“Mr. Menocal, the water is mine,” he continued, “and to-night some time it will be mine beyond all dispute, for then the ditch will be finished.  So much for that.  Some days ago we had a talk that, I believe, led us each to a better opinion of the other.  I think that as a leader here in Bartolo and around about you’re a force for good; you believe in law, order, and education; and I know, from what I’ve learned, that you carry many of the people on store accounts for long periods when crops are bad or when they are distressed by sickness.  I’m confident you’re endeavouring to elevate them so far as possible; and I admit frankly that I’ve modified very greatly my first estimation of you.  That weighs in the scale against Charlie’s actions.

“Then there’s one kindness Charlie himself has done me, though he may not be aware of the fact.  I’ll not say what it is; let it suffice that it is the case.  A very great kindness it was, indeed!  I count that likewise in the opposite scale.  And then there are other things to consider, one among them that after all no harm has come to me.  The enmity he’s held for me has simply recoiled upon his own head.  All he has to show for it after months of hating and contriving is his position here in this room to-day—­and a dead dog.  Surely it must make plain to him that his course has been not only futile but foolish.”

The engineer glanced at the young fellow.  He sat in an attitude of despair that almost equalled his father’s.