"Don't worry. I've been a miser all my life and I've got a lot of
money hid out. Please, son, quit interfering with me. You asked me to
help you out, I accepted and I'm going to go through until stopped by
legal procedure. And if you have the law on me I'll never speak to you
again."

"Your attitude doesn't fit in with my plans, Bill Conway."

"Yours don't fit in with mine. Besides, I'm older than you and if
there was one thing your father taught you it was respect for your
elders. Two heads are better than one. You crack right along and try
to save your ranch in your way and I'll crack right along and try to
save it my way. You pay your way and I'll pay mine. That's fair,
isn't it?"

"Yes, but--"

"Fiddlesticks; on your way. You're wasting your breath arguing with
me."

Don Mike knew it. "Well, let me have a set of the plans," he concluded
sulkily.

Bill Conway handed him out a roll of blue-prints and Farrel mounted
Panchito and returned to the hacienda. The blue-prints he hid in the
barn before presenting himself at the house. He knew his absence from
the breakfast-table would not be commented upon, because for a week,
during the round-up of the cattle, he and Pablo and the latter's male
relatives who helped in the riding, had left the hacienda at daylight
after partaking of a four o'clock breakfast.