A blow of fatal nature, indeed, was preparing at the moment and fell within a week.

From the state engineer Lee received a letter advising him that an application for use of the water appropriated to Perro Creek ranch had been made by a man of the name of Rodriguez, of Rosita, under an old statute long forgotten.

This law was mandatory upon the Land and Water Board.

It required the latter to cancel rights and to reappropriate water elsewhere to the amount in excess of what a canal actually carried, or what a canal had failed to carry for five successive years if it were not shown within ninety days after a filing for reappropriation that the said canal had been enlarged to a capacity to carry the original appropriation, and proof given of the 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.