“Well, ain’t matters just as bad now?” Stevenson asked, quickly.  “He still has the appropriation, or rather I’m supposed to have it with this ranch.  Because Menocal controls the Mexican vote hereabouts, which is about all the vote there is, why, nobody has ever disturbed him about that water right.  And he’s using that water, belonging to me, to irrigate a lot of bottom farms along the river, for which no water can be appropriated, the Pinas not carrying enough.  I rode over one day and looked at those farms—­all grain and alfalfa.  Well, he’ll get this ranch back, anyway.  The mortgage he holds on it is due next week and I can’t pay it.  Wouldn’t even if I had the money.  We’re going to pull up stakes and leave.”

Bryant silently regarded the other’s haggard face and stooped figure, whose expression and resigned attitude revealed clearly Stevenson’s surrender.  He was a man discouraged, disheartened, whipped.

“What’s wrong with the sheep?” he questioned, at length.

“Not much that isn’t wrong.  When I started five years ago, I invested in three thousand head.  One time I had them increased to fifty-five hundred—­three bands.  Thought I was doing first rate; and I was then.  But everything began to go against me.  It seemed as if I always got the worst herders; and not having any water to raise alfalfa I had to buy winter feed, which was expensive; and a lot of them got the scab and died; and last year I lost nearly all my lambs at lambing time, the band being caught out in a storm and being in the wrong place.  Just one thing after another, to break my back.  Had trouble about the range, too.  When I started them off this spring, they were down to seven hundred; and I’ve been losing some right along from one cause or another.  No lambs, either, this spring, except dead ones.  I thought I could hang on till my luck changed, but losing a hundred head two weeks ago was the last straw.  I’m done now.”

“What happened, Stevenson?”

“One of Menocal’s herders mixed his flock with my six hundred, did it deliberately, I’m convinced; there were three thousand head of his.  Billy was tending ours—­and Billy is only fourteen, you know.  I had come down here for some supplies and when I returned, I found him crying.  The Mexican had separated the sheep and we were a hundred short, gone with his, and he would pay no attention to Billy, swearing he had only his own band.  And he drove them away.  I went to Menocal, who was very polite, but he said I must be mistaken as his herders were all honest men; and I’ve not got my sheep back, and I’m not likely to.  For that band is now thirty miles away somewhere.  No use to go to court—­Menocal owns everything and everybody around here.  So I’m quitting.”

“The sheep business isn’t all roses, that’s certain,” Lee Bryant remarked.  “It’s hard luck that your band ran down just when the price of mutton and wool is going up.  So you’re letting the ranch slide?”