CHAPTER XXII

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THE PRIDE OF PALOMAR

by

PETER B. KYNE

Author of Kindred of the Dust, etc.

Illustrated by H. R. Ballinger and Dean Cornwell

Cosmopolitan Book Corporation

New York

MCMXXII

[Frontispiece: The man--Don Miguel Farrel.]

DEDICATION

FRANK L. MULGREW, ESQ.

THE BOHEMIAN CLUB

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

DEAR FRIEND MUL.--

I have at last finished writing "The Pride of Palomar." It isn't at

all what I wanted it to be; it isn't at all what I planned it to be,

but it does contain something of what you and I both feel, something of

what you wanted me to put into it. Indeed, I shall always wish to

think that it contains just a few faint little echoes of the spirit of

that old California that was fast vanishing when I first disturbed the

quiet of the Mission Dolores with infantile shrieks--when you first

gazed upon the redwood-studded hills of Sonoma County.

You adventured with me in my quest for local color for "The Valley of

the Giants," in Northern California; you performed a similar service in

Southern California last summer and unearthed for me more local color,

more touches of tender sentiment than I could use. Therefore, "The

Pride of Palomar" is peculiarly your book.

On a day a year ago, when the story was still so vague I could scarcely

find words in which to sketch for you an outline of the novel I

purposed writing, you said: "It will be a good story. I'm sold on it

already!" To you the _hacienda_ of a Rancho Palomar will always bring

delightful recollections of the gracious hospitality of Señor Cave

Coutts, sitting at the head of that table hewed in the forties. Little

did Señor Coutts realize that he, the last of the dons in San Diego

County, was to furnish copy for my novel; that his pride of ancestry,

both American and Castilian, his love for his ancestral _hacienda_ at

the Rancho Guajome, and his old-fashioned garden with the great

Bougainvillea in flower, were the ingredients necessary to the

production of what I trust will be a book with a mission.

When we call again at the Moreno _hacienda_ on the Rio San Luis Rey,

Carolina will not be there to metamorphose her home into a restaurant

and serve us _galina con arroz_, _tortillas_ and _frijoles refritos_.

But if she should be, she will not answer, when asked the amount of the

score: "What you will, _señor_." Ah, no, Mul. Scoundrels devoid of

romance will have discovered her, and she will have opened an inn with

a Jap cook and the tariff will be _dos pesos y media_; there will be a

strange waiter and he will scowl at us and expect a large tip. And

Stephen Crane's brother, the genial judge, will have made his fortune

in the mine on the hill, and there will be no more California wine as a

first aid to digestion.

I had intended to paint the picture that will remain longest in your

memory--the dim candle-light in the white-washed chapel at the Indian

Reservation at Pala, during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament--the

young Indian Madonna, with her naked baby lying in her lap, while she

sang:

"Come, Holy Ghost, creator blest,

And in my heart take up thy rest."

But the picture was crowded out in the make-up. There was too much to

write about, and I was always over-set! I saw and felt, with you, and

regarded it as more poignantly pathetic, the tragedy of that little

handful of San Luisanos, herded away in the heart of those barren hills

to make way for the white man. And now the white man is almost gone

and Father Dominic's Angelus, ringing from Mission San Luis Rey, falls

upon the dull ear of a Japanese farmer, usurping that sweet valley,

hallowed by sentiment, by historical association, by the lives and

loves and ashes of the men and women who carved California from the

wilderness.

I have given to this book the labor of love. I know it isn't

literature, Mul, but I have joyed in writing it and it has, at least,

the merit of sincerity. It is an expression of faith and for all its

faults and imperfections, I think you will find, tucked away in it

somewhere, a modicum of merit. I have tried to limn something, however

vague, of the beauty of the land we saw through boyish eyes before the

real estate agent had profaned it.

You were born with a great love, a great reverence for beauty. That

must be because you were born in Sonoma County in the light of God's

smile. Each spring in California the dogwood blossoms are, for you, a

creamier white, the buckeye blossoms more numerous and fragrant, the

hills a trifle greener and the old order, the old places, the old

friends a little dearer.

Wherefore, with much appreciation of your aid in its creation and of

your unfaltering friendship and affection, I dedicate "The Pride of

Palomar" to you.

Faithfully,

PETER B. KYNE.

SAN FRANCISCO

JUNE 9, 1921.

_Acknowledgment is made of the indebtedness of the author for much of

the material used in this book to Mr. Montaville Flowers, author of

"The Japanese Conquest of American Opinion."_

P. B. K.

THE ILLUSTRATIONS

LOI

The Man--Don Miguel Farrel . . . . _Frontispiece_

Here amidst the golden romance of the old mission,

the girl suddenly understood Don Mike

The Girl--Kay Parker

ELOI

THE PRIDE of PALOMAR

I

For the first time in sixty years, Pablo Artelan, the majordomo of the

Rancho Palomar, was troubled of soul at the approach of winter. Old

Don Miguel Farrel had observed signs of mental travail in Pablo for a

month past, and was at a loss to account for them. He knew Pablo

possessed one extra pair of overalls, brand-new, two pairs of boots

which young Don Miguel had bequeathed him when the Great White Father

at Washington had summoned the boy to the war in April of 1917, three

chambray shirts in an excellent state of repair, half of a fat steer

jerked, a full bag of Bayo beans, and a string of red chilli-peppers

pendant from the rafters of an adobe shack which Pablo and his wife,

Carolina, occupied rent free. Certainly (thought old Don Miguel) life

could hold no problems for one of Pablo's race thus pleasantly situated.

Coming upon Pablo this morning, as the latter sat in his favorite seat

under the catalpa tree just outside the wall of the ancient adobe

compound, where he could command a view of the white wagon-road winding

down the valley of the San Gregorio, Don Miguel decided to question his

ancient retainer.

"My good Pablo," he queried, "what has come over thee of late? Thou

art of a mien as sorrowful as that of a sick steer. Can it be that thy

stomach refuses longer to digest thy food? Come; permit me to examine

thy teeth. Yes, by my soul; therein lies the secret. Thou hast a

toothache and decline to complain, thinking that, by thy silence, I

shall be saved a dentist's bill." But Pablo shook his head in

negation. "Come!" roared old Don Miguel. "Open thy mouth!"

Pablo rose creakily and opened a mouth in which not a tooth was

missing. Old Don Miguel made a most minute examination, but failed to

discover the slightest evidence of deterioration.

"Blood of the devil!" he cried, disgusted beyond measure. "Out with

thy secret! It has annoyed me for a month."

"The ache is not in my teeth, Don Miguel. It is here." And Pablo laid

a swarthy hand upon his torso. "There is a sadness in my heart, Don

Miguel. Two years has Don Mike been with the soldiers. Is it not time

that he returned to us?"

Don Miguel's aristocratic old face softened.

"So that is what disturbs thee, my Pablo?"

Pablo nodded miserably, seated himself, and resumed his task of

fashioning the hondo of a new rawhide riata.

"It is a very dry year," he complained. "Never before have I seen

December arrive ere the grass in the San Gregorio was green with the

October rains. Everything is burned; the streams and the springs have

dried up, and for a month I have listened to hear the quail call on the

hillside yonder. But I listen in vain. The quail have moved to

another range."

"Well, what of it, Pablo?"

"How our beloved Don Mike enjoyed the quail-shooting in the fall!

Should he return now to the Palomar, there will be no quail to shoot."

He wagged his gray head sorrowfully. "Don Mike will think that, with

the years, laziness and ingratitude have descended upon old Pablo.

Truly, Satan afflicts me." And he cursed with great depth of

feeling--in English.

"Yes, poor boy," old Don Miguel agreed; "he will miss more than the

quail-shooting when he returns--if he should return. They sent him to

Siberia to fight the Bolsheviki."

"What sort of country is this where Don Mike slays our enemy?" Pablo

queried.

"It is always winter there, Pablo. It is inhabited by a wild race of

men with much whiskers."

"Ah, our poor Don Mike! And he a child of the sun!"

