he owner's intention to employ said
appropriation.

Menocal once more! He had been very quiet all this while; he
apparently had made no effort to dissuade the Mexicans who, following
Saurez's lead, had come in increasing number to work on the canal or
the dam; the man had almost passed from the engineer's mind. But he
had not been idle. He had had shrewd legal talent seeking a deadly
weapon for him among the musty statutes, with which he could deal the
irrigation project a _coup de grace_. And as the import of the letter
penetrated Bryant's brain, his heart seemed to turn to ice. Ninety
days--finish dam and canal in ninety days! As well fix a limit of
ninety hours!

Finally he rushed off to Pat Carrigan superintending scraper work and
dragged him aside.

"For God's sake, read that, Pat!" he cried. "Read what the Land and
Water Board are going to do. They're going to cut the heart right out
of us! Kill the project! All for a law nobody ever heard of! Read it!"

Pat knit his brows and slowly extracted the meaning from the state
engineer's formal, involved announcement. That something serious had
occurred he guessed before Bryant had opened his lips. He had never
seen the engineer so wrought up, so white, so agitated.

"Let me get this right," the old contractor said, at length. "They're
going to cancel your water right."

"Yes."

"But not at once. You've ninety days to----"

"Ninety days! We can't do a year's work in ninety days, and in winter
time at that!" Lee cried.

"Of course not," was the answer. "But it gives you time to argue with
'em and fight this thing. My advice is to go see this Board at once.
Maybe if you explain the situation, they'll call off this fellow
Rodriguez."

Bryant, however, remained depressed. Clearly the officials had no
liberty of action in the matter.

"I don't know that it will do any good," he said, "but it's all that's
left to do. Pack your grip, Pat; I want you to go with me. Leave
Morgan in charge. Can you start in half an hour?"

The ride to Kennard was made at high speed, and on the way the men did
little talking. Both wanted to weigh the disaster confronting the
project. In town they sought out McDonnell, who promised to have his
attorney go into the matter at once and who appeared very grave at the
news. Then they returned to the hotel to await their train.

Here Lee was surprised to encounter Ruth in company of Gretzinger,
Charlie Menocal, and a Kennard girl with wh