get into court or into the land office. Later we can have the water
right cancelled and reappropriated--later, when he has gone away, when
no dust can be raised about it."

"Is he going away?"

"Don't be stupid, Charlie. He must go away; that is necessary: I'm
considering plans. He must be pursuaded--or----"

"Or forced," said his son, with reckless bright eyes.

"Men generally depart from a locality when public opinion is brought
to bear on them," the elder remarked. "He can be made unpopular until
he desires to leave."

"We'll run him out, just leave that part to me."

"Charlie, nothing rash must be done, remember that, and nothing
illegal. I shall think of some plan soon."

"Nothing rash, but nothing uncertain, father. Two hundred thousand is
a lot of money. I, too, shall plan."

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