"He but does his duty," old Don Miguel replied proudly. "He adds to

the fame of an illustrious family, noted throughout the centuries for

the gallantry of its warriors."

"A small comfort, Don Miguel, if our Don Mike comes not again to those

that love him."

"Pray for him," the old Don suggested piously.

Fell a silence. Then,

"Don Miguel, yonder comes one over the trail from El Toro."

Don Miguel gazed across the valley to the crest of the hills. There,

against the sky-line, a solitary horseman showed. Pablo cupped his

hands over his eyes and gazed long and steadily.

"It is Tony Moreno," he said, while the man was still a mile distant.

"I know that scuffling cripple of a horse he rides."

Don Miguel seated himself On the bench beside Pablo and awaited the

arrival of the horseman. As he drew nearer, the Don saw that Pablo was

right.

"Now, what news does that vagabond bear?" he muttered. "Assuredly he

brings a telegram; otherwise the devil himself could not induce that

lazy wastrel to ride twenty miles."

"Of a truth you are right, Don Miguel. Tony Moreno is the only man in

El Toro who is forever out of a job, and the agent of the telegraph

company calls upon him always to deliver messages of importance."

With the Don, he awaited, with vague apprehension, the arrival of Tony

Moreno. As the latter pulled his sweating horse up before them, they

rose and gazed upon him questioningly. Tony Moreno, on his part,

doffed his shabby sombrero with his right hand and murmured courteously,

"_Buenas tardes_, Don Miguel."

Pablo he ignored. With his left hand, he caught a yellow envelope as

it fell from under the hat.

"Good-afternoon, Moreno." Don Miguel returned his salutation with a

gravity he felt incumbent upon one of his station to assume when

addressing a social inferior. "You bring me a telegram?" He spoke in

English, for the sole purpose of indicating to the messenger that the

gulf between them could not be spanned by the bridge of their mother

tongue. He suspected Tony Moreno very strongly of having stolen a

yearling from him many years ago.

Tony Moreno remembered his manners, and dismounted before handing Don

Miguel the telegram.

"The delivery charges?" Don Miguel queried courteously.

"Nothing, Don Miguel." Moreno's voice was strangely subdued. "It is a

pleasure to serve you, _señor_."

"You are very kind." And Don Miguel thrust the telegram, unopened,

into his pocket. "However," he continued, "it will please me, Moreno,

if you accept this slight token of my appreciation." And he handed the

messenger a five-dollar bill. The don was a proud man, and disliked

being under obligation to the Tony Morenos of this world. Tony

protested, but the don stood his ground, silently insistent, and, in

the end, the other pouched the bill, and rode away. Don Miguel seated

himself once more beside his retainer and drew forth the telegram.

"It must be evil news," he murmured, with the shade of a tremor in his

musical voice; "otherwise, that fellow could not have felt so much pity

for me that it moved him to decline a gratuity."

"Read, Don Miguel!" Pablo croaked. "Read!"

Don Miguel read. Then he carefully folded the telegram and replaced it

in the envelope; as deliberately, he returned the envelope to his

pocket. Suddenly his hands gripped the bench, and he trembled

violently.

"Don Mike is dead?" old Pablo queried softly. He possessed all the

acute intuition of a primitive people.

Don Miguel did not reply; so presently Pablo turned his head and gazed

up into the master's face. Then he knew--his fingers trembled slightly

as he returned to work on the hondo, and, for a long time, no sound

broke the silence save the song of an oriole in the catalpa tree.

Suddenly, the sound for which old Pablo had waited so long burst forth

from the sage-clad hillside. It was a cock quail calling, and, to the

majordomo, it seemed to say: "Don Mike! Come home! Don Mike! Come

home!"

"Ah, little truant, who has told you that you are safe?" Pablo cried in

agony. "For Don Mike shall not come home--no, no--never any more!"

His Indian stoicism broke at last; he clasped his hands and fell to his

knees beside the bench, sobbing aloud.

Don Miguel regarded him not, and when Pablo's babbling became

incoherent, the aged master of Palomar controlled his twitching hands

sufficiently to roll and light a cigarette. Then he reread the

telegram.

Yes; it was true. It was from Washington, and signed by the

adjutant-general; it informed Don Miguel José Farrel, with regret, that

his son, First Sergeant Miguel José Maria Federico Noriaga Farrel,

Number 765,438, had been killed in action in Siberia on the fourth

instant.

"At least," the old don murmured, "he died like a gentleman. Had he

returned to the Rancho Palomar, he could not have continued to live

like one. Oh, my son, my son!"

He rose blindly and groped his way along the wall until he came to the

inset gate leading into the patio; like a stricken animal retreating to

its lair, he sought the privacy of his old-fashioned garden, where none

might intrude upon his grief.

II

First Sergeant Michael Joseph Farrel entered the orderly-room and saluted

his captain, who sat, with his chair tilted back, staring mournfully at

the opposite wall.

"I have to report, sir, that I have personally delivered the battery

records, correctly sorted, labeled, and securely crated, to the

demobilization office. The typewriter, field-desk, and stationery have

been turned in, and here are the receipts."

The captain tucked the receipts in his blouse pocket.

"Well, Sergeant, I dare say that marks the completion of your duties--all

but the last formation." He glanced at his wrist-watch. "Fall in the

battery and call the roll. By that time, I will have organized my

farewell speech to the men. Hope I can deliver it without making a fool

of myself."

"Very well, sir."

The first sergeant stepped out of the orderly-room and blew three long

blasts on his whistle--his signal to the battery to "fall in." The men

came out of the demobilization-shacks with alacrity and formed within a

minute; without command, they "dressed" to the right and straightened the

line. Farrel stepped to the right of it, glanced down the long row of

silent, eager men, and commanded,

"Front!"

Nearly two hundred heads described a quarter circle.

Farrel stepped lithely down the long front to the geometrical center of

the formation, made a right-face, walked six paces, executed an

about-face, and announced complainingly:

"Well, I've barked at you for eighteen months--and finally you made it

snappy. On the last day of your service, you manage to fall in within

the time-limit and dress the line perfectly. I congratulate you." Covert

grins greeted his ironical sally. He continued: "I'm going to say

good-by to those of you who think there are worse tops in the service

than I. To those who did not take kindly to my methods, I have no

apologies to offer. I gave everybody a square deal, and for the

information of some half-dozen Hot-spurs who have vowed to give me the

beating of my life the day we should be demobilized, I take pleasure in

announcing that I will be the first man to be discharged, that there is a

nice clear space between these two demobilization-shacks and the ground

is not too hard, that there will be no guards to interfere, and if any

man with the right to call himself 'Mister' desires to air his grievance,

he can make his engagement now, and I shall be at his service at the hour

stipulated. Does anybody make me an offer?" He stood there, balanced

nicely on the balls of his feet, cool, alert, glancing interestedly up

and down the battery front. "What?" he bantered, "nobody bids? Well,

I'm glad of that. I part friends with everybody. Call rolls!"

The section-chiefs called the rolls of their sections and reported them

present. Farrel stepped to the door of the orderly-room.

"The men are waiting for the captain," he reported.

"Sergeant Farrel," that bedeviled individual replied frantically, "I

can't do it. You'll have to do it for me."

"Yes, sir; I understand."

Farrel returned to the battery, brought them to attention, and said:

"The skipper wants to say good-by, men, but he isn't up to the job. He's

afraid to tackle it; so he has asked me to wish you light duty, heavy

pay, and double rations in civil life. He has asked me to say to you

that he loves you all and will not soon forget such soldiers as you have

proved yourselves to be."

"Three for the Skipper! Give him three and a tiger!" somebody pleaded,

and the cheers were given with a hearty generosity which even the most

disgruntled organization can develop on the day of demobilization.

The skipper came to the door of the orderly-room.

"Good-by, good luck, and God bless you, lads!" he shouted, and nod with

the discharges under his arm, while the battery "counted off," and, in

command of Farrel (the lieutenants had already been demobilized), marched

to the pay-tables. As they emerged from the paymaster's shack, they

scattered singly, in little groups, back to the demobilization-shacks.

