remarked, smiling. "Charlie Menocal doesn't make a 'hit' with me,
either. When you referred to the ford, I could scarcely keep my face
straight; and my feeling ill this afternoon, though partly true, was
also partly manufactured, because I didn't want to go to those old
ruins with him. I don't care for men like him especially. I share the
feeling of my uncle in Kennard--"

"You have an uncle there? I thought you were from the East."

"I am; from Ohio. But I've an uncle and aunt living in Kennard, which
is the reason Ruth and I came to this section for homesteads. Ruth was
crazy to take up a claim, having read how easily one is acquired,
while my health was not very good and the doctor at home thought it
would be improved by being in the open in a high altitude. Uncle said
I'd better stay with him and aunt, but I knew how terribly
disappointed Ruth would be if I did, because she couldn't homestead
alone. So uncle declared that if homesteaders we had to be, then we
must locate near him where he could have me under his eye, so to
speak. I myself am not taking this claim business very seriously. And
now uncle, who once had some controversy with the elder Menocal,
wouldn't be very well pleased if he knew the son was making calls on
us."

"So others besides myself have trouble with the Menocals," Bryant
stated.

"Apparently. I don't know what this particular difficulty was about,
but uncle is president of a bank in Kennard and so it may have been
some financial matter. Or it may have been over politics; both of them
mix in that. Anyway, he doesn't think highly of the elder Menocal,