The prospect of ousting an intruder who had challenged his family’s right to control what it wished here, who indeed had the audacity to attempt to robe the effort under a claim of legality, appealed to young Menocal as an undertaking most attractive.  The fact that all the advantage was on his side, of influence, of wealth, of race, of power that might be exerted through ignorant Mexicans in a hundred subtle and vindictive ways, made the enterprise all the more alluring.  The Indian strain in his blood—­a strain which accounts for much that sets American and Mexican apart, unconsciously in his case gave a tinge of cruelty to his anticipation.  Aspiring himself to pass as an American, it never failed to please him when he could slight or humiliate an American; and he lacked his father’s restraint of impulses, as he came short of his sagacity and perseverance.  Indeed, secretly the son believed his father too conservative, too cautious, too old-fashioned and slow; and at times was exceedingly impatient with methods that he was confident he could immensely improve.

His father considered him for a time.

“Charlie, you leave this matter alone,” he said.  “You keep out of it.  Whatever’s to be done, I’ll do.  You would go too far.  You can give your attention to seeing that the crops are watered and the hay cut on time; you should be down at Rosita now looking after things.”

“I’ll run down in the car this evening,” was the answer.  “To-morrow I’m going to Kennard, where I haven’t been for two weeks.  The wool in the warehouse there should be sold, and a buyer from Boston wrote, you know, that he would be there this week.  And I think we can get our price.”

Kennard was the nearest railroad point and forty miles south.  It was a pleasant little city, with some of the attractions of larger places.  Of these Charlie was thinking rather than of the wool.  He would attend to the wool business, of course, but it was an excuse instead of a reason for the projected visit on the morrow.

“Very well, it’s time the wool is sold; the price is good at present,” his father agreed.

Charlie recurred to the matter of the Stevenson ranch.

“What’s this fellow’s name who bought out Stevenson?”

“Lee Bryant.  A young man.  And I don’t like him; I’m afraid he’s a trouble-maker.  You should remember him, Charlie, for he’s the fellow who filled the radiator of the car at the ford on Perro Creek and who threw your money back in your face.”

Young Menocal’s thin figure stiffened, while his small black moustache rose in two points of ire.

“Him!  That scoundrel who insulted me before Louise!  That lamb-stealer!” he shrilled.

“That is the man,” his father affirmed.

Charlie spat forth a string of Spanish curses.  When he had recovered from his outburst of passion, he said: 

“Well, I’m glad he’s the man.  He’ll pay for that.  Louise said nothing, but she heard him.  And now he’s trying to steal our water, too!  I’d like to tie him down on a cactus-bed and run a band of sheep over him.”