Presently, bearing straw suitcases, "tin" helmets, and gas-masks (these

latter articles presented to them by a paternal government as souvenirs

of their service), they drifted out through the Presidio gate, where the

world swallowed them.

Although he had been the first man in the battery to receive his

discharge, Farrel was the last man to leave the Presidio. He waited

until the captain, having distributed the discharges, came out of the

pay-office and repaired again to his deserted orderly-room; whereupon the

former first sergeant followed him.

"I hesitate to obtrude, sir," he announced, as he entered the room, "but

whether the captain likes it or not, he'll have to say good-by to me. I

have attended to everything I can think of, sir; so, unless the captain

has some further use for me, I shall be jogging along."

"Farrel," the captain declared, "if I had ever had a doubt as to why I

made you top cutter of B battery, that last remark of yours would have

dissipated it. Please do not be in a hurry. Sit down and mourn with me

for a little while."

"Well, I'll sit down with you, sir, but I'll be hanged if I'll be

mournful. I'm too happy in the knowledge that I'm going home."

"Where is your home, sergeant?"

"In San Marcos County, in the southern part of the state. After two

years of Siberia and four days of this San Francisco fog, I'm fed up on

low temperatures, and, by the holy poker, I want to go home. It isn't

much of a home--just a quaint, old, crumbling adobe ruin, but it's home,

and it's mine. Yes, sir; I'm going home and sleep in the bed my

great-greatgrandfather was born in."

"If I had a bed that old, I'd fumigate it," the captain declared. Like

all regular army officers, he was a very devil of a fellow for

sanitation. "Do you worship your ancestors, Farrel?"

"Well, come to think of it, I have rather a reverence for 'the ashes of

my fathers and the temples of my gods.'"

"So have the Chinese. Among Americans, however, I thought all that sort

of thing was confined to the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers."

"If I had an ancestor who had been a Pilgrim Father," Farrel declared,

"I'd locate his grave and build a garbage-incinerator on it."

"What's your grouch against the Pilgrim Fathers?"

"They let their religion get on top of them, and they took all the joy

out of life. My Catalonian ancestors, on the other hand, while taking

their religion seriously, never permitted it to interfere with a

_fiesta_. They were what might be called 'regular fellows.'"

"Your Catalonian ancestors? Why, I thought you were black Irish, Farrel?"

"The first of my line that I know anything about was a lieutenant in the

force that marched overland from Mexico to California under command of

Don Gaspar de Portola. Don Gaspar was accompanied by Fray Junipero

Serra. They carried a sword and a cross respectively, and arrived in San

Diego on July first, 1769. So, you see, I'm a real Californian."

"You mean Spanish-Californian."

"Well, hardly in the sense that most people use that term, sir. We have

never intermarried with Mexican or Indian, and until my grandfather

Farrel arrived at the ranch and refused to go away until my grandmother

Noriaga went with him, we were pure-bred Spanish blonds. My grandmother

had red hair, brown eyes, and a skin as white as an old bleached-linen

napkin. Grandfather Farrel is the fellow to whom I am indebted for my

saddle-colored complexion."

"Siberia has bleached you considerably. I should say you're an ordinary

brunet now."

Farrel removed his overseas cap and ran long fingers through his hair.

"If I had a strain of Indian in me, sir," he explained, "my hair would be

straight, thick, coarse, and blue-black. You will observe that it is

wavy, a medium crop, of average fineness, and jet black."

The captain laughed at his frankness.

"Very well, Farrel; I'll admit you're clean-strain white. But tell me:

How much of you is Latin and how much Farrel?"

It was Farrel's turn to chuckle now.

"Seriously, I cannot answer that question. My grandmother, as I have

stated, was pure-bred Castilian or Catalonian, for I suppose they mixed.

The original Michael Joseph Farrel (I am the third of the name) was

Tipperary Irish, and could trace his ancestry back to the fairies--to

hear him tell it. But one can never be quite certain how much Spanish

there is in an Irishman from the west, so I have always started with the

premise that the result of that marriage--my father--was three-fifths

Latin. Father married a Galvez, who was half Scotch; so I suppose I'm an

American."

"I should like to see you on your native heath, Farrel. Does your dad

still wear a conical-crowned sombrero, bell-shaped trousers, bolero

jacket, and all that sort of thing?"

"No, sir. The original Mike insisted upon wearing regular trousers and

hats. He had all of the prejudices of his race, and regarded folks who

did things differently from him as inferior people. He was a lieutenant

on a British sloop-of-war that was wrecked on the coast of San Marcos

County in the early 'Forties. All hands were drowned, with the exception

of my grandfather, who was a very contrary man. He swam ashore and

strolled up to the hacienda of the Rancho Palomar, arriving just before

luncheon. What with a twenty-mile hike in the sun, he was dry by the

time he arrived, and in his uniform, although somewhat bedraggled, he

looked gay enough to make a hit with my great-grandfather Noriaga, who

invited him to luncheon and begged him to stay a while. Michael Joseph

liked the place; so he stayed. You see, there were thousands of horses

on the ranch and, like all sailors, he had equestrian ambitions."

"Great snakes! It must have been a sizable place."

"It was. The original Mexican grant was twenty leagues square."

"I take it, then, that the estate has dwindled in size."

"Oh, yes, certainly. My great-grandfather Noriaga, Michael Joseph I, and

Michael Joseph II shot craps with it, and bet it on horse-races, and gave

it away for wedding-doweries, and, in general, did their little best to

put the Farrel posterity out in the mesquite with the last of the Mission

Indians."

"How much of this principality have you left?"

"I do not know. When I enlisted, we had a hundred thousand acres of the

finest valley and rolling grazing-land in California and the hacienda

that was built in 1782. But I've been gone two years, and haven't heard

from home for five months."

"Mortgaged?"

"Of course. The Farrels never worked while money could be raised at ten

per cent. Neither did the Noriagas. You might as well attempt to yoke

an elk and teach him how to haul a cart."

"Oh, nonsense, Farrel! You're the hardest-working man I have ever known."

Farrel smiled boyishly.

"That was in Siberia, and I had to hustle to keep warm. But I know I'll

not be home six months before that delicious _mañana_ spirit will settle

over me again, like mildew on old boots."

The captain shook his head.

"Any man who can see so clearly the economic faults of his race and

nevertheless sympathize with them is not one to be lulled to the ruin

that has overtaken practically all of the old native California families.

That strain of Celt and Gael in you will triumph over the easy-going

Latin."

"Well, perhaps. And two years in the army has helped tremendously to

eradicate an inherited tendency toward procrastination."

"I shall like to think that I had something to do with that," the officer

answered. "What are your plans?"

"Well, sir, this hungry world must be fed by the United States for the

next ten years, and I have an idea that the Rancho Palomar can pull

itself out of the hole with beef cattle. My father has always raised

short-legged, long-horned scrubs, descendants of the old Mexican breeds,

and there is no money in that sort of stock. If I can induce him to turn

the ranch over to me, I'll try to raise sufficient money to buy a couple

of car-loads of pure-bred Hereford bulls and grade up that scrub stock;

in four or five years I'll have steers that will weigh eighteen hundred

to two thousand pounds on the hoof, instead of the little

eight-hundred-pounders that have swindled us for a hundred years."

"How many head of cattle can you run on your ranch?"

"About ten thousand--one to every ten acres. If I could develop water

for irrigation in the San Gregorio valley, I could raise alfalfa and

lot-feed a couple of thousand more."

"What is the ranch worth?"

"About eight per acre is the average price of good cattle-range nowadays.

With plenty of water for irrigation, the valley-land would be worth five

hundred dollars an acre. It's as rich as cream, and will grow

anything--with water."

"Well, I hope your dad takes a back seat and gives you a free hand,

Farrel. I think you'll make good with half a chance."

"I feel that way also," Farrel replied seriously.

"Are you going south to-night?"

