Sleepily the banker, watching through the bank window, saw the young man lead his horse across the street and once more disappear within the courthouse.  Then for some minutes he continued in somnolent contemplation of the courthouse front.  At last he called: 

“Isidro, Isidro!  Go find Joe Garcia and tell him I wish to speak with him in half an hour in my garden.  Look for him at home and in the saloon, but find him wherever he is.  That man who just went out now, Isidro,——­”

“Yes,” answered Isidro.

“He’s one of those hard, obstinate Americans, Isidro—­and his eyes, they are bad eyes, I don’t like them.”

“Yes,” Isidro concurred, who had not noticed the eyes at all.

CHAPTER IV

Charlie Menocal, who after his sleep had read a few chapters in a novel, went out of the shaded room where he had reposed and into the garden.  There he discovered his father in talk with Joe Garcia.

“What’s going on?” he exclaimed.  “Lost a horse, or a wife or something, Joe?”

“No, Charlie; this is business,” Garcia said, with a grin.

Menocal continued to give his instructions to the latter.  They had to do with bringing a few hundred sheep from one of the bands feeding in the hills.  They were to be driven down on the mesa to graze, and kept moving about near the Stevenson ranch house; Garcia was to observe what the young man there did, all he did, whom he saw, and as far as possible where he went.  Particularly was he to note if surveyors came and set to work anywhere.  If the young man appeared to be engaged at any task on the mountain side, Joe was to approach with his sheep.  And he was to report everything he learned.

Charlie’s attention became more lively as he listened to his father’s directions to the man, and when Garcia had departed he asked, “Who are you after?  Who’s this young fellow you speak of as being at the Perro Creek ranch?  Didn’t Stevenson deed the place back?”

Menocal senior twisted an end of his flaring moustache.

“May a thousand damnations fall on him!  No, he didn’t,” he responded, wrathfully.

“But that only means you’ll have to foreclose the mortgage.  It will take longer, that’s all.”

Charlie was vice-president of his father’s bank—­his name was so printed on the stationery, at least—­and was familiar with his parent’s affairs, though he was averse to anything like industry.  He much preferred the pursuit of pleasure to work, and his automobile to the grille of the bank.  He was accurately aware, too, of his father’s weakness for him, an only child, and of his father’s inclination to indulge his desires; and shrewdly played upon the fact.  Nevertheless, in matters of business he possessed a certain sharpness.

“Stevenson sold the ranch to this young man Bryant, who just now paid off the mortgage,” Menocal explained.