“There’s one who doesn’t, in any case,” was the response.  “He took a couple of shots at my instrument a while ago from up yonder in the sagebrush when I had stepped aside for a moment.”

The sheriff gazed at the hillside.

“A few hombres around here will bear watching,” said he.  For a little he meditated, then went on, “You’re a white man and so am I; they don’t like our colour any too well, at bottom.  I s’pose you know that.”

“Yes.  But they needn’t express their feelings with rifles.  As far as these injunctions are concerned, they’ll be dismissed eventually, for there’s no question about my right of way through here.  Menocal secured it himself and it’s all a matter of record—­the deeds, the certificate to the state, and the rest.”

“Menocal got it, you say?”

“Nobody else.  Some time or other he must have expected to water Perro Creek ranch, which he owned until he sold it to Stevenson.”

“I knew he had that place,” said the visitor, “but I didn’t know it carried a water right from the Pinas.  Where does this move of yours hit Menocal?”

“In his ranches down the river; he’s been using this water for them,” Bryant explained.  “I suppose it’s been taken for granted by nearly everyone that the water belonged to those farms down there, but it doesn’t.”

“How much water in this right?”

“Hundred and twenty-five second feet.”

“Whew!  That takes a chunk out of the Pinas.  And I presume that by this time Menocal knows what you’re doing?”

“Oh, yes; I told him.  He doesn’t like it, of course.”

The sheriff turned for a full view of Bryant’s face.  In respect to features the two men were not unlike:  both had the same thin curving nose and level eyes and cut of jaw.

“Well, let me say as between man and man,” the elder spoke, “that Menocal won’t let you take away that much water from him if he can help it.  And I’ll drop you some more news, in addition:  several Mexicans are going to file on homesteads or desert claims along the base of the hills south of here, scattered along like and running part way up the mountain sides.  I don’t know where your canal to Perro Creek will go, but if its line follows the foot of the range, as may be likely, it might happen to find those claims in the way.”

“Any idea in your mind where those fellows may locate their filings?”

“No; I can’t say definitely.  Shouldn’t be surprised if they began stringing them along a couple of miles south of here till they reached Perro Creek.”

Bryant gazed at the flank of the mountain.  The gentle ridge where his ditch line left the hillside was but half a mile away.  Beyond that the Mexicans could file to their hearts’ content, for they would be left on one side by the canal.  But in all this he perceived Menocal’s cunning hand.

“Much obliged to you, sheriff,” said he.  “I’ll see if I can’t find some way to satisfy those chaps when the time comes.”