"Oh, no. Indeed not! I don't want to go home in the dark, sir." The

captain was puzzled. "Because I love my California, and I haven't seen

her for two years," Farrel replied, to the other's unspoken query. "It's

been so foggy since we landed in San Francisco I've had a hard job making

my way round the Presidio. But if I take the eight-o'clock train

tomorrow morning, I'll run out of the fog-belt in forty-five minutes and

be in the sunshine for the remainder of the journey. Yes, by

Jupiter--and for the remainder of my life!"

"You want to feast your eyes on the countryside, eh?"

"I do. It's April, and I want to see the Salinas valley with its oaks; I

want to see the bench-lands with the grape-vines just budding; I want to

see some bald-faced cows clinging to the Santa Barbara hillsides, and I

want to meet some fellow on the train who speaks the language of my

tribe."

"Farrel, you're all Irish. You're romantic and poetical, and you feel

the call of kind to kind. That's distinctly a Celtic trait."

"_Quién sabe_? But I have a great yearning to speak Spanish with

somebody. It's my mother tongue."

"There must be another reason," the captain bantered him. "Sure there

isn't a girl somewhere along the right of way and you are fearful, if you

take the night-train, that the porter may fail to waken you in time to

wave to her as you go by her station?"

Farrel shook his head.

"There's another reason, but that isn't it. Captain, haven't you been

visualizing every little detail of your home-coming?"

"You forget, Farrel, that I'm a regular-army man, and we poor devils get

accustomed to being uprooted. I've learned not to build castles in

Spain, and I never believe I'm going to get a leave until the old man

hands me the order. Even then, I'm always fearful of an order recalling

it."

"You're missing a lot of happiness, sir. Why, I really believe I've had

more fun out of the anticipation of my home-coming than I may get out of

the realization. I've planned every detail for months, and, if anything

slips, I'm liable to sit right down and bawl like a kid."

"Let's listen to your plan of operations, Farrel," the captain suggested.

"I'll never have one myself, in all probability, but I'm child enough to

want to listen to yours."

"Well, in the first place, I haven't communicated with my father since

landing here. He doesn't know I'm back in California, and I do not want

him to know until I drop in on him."

"And your mother, Farrel?"'

"Died when I was a little chap. No brothers or sisters. Well, if I had

written him or wired him when I first arrived, he would have had a week

of the most damnable suspense, because, owing to the uncertainty of the

exact date of our demobilization, I could not have informed him of the

exact time of my arrival home. Consequently, he'd have had old Carolina,

our cook, dishing up nightly fearful quantities of the sort of grub I was

raised on. And that would be wasteful. Also, he'd sit under the catalpa

tree outside the western wall of the hacienda and never take his eyes off

the highway from El Toro or the trail from Sespe. And every night after

the sun had set and I'd failed to show up, he'd go to bed heavy-hearted.

Suspense is hard on an old man, sir."

"On young men, too. Go on."

"Well, I'll drop off the train to-morrow afternoon about four o'clock at

a lonely little flag-station called Sespe. After the train leaves Sespe,

it runs south-west for almost twenty miles to the coast, and turns south

to El Toro. Nearly everybody enters the San Gregorio from El Toro, but,

via the short-cut trail from Sespe, I can hike it home in three hours and

arrive absolutely unannounced and unheralded.

"Now, as I pop up over the mile-high ridge back of Sespe, I'll be looking

down on the San Gregorio while the last of the sunlight still lingers

there. You see, sir, I'm only looking at an old picture I've always

loved. Tucked away down in the heart of the valley, there is an old ruin

of a mission--the Mission de la Madre Dolorosa--the Mother of Sorrows.

The light will be shining on its dirty white walls and red-tiled roof,

and I'll sit me down in the shade of a manzanita bush and wait, because

that's my valley and I know what's coming.

"Exactly at six o'clock, I shall see a figure come out on the roof of the

mission and stand in front of the old gallows-frame on which hang eight

chimes that were carried in on mules from the City of Mexico when

Junipero Serra planted the cross of Catholicism at San Diego, in 1769.

That distant figure will be Brother Flavio, of the Franciscan Order, and

the old boy is going to ramp up and down in front of those chimes with a

hammer and give me a concert. He'll bang out 'Adeste Fideles' and

'Gloria in Excelsis.' That's a cinch, because he's a creature of habit.

Occasionally he plays 'Lead, Kindly Light' and 'Ave Maria'!"

Farrel paused, a faint smile of amusement fringing his handsome mouth.

He rolled and lighted a cigarette and continued:

"My father wrote me that old Brother Flavio, after a terrible battle with

his own conscience and at the risk of being hove out of the valley by his

indignant superior, Father Dominic, was practising 'Hail, The Conquering

Hero Comes!' against the day of my home-coming. I wrote father to tell

Brother Flavio to cut that out and substitute 'In the Good Old

Summertime' if he wanted to make a hit with me. Awfully good old hunks,

Brother Flavio! He knows I like those old chimes, and, when I'm home, he

most certainly bangs them so the melody will carry clear up to the

Palomar."

The captain was gazing with increasing amazement upon his former first

sergeant. After eighteen months, he had discovered a man he had not

known heretofore."

"And after the 'Angelus'--what?" he demanded.

Farrel's smug little smile of complacency had broadened.

"Well, sir, when Brother Flavio pegs out, I'll get up and run down to the

Mission, where Father Dominic, Father Andreas, Brother Flavio, Brother

Anthony, and Brother Benedict will all extend a welcome and muss me up,

and we'll all talk at once and get nowhere with the conversation for the

first five minutes. Brother Anthony is just a little bit--ah--nutty, but

harmless. He'll want to know how many men I've killed, and I'll tell him

two hundred and nineteen. He has a leaning toward odd numbers, as

tending more toward exactitude. Right away, he'll go into the chapel and

pray for their souls, and while he's at this pious exercise, Father

Dominic will dig up a bottle of old wine that's too good for a nut like

Brother Anthony, and we'll sit on a bench in the mission garden in the

shade of the largest bougainvillea in the world and tuck away the wine.

Between tucks, Father Dominic will inquire casually into the state of my

soul, and the information thus elicited will scandalize the old saint.

The only way I can square myself is to go into the chapel with them and

give thanks for my escape from the Bolsheviki.

"By that time, it will be a quarter of seven and dark, so Father Dominic

will crank up a prehistoric little automobile my father gave him in order

that he might spread himself over San Marcos County on Sundays and say

two masses. I have a notion that the task of keeping that old car in

running order has upset Brother Anthony's mental balance. He used to be

a blacksmith's helper in El Toro in his youth, and therefore is supposed

to be a mechanic in his old age."

"Then the old padre drives you home, eh?" the captain suggested.

"He does. Providentially, it is now the cool of the evening. The San

Gregorio is warm enough, for all practical purposes, even on a day in

April, and, knowing this, I am grateful to myself for timing my arrival

after the heat of the day. Father Dominic is grateful also. The old man

wears thin sandals, and on hot days he suffers continuous martyrdom from

the heat of that little motor. He is always begging Satan to fly away

with that hot-foot accelerator.

"Well, arrived home, I greet my father alone in the patio. Father

Dominic, meanwhile, sits outside in his flivver and permits the motor to

roar, just to let my father know he's there, although not for money

enough to restore his mission would he butt in on us at that moment.

"Well, my father will not be able to hear a word I say until Padre

Dominic shuts off his motor; so my father will yell at him and ask him

what the devil he's doing out there and to come in, and be quick about

it, or he'll throw his share of the dinner to the hogs. We always dine

at seven; so we'll be in time for dinner. But before we go in to dinner,

my dad will ring the bell in the compound, and the help will report.

Amid loud cries of wonder and delight, I shall be welcomed by a mess of

mixed breeds of assorted sexes, and old Pablo, the majordomo, will be

ordered to pass out some wine to celebrate my arrival. It's against the

law to give wine to an Indian, but then, as my father always remarks on

such occasions: 'To hell with the law! They're my Indians, and there are

damned few of them left.'

"Padre Dominic, my father, and I will, in all probability, get just a

little bit jingled at dinner. After dinner, we'll sit on the porch

flanking the patio and smoke cigars, and I'll smell the lemon verbena and

heliotrope and other old-fashioned flowers modern gardeners have

forgotten how to grow. About midnight, Father Dominic's brain will have

cleared, and he will be fit to be trusted with his accursed automobile;

so he will snort home in the moonlight, and my father will then carefully

lock the patio gate with a nine-inch key. Not that anybody ever steals

anything in our country, except a cow once in a while--and cows never

range in our patio--but just because we're hell-benders for conforming to

custom. When I was a boy, Pablo Artelan, our majordomo, always slept

athwart that gate, like an old watchdog. I give you my word I've climbed

that patio wall a hundred times and dropped down on Pablo's stomach

without wakening him. And, for a quarter of a century, to my personal

knowledge, that patio gate has supported itself on a hinge and a half.

Oh, we're a wonderful institution, we Farrels!"

"What did you say this Pablo was?"

"He used to be a majordomo. That is, he was the foreman of the ranch

when we needed a foreman. We haven't needed Pablo for a long time, but

it doesn't cost much to keep him on the pay-roll, except when his

relatives come to visit him and stay a couple of weeks."

"And your father feeds them?"

"Certainly. Also, he houses them. It can't be helped. It's an old

custom."

"How long has Pablo been a pensioner?"

"From birth. He's mostly Indian, and all the work he ever did never hurt

him. But, then, he was never paid very much. He was born on the ranch

and has never been more than twenty miles from it. And his wife is our

cook. She has relatives, too."

The captain burst out laughing.

"But surely this Pablo has some use," he suggested.

"Well he feeds the dogs, and in order to season his _frijoles_ with the

salt of honest labor, he saddles my father's horse and leads him round to

the house every morning. Throughout the remainder of the day, he sits

outside the wall and, by following the sun, he manages to remain in the

shade. He watches the road to proclaim the arrival of visitors, smokes

cigarettes, and delivers caustic criticisms on the younger generation

when he can get anybody to listen to him."

"How old is your father, Farrel?"

"Seventy-eight."

"And he rides a horse!"

"He does worse than that." Farrel laughed. "He rides a horse that would

police you, sir. On his seventieth birthday, at a rodeo, he won first

prize for roping and hog-tying a steer."

"I'd like to meet that father of yours, Farrel."

"You'd like him. Any time you want to spend a furlough on the Palomar,

we'll make you mighty welcome. Better come in the fall for the

quail-shooting." He glanced at his wrist-watch and sighed. "Well, I

suppose I'd do well to be toddling along. Is the captain going to remain

in the service?"

The captain nodded.

"My people are hell-benders on conforming to custom, also," he added.

"We've all been field-artillerymen.

"I believe I thanked you for a favor you did me once, but to prove I

meant what I said, I'm going to send you a horse, sir. He is a chestnut

with silver points, five years old, sixteen hands high, sound as a

Liberty Bond, and bred in the purple. He is beautifully reined, game,

full of ginger, but gentle and sensible. He'll weigh ten hundred in

condition, and he's as active as a cat. You can win with him at any

horse-show and at the head of a battery. _Dios_! He is every inch a

_caballero_!"

"Sergeant, you're much too kind. Really--"

"The things we have been through together, sir--all that we have been to

each other--never can happen again. You will add greatly to my happiness

if you will accept this animal as a souvenir of our very pleasant

association."

"Oh, son, this is too much! You're giving me your own private mount.

You love him. He loves you. Doubtless he'll know you the minute you

enter the pasture."

Farrel's fine white teeth, flashed in a brilliant smile, "I do not desire

to have the captain mounted on an inferior horse. We have many other

good horses on the Palomar. This one's name is Panchito; I will express

him to you some day this week."

"Farrel, you quite overwhelm me. A thousand thanks! I'll treasure

Panchito for your sake as well as his own."

The soldier extended his hand, and the captain grasped it.

"Good-by, Sergeant. Pleasant green fields!"

"Good-by, sir. Dry camps and quick promotion."

The descendant of a _conquistador_ picked up his straw suitcase, his

helmet, and gas-mask. At the door, he stood to attention, and saluted.

The captain leaped to his feet and returned this salutation of warriors;

the door opened and closed, and the officer stood staring at the space so

lately occupied by the man who, for eighteen months, had been his right

hand.

"Strange man!" he muttered. "I didn't know they bred his kind any more.

Why, he's a feudal baron!"

III

There were three people in the observation-car when Michael Joseph

Farrel boarded it a few minutes before eight o'clock the following

morning. Of the three, one was a girl, and, as Farrel entered,

carrying the souvenirs of his service--a helmet and gas-mask--she

glanced at him with the interest which the average civilian manifests

in any soldier obviously just released from service and homeward bound.

Farrel's glance met hers for an instant with equal interest; then he

turned to stow his impedimenta in the brass rack over his seat. He was

granted an equally swift but more direct appraisal of her as he walked

down the observation-car to the rear platform, where he selected a

chair in a corner that offered him sanctuary from the cold, fog-laden

breeze, lighted a cigar, and surrendered himself to contemplating, in

his mind's eye, the joys of home-coming.

He had the platform to himself until after the train had passed Palo

Alto, when others joined him. The first to emerge on the platform was

a Japanese. Farrel favored him with a cool, contemptuous scrutiny, for

he was a Californian and did not hold the members of this race in a

tithe of the esteem he accorded other Orientals. This Japanese was

rather shorter and thinner than the majority of his race. He wore

large, round tortoise-shell spectacles, and clothes that proclaimed the

attention of the very best tailors; a gold-band ring, set with one

blue-white diamond and two exquisite sapphires, adorned the pudgy

finger of his right hand. Farrel judged that his gray beaver hat must

have cost at least fifty dollars.

"We ought to have Jim Crow cars for these cock-sure sons of Nippon,"

the ex-soldier growled to himself. "We'll come to it yet if something

isn't done about them. They breed so fast they'll have us crowded into

back seats in another decade."

He had had some unpleasant clashes with Japanese troops in Siberia, and

the memory of their studied insolence was all the more poignant because

it had gone unchallenged. He observed, now, that the Japanese

passenger had permitted the screen door to slam in the face of the man

following him; with a very definite appreciation of the good things of

life, he had instantly selected the chair in the corner opposite

Farrel, where he could smoke his cigar free from the wind. Following

the Japanese came an American, as distinctive of his class as the

Japanese was of his. In point of age, this man was about fifty years

old--a large man strikingly handsome and of impressive personality. He

courteously held the door open to permit the passage of the girl whom

Farrel had noticed when he first entered the car.

To Farrel, at least, a surprising incident now occurred. There were

eight vacant seats on the platform, and the girl's glance swept them

all; he fancied it rested longest upon the chair beside him. Then,

with the faintest possible little _moue_ of disapproval, she seated

herself beside the Japanese. The other man took the seat in front of

the girl, half turned, and entered into conversation with the Jap.

Farrel studied the trio with interest, decided that they were traveling

together, and that the man in the gray tweeds was the father of the

girl. She bore a striking resemblance to him and had inherited his

handsome features a thousandfold, albeit her eyes were different, being

large, brown, and wide apart; from them beamed a sweetness, a

benignancy, and tenderness that, to the impressionable Farrel, bespoke

mental as well as physical beauty. She was gowned, gloved, and hatted

with rich simplicity.

"I think that white man is from the East," Farrel concluded, although

why that impression came to him, he would have been at a loss to

explain. Perhaps it was because he appeared to associate on terms of

social equality with a Japanese whose boorishness, coupled with an

evident desire to agree with everything the white man said, proclaimed

him anything but a consular representative or a visiting merchant.

Presently the girl's brown eyes were turned casually in Farrel's

direction, seemingly without interest. Instantly he rose, fixed her

with a comprehending look, nodded almost imperceptibly toward the chair

he was vacating, and returned to his seat inside the car. Her fine

brows lifted a trifle; her slight inclination of the head was robbed of

the chill of brevity by a fleeting smile of gratitude, not so much for

the sacrifice of his seat in her favor as for the fine courtesy which

had moved him to proffer it without making of his action an excuse to

sit beside her and attempt an acquaintance.

From his exile, Farrel observed with satisfaction how quickly the girl

excused herself to her companions and crossed over to the seat vacated

in her favor.

At the first call for luncheon, he entered the diner and was given a

seat at a small table. The seat opposite him was unoccupied, and when

the girl entered the diner alone and was shown to this vacant seat,

Farrel thrilled pleasurably.

"Three long, loud ones for you, young lady!" he soliloquized. "You

didn't care to eat at the same table with the brown beggar; so you came

to luncheon alone."

As their glances met, there was in Farrel's black eyes no hint of

recognition, for he possessed in full measure all of the modesty and

timidity of the most modest and timid race on earth where women are

concerned--the Irish--tempered with the exquisite courtesy of that race

for whom courtesy and gallantry toward woman are a tradition--the

Spanish of that all but extinct Californian caste known as the _gente_.

It pleased Farrel to pretend careful study of the menu. Although his

preferences in food were simple, he was extraordinarily hungry and knew

exactly what he wanted. For long months he had dreamed of a

porterhouse steak smothered in mushrooms, and now, finding that

appetizing viand listed on the menu, he ordered it without giving

mature deliberation to the possible consequences of his act. For the

past two months he had been forced to avoid, when dining alone, meats

served in such a manner as to necessitate firm and skilful manipulation

of a knife--and when the waiter served his steak, he discovered, to his

embarrassment, that it was not particularly tender nor was his knife

even reasonably sharp. Consequently, following an unsatisfactory

assault, he laid the knife aside and cast an anxious glance toward the

kitchen, into which his waiter had disappeared; while awaiting the aid

of this functionary, he hid his right hand under the table and gently

massaged the back of it at a point where a vivid red scar showed.

He was aware that the girl was watching him, and, with the fascination

peculiar to such a situation, he could not forbear a quick glance at

her. Interest and concern showed in the brown eyes, and she smiled

frankly, as she said:

"I very much fear, Mr. Ex-First Sergeant, that your steak constitutes

an order you are unable to execute. Perhaps you will not mind if I

carve it for you."

"Please do not bother about me!" he exclaimed. "The waiter will be

here presently. You are very kind, but--"

"Oh, I'm quite an expert in the gentle art of mothering military men.

I commanded a hot-cake-and-doughnut brigade in France." She reached

across the little table and possessed herself of his plate.

"I'll bet my last copeck you had good discipline, too," he declared

admiringly. He could imagine the number of daring devils from whose

amorous advances even a hot-cake queen was not immune.

"The recipe was absurdly simple: No discipline, no hot-cakes. And

there were always a sufficient number of good fellows around to squelch

anybody who tried to interfere with my efficiency. By the way, I

observed how hungrily you were looking out the window this morning.

Quite a change from Siberia, isn't it?"

"How did you know I'd soldiered in Siberia?"

"You said you'd bet your last copeck."

"You should have served in Intelligence."

"You are blessed with a fair amount of intuition yourself."

"Oh, I knew you didn't want to sit near that Jap. Can't bear the race

myself."

She nodded approvingly.

"Waiter's still out in the kitchen," she reminded him. "Now, old

soldier, aren't you glad I took pity on you? Your steak would have

been cold before he got round to you, and I imagine you've had

sufficient cold rations to do you quite a while."

"It was sweet of you to come to my rescue. I'm not exactly crippled,

though I haven't used my hand for more than two months, and the muscles

are slightly atrophied. The knife slips because I cannot close my hand

tightly. But I'll be all right in another month."

"What happened to it?"

"Saber-thrust. Wouldn't have amounted to much if the Bolshevik who did

the thrusting had had a clean saber. Blood-poisoning set in, but our

battalion surgeon got to work on it in time to save me from being

permanently crippled."

"'Saber-thrust?' They got that close to you?"

He nodded.

"Troop of Semenoff's bandits in a little two-by-four fight out on the

trans-Siberian railroad. Guess they wanted the trainload of rations we

were guarding. My captain killed the fellow who stuck me and accounted

for four others who tried to finish me."

"Captains think a great deal of good first sergeants," she suggested.

"And you got a wound-chevron out of it. I suppose, like every soldier,

you wanted one, provided it didn't cost too much."

"Oh, yes. And I got mine rather cheap. The battalion surgeon fixed it

so I didn't have to go to the hospital. Never missed a day of duty."

She handed him his plate with the steak cut into bits.

"It was nice of you to surrender your cozy seat to me this morning,

Sergeant." She buttered a piece of bread for him and added, "But very

much nicer the way you did it."

"'Cast thy bread upon the waters,'" he quoted, and grinned brazenly.

"Nevertheless, if I were in civvies, you'd have permitted the waiter to

cut my steak."

"Oh, of course we veterans must stand together, Sergeant."

"I find it pleasanter sitting together. By the way, may I ask the

identity of the Nipponese person, with your father?"

"How do you know he is my father?" she parried.

"I do not know. I merely thought he looked quite worthy of the honor."

"While away with the rough, bad soldiers, you did not forget how to

make graceful speeches," she complimented him. "The object of your

pardonable curiosity is a Mr. Okada, the potato baron of California.

He was formerly prime minister to the potato king of the San Joaquin,

but revolted and became a pretender to the throne. While the king

lives, however, Okada is merely a baron, although in a few years he

will probably control the potato market absolutely."

He thumped the table lightly with his maimed hand.

"I knew he was just a coolie dressed up."

She reached for an olive.

"Go as far as you like, native son. He's no friend of mine."

"Well, in that case, I'll spare his life," he countered boldly. "And

I've always wanted to kill a Japanese potato baron. Do you not think

it would be patriotic of me to immolate myself and reduce the cost of

spuds?"

"I never eat them. They're very fattening. Now, if you really wish to

be a humanitarian, why not search out the Japanese garlic king?"

"I dare not. His demise would place me in bad odor."

She laughed merrily. Evidently she was finding him amusing company.

She looked him over appraisingly and queried bluntly,

"Were you educated abroad?"

"I was not. I'm a product of a one-room schoolhouse perched on a bare

hill down in San Marcos County."

"But you speak like a college man."

"I am. I'm a graduate of the University of California Agricultural

College, at Davis. I'm a sharp on pure-bred beef cattle, pure-bred

swine, and irrigation. I know why hens decline to lay when eggs are

worth eighty cents a dozen, and why young turkeys are so blamed hard to

raise in the fall. My grandfather and my father were educated at

Trinity College, Dublin, and were sharps on Latin and Greek, but I

never figured the dead languages as much of an aid to a man doomed from

birth to view cows from the hurricane-deck of a horse."

"But you have such a funny little clipped accent."

He opened his great black eyes in feigned astonishment.

"Oh, didn't you know?" he whispered.

"Know what?"

"Unfortunate young woman!" he murmured to his water-glass. "No wonder

she sits in public with that pudgy son of a chrysanthemum, when she

isn't even able to recognize a greaser at a glance. Oh, Lord!"

"You're not a greaser," she challenged.

"No?" he bantered. "You ought to see me squatting under an avocado

tree, singing the 'Spanish Cavalier' to a guitar accompaniment.

Listen: I'll prove it without the accompaniment." And he hummed

softly:

"The Spanish cavalier,

Went out to rope a steer,

Along with his paper cigar-o,

'_Car-ramba_!' says he.

'_Mañana_ you will be

_Mucho bueno carne par mio_!'"

Her brown eyes danced.

"That doesn't prove anything except that you're an incorrigible Celt.

When you stooped down to kiss the stone at Blarney Castle, you lost

your balance and fell in the well. And you've dripped blarney ever

since."

"Oh, not that bad, really! I'm a very serious person ordinarily. That

little forget-me-not of language is a heritage of my childhood. Mother

taught me to pray in Spanish, and I learned that language first.

Later, my grandfather taught me to swear in English with an Irish

accent, and I've been fearfully balled up ever since. It's very

inconvenient."

"Be serious, soldier, or I shall not cut your meat for you at dinner."

"Excuse me. I forgot I was addressing a hot-cake queen. But please do

not threaten me, because I'm out of the army just twenty-four hours,

and I'm independent and I may resent it. I can order spoon-victuals,

you know."

"You aren't really Spanish?"

"Not really. Mostly. I'd fight a wild bull this minute for a single

red-chilli pepper. I eat them raw."

"And you're going home to your ranch now?"

"_Si_. And I'll not take advantage of any stop-over privileges on the

way, either. Remember the fellow in the song who kept on proclaiming

that he had to go back--that he must go back--that he would go back--to

that dear old Chicago town? Well, that poor exile had only just

commenced to think that he ought to begin feeling the urge to go home.

And when you consider that the unfortunate man hailed from Chicago,

while I--" He blew a kiss out the window and hummed:

"I love you, California.

You're the greatest state of all--"

"Oh dear! You native sons are all alike. Congenital advertisers,

every one."

"Well, isn't it beautiful? Isn't it wonderful?" He was serious now.

"One-half of your state is worthless mountain country--"

"He-country--and beautiful!" he interrupted.

"The other half is desert."

"Ever see the Mojave in the late afternoon from the top of the Tejon

Pass?" he challenged. "The wild, barbaric beauty of it? And with

water it would be a garden-spot."

"Of course your valleys are wonderful."

"_Gracias, señorita_."

"But the bare brown hills in summer-time--and the ghost-rivers of the

South! I do not think they are beautiful."

"They grow on one," he assured her earnestly. "You wait and see. I

wish you could ride over the hills back of Sespe with me this

afternoon, and see the San Gregorio valley in her new spring gown. Ah,

how my heart yearns for the San Gregorio!"

To her amazement, she detected a mistiness in his eyes, and her

generous heart warmed to him.

"How profoundly happy you are!" she commented.

"'Happy'? I should tell a man! I'm as happy as a cock valley-quail

with a large family and no coyotes in sight. Wow! This steak is good."

"Not very, I think. It's tough."

"I have good teeth."

She permitted him to eat in silence for several minutes, and when he

had disposed of the steak, she asked,

"You live in the San Gregorio valley?"

He nodded.

"We have a ranch there also," she volunteered. "Father acquired it

recently."

"From whom did he acquire it?"

"I do not know the man's name, but the ranch is one of those old

Mexican grants. It has a Spanish name. I'll try to remember it." She

knitted her delicate brows. "It's Pal-something or other."

"Is it the Palomares grant?" he suggested.

"I think it is. I know the former owner is dead, and my father

acquired the ranch by foreclosure of mortgage on the estate."

"Then it's the Palomares grant. My father wrote in his last letter

that old man Gonzales had died and that a suit to foreclose the

mortgage had been entered against the estate. The eastern edge of that

grant laps over the lower end of the San Gregorio. Is your father a

banker?"

"He controls the First National Bank of El Toro."

"That settles the identity of the ranch. Gonzales was mortgaged to the

First National." He smiled a trifle foolishly. "You gave me a bad ten

seconds," he explained. "I thought you meant my father's ranch at

first."

"Horrible!" She favored him with a delightful little grimace of

sympathy. "Just think of coming home and finding yourself homeless!"

"I think such a condition would make me wish that Russian had been

given time to finish what he started. By the way, I knew all of the

stockholders in the First National Bank, of El Toro. Your father is a

newcomer. He must have bought out old Dan Hayes' interest." She

nodded affirmatively. "Am I at liberty to be inquisitive--just a

little bit?" he queried.

"That depends, Sergeant. Ask your question, and if I feel at liberty

to answer it, I shall."

"Is that Japanese, Okada, a member of your party?"

"Yes; he is traveling with us. He has a land-deal on with my father."

"Ah!"

She glanced across at him with new interest.

"There was resentment in that last observation of yours," she

challenged.

"In common with all other Californians with manhood enough to resent

imposition, I resent all Japanese."

"Is it true, then, that there is a real Japanese problem out here?"

"Why, I thought everybody knew that," he replied, a trifle

reproachfully. "As the outpost of Occidental civilization, we've been

battling Oriental aggression for forty years."

"I had thought this agitation largely the mouthings of professional

agitators--a part of the labor-leaders' plan to pose as the watch-dogs

of the rights of the California laboring man."

"That is sheer buncombe carefully fostered by a very efficient corps of

Japanese propagandists. The resentment against the Japanese invasion

of California is not confined to any class, but is a very vital issue

with every white citizen of the state who has reached the age of reason

and regardless of whether he was born in California or Timbuctoo.

Look!"

He pointed to a huge sign-board fronting a bend in the highway that ran

close to the railroad track and parallel with it:

NO MORE JAPS WANTED HERE

"This is entirely an agricultural section," he explained. "There are

no labor-unions here. But," he added bitterly, "you could throw a

stone in the air and be moderately safe on the small end of a bet that

the stone would land on a Jap farmer."

"Do the white farmers think that sign will frighten them away?"

"No; of course not. That sign is merely a polite intimation to white

men who may contemplate selling or leasing their lands to Japs that the

organized sentiment of this community is against such a course. The

lower standards of living of the Oriental enable him to pay much higher

prices for land than a white man can."

"But," she persisted, "these aliens have a legal right to own and lease

land in this state, have they not?"

"Unfortunately, through the treachery of white lawyers, they have

devised means to comply with the letter of a law denying them the right

to own land, while evading the spirit of that law. Corporations with

white dummy directors--purchases by alien Japs in the names of their

infants in arms who happen to have been born in this country--" he

shrugged.

"Then you should amend your laws."

He looked at her with the faintest hint of cool belligerence in his

fine dark eyes.

"Every time we Californians try to enact a law calculated to keep our

state a white man's country, you Easterners, who know nothing of our

problem, and are too infernally lazy to read up on it, permit

yourselves to be stampeded by that hoary shibboleth of strained

diplomatic relations with the Mikado's government. Pressure is brought

to bear on us from the seat of the national government; the President

sends us a message to proceed cautiously, and our loyalty to the

sisterhood of states is used as a club to beat our brains out. Once,

when we were all primed to settle this issue decisively, the immortal

Theodore Roosevelt--our two-fisted, non-bluffable President at that

time--made us call off our dogs. Later, when again we began to squirm

under our burden, the Secretary of State, pacific William J. Bryan,

hurried out to our state capital, held up both pious hands, and cried:

'Oh, no! Really, you mustn't! We insist that you consider the other

members of the family. Withhold this radical legislation until we can

settle this row amicably.' Well, we were dutiful sons. We tried out

the gentleman's agreement imposed on us in 1907, but when, in 1913, we

knew it for a failure, we passed our Alien Land Bill, which hampered

but did not prevent, although we knew from experience that the class of

Japs who have a strangle-hold on California are not gentlemen but

coolies, and never respect an agreement they can break if, in the

breaking, they are financially benefited."

"Well," the girl queried, a little subdued by his vehemence, "how has

that law worked out?"

"Fine--for the Japs. The Japanese population of California has doubled

in five years; the area of fertile lands under their domination has

increased a thousand-fold, until eighty-five per cent. of the

vegetables raised in this state are controlled by Japs. They are not a

dull people, and they know how to make that control yield rich

dividends--at the expense of the white race. That man Okada is called

the 'potato baron' because presently he will actually control the

potato crop of central California--and that is where most of the

potatoes of this state are raised. Which reminds me that I started to

ask you a question about him. Do you happen to know if he is

contemplating expanding his enterprise to include a section of southern

California?"

"I suppose I ought not discuss my father's business affairs with a

stranger," she replied, "but since he is making no secret of them, I

dare say I do not violate his confidence when I tell you that he has a

deal on with Mr. Okada to colonize the San Gregorio valley in San

Marcos County."

The look of a thousand devils leaped into Farrel's eyes. The storm of

passion that swept him was truly Latin in its terrible intensity. He

glared at the girl with a malevolence that terrified her.

"My valley'" he managed to murmur presently. "My beautiful San

Gregorio! Japs! Japs!"

"I hadn't the faintest idea that information would upset you so," the

girl protested. "Please forgive me."

"I--I come from the San Gregorio," he cried passionately. "I love

every rock and cactus and rattlesnake in it. _Válgame Dios_!" And the

maimed right hand twisted and clutched as, subconsciously, he strove to

clench his fist. "Ah, who was the coward--who was the traitor that

betrayed us for a handful of silver?"

"Yes; I believe there is a great deal of the Latin about you," she said

demurely. "If I had a temper as volcanic as yours, I would never,

never go armed."

"I could kill with my naked hands the white man who betrays his

community to a Jap. _Madre de Dios_, how I hate them!"

"Well, wait until your trusty right hand is healed before you try

garroting anybody," she suggested dryly. "Suppose you cool off, Mr.

Pepper-pot, and tell me more about this terrible menace?"

"You are interested--really?"

"I could be made to listen without interrupting you, if you could bring

yourself to cease glaring at me with those terrible chile-con-carne

eyes. I can almost see myself at my own funeral. Please remember that

I have nothing whatsoever to do with my father's business affairs."

"Your father looks like a human being, and if he realized the economic

crime he is fostering--"

"Easy, soldier! You're discussing my father, whereas I desire to

discuss the Yellow Peril. To begin, are you prejudiced against a

citizen of Japan just because he's a Jap?"

"I will be frank. I do not like the race. To a white man, there is

nothing lovable about a Jap, nothing that would lead, except in

isolated cases, to a warm friendship between members of our race and

theirs. And I dare say the individual Jap has as instinctive a dislike

for us as we have for him."

"Well then, how about John Chinaman?"

His face brightened.

"Oh, a Chinaman is different. He's a regular fellow. You can have a

great deal of respect and downright admiration for a Chinaman, even of

the coolie class."

"Nevertheless, the Chinese are excluded from California."

He nodded.

"But not because of strong racial prejudice. The Chinese, like any

other Oriental, are not assimilable; also, like the Jap and the Hindu,

they are smart enough to know a good thing when they see it--and

California looks good to everybody. John Chinaman would overrun us if

we permitted it, but since he is a mighty decent sort and realizes the

sanity of our contention that he is not assimilable with us, or we with

him, he admits the wisdom and justice of our slogan: 'California for

white men.' There was no protest from Peking when we passed the

Exclusion Act. Now, however, when we endeavor to exclude Japanese,

Tokio throws a fit. But if we can muster enough courage among our

state legislators to pass a law that will absolutely divorce the

Japanese coolie from California land, we can cope with him in other

lines of trade."

She had listened earnestly to his argument, delivered with all the

earnestness of which he was capable.

"Why is he not assimilable?" she asked.

"Would you marry the potato baron?" he demanded bluntly.

"Certainly not!" she answered.

"He has gobs of money. Is that not a point worthy of consideration?"

"Not with me. It never could be."

"Perhaps you have gobs of money also."

"If I were a scrubwoman, and starving, I wouldn't consider a proposal

of marriage from that Jap sufficiently long to reject it."

"Then you have answered your own question," he reminded her

triumphantly. "The purity of our race--aye, the purity of the Japanese

race--forbids intermarriage; hence we are confronted with the

intolerable prospect of sharing our wonderful state with an alien race

that must forever remain, alien--in thought, language, morals,

religion, patriotism, and standards of living. They will dominate us,

because they are a dominant people; they will shoulder us aside,

control us, dictate to us, and we shall disappear from this beautiful

land as surely and as swiftly as did the Mission Indian. While the

South has its negro problem--and a sorry problem it is--we Californians

have had an infinitely more dangerous problem thrust upon us. We've

got to shake them off. We've got to!"

"I'll speak to my father. I do not think he understands--that he fully

realizes--"

"Ah! Thank you so much. Your father is rich, is he not?"

"I think he possesses more money than he will ever need," she replied

soberly.

"Please try to make him see that the big American thing to do would be

to colonize his land in the San Gregorio for white men and take a

lesser profit. Really, I do not relish the idea of Japanese neighbors."

"You live there, then?"

He nodded.

"Hope to die there, too. You leave the train at El Toro, I suppose?"

"My father has telegraphed mother to have the car meet us there. We

shall motor out to the ranch. And are you alighting at El Toro also?"

"No. I plan to pile off at Sespe, away up the line, and take a short

cut via a cattle-trail over the hills. I'll hike it."

She hesitated slightly. Then:

"I'm sure father would be very happy to give you a lift out from El

Toro, Sergeant. We shall have oodles of room."

"Thank you. You are very kind. But the fact is," he went on to

explain, "nobody knows I'm coming home, and I have a childish desire to

sneak in the back way and surprise them. Were I to appear in El Toro,

I'd have to shake hands with everybody in town and relate a history of

my exploits and--"

"I understand perfectly. You just want to get home, don't you?" And

she bent upon him a smile of complete understanding--a smile

all-compelling, maternal. "But did you say you'd hike it in from

Sespe? Why not hire a horse?"

"I'd like to have a horse, and if I cared to ask far one, I could

borrow one. But I'll hike it instead. It will be easy in light

marching-order."

"Speaking of horses," she said abruptly. "Do you know a horse in the

San Gregorio named Panchito?"

"A very dark chestnut with silver mane and tail, five-gaited, and as

stylish as a lady?"

"The very same."

"I should say I do know that horse! What about him?"

"My father is going to buy him for me."

This was news, and Farrel's manner indicated as much.

"Where did you see Panchito?" he demanded.

"An Indian named Pablo rode him into El Toro to be shod one day while

we were living at the hotel there. He's perfectly adorable."

"Pablo? Hardly. I know the old rascal."

"Be serious. Panchito--I was passing the blacksmith's shop, and I

simply had to step in and admire him."

"That tickled old Pablo to death--of course."

"It did. He put Panchito through all of his tricks for me, and, after

the horse was shod, he permitted me to ride the dear for half an hour.

Pablo was so kind! He waited until I could run back to the hotel and

change into my riding-habit."

"Did you try to give Pablo some money--say, about five dollars?" he

demanded, smilingly.

"Yes." Her eyes betrayed wonder.

"He declined it with profuse thanks, didn't he?"

"You're the queerest man I've ever met. Pablo did refuse it. How did

you know?"

"I know Pablo. He wouldn't take money from a lady. It's against the

code of the Rancho Palomar, and if his boss ever heard that he had

fractured that code, he'd skin him alive."

"Not Pablo's boss. Pablo told me his Don Mike, as he calls him, was

killed by the bewhiskered devils in a cold country the name of which he

had heard but could not remember. He meant Siberia."

Farrel sat up suddenly.

"What's that?" he cried sharply. "He told you Don Mike had been

killed?"

"Yes--poor fellow! Pablo said Don Mike's father had had a telegram

from the War Department."

Farrel's first impulse was to curse the War Department--in Spanish, so

she would not understand. His second was to laugh, and his third to

burst into tears. How his father had suffered! Then he remembered

that to-night, he, the said Don Mike, was to have the proud privilege

of returning from Valhalla, of bringing the light of joy back to the

faded eyes of old Don Miguel, and in the swift contemplation of the

drama and the comedy impending, he stood staring at her rather

stupidly. Pablo would doubtless believe he was a ghost returned to

haunt old scenes; the majordomo would make the sign of the cross and

start running, never pausing till he would reach the Mission of the

Mother of Sorrows, there to pour forth his unbelievable tale to Father

Dominic. Whereupon Father Dominic would spring into his prehistoric

automobile and come up to investigate. Great jumped-up Jehoshaphat!

What a climax to two years of soldiering!

"Wha--what--why--do you mean to tell me poor old Mike Farrel has lost

the number of his mess?" he blurted. "Great snakes! That news breaks

me all up in business."

"You knew him well, then?"

"'Knew him?' Why, I ate with him, slept with turn, rode with him, went

to school with him. Know him? I should tell a man! We even soldiered

together in Siberia; but, strange to say, I hadn't heard of his death."

"Judging by all the nice things I heard about him in El Toro, his death

was a genuine loss to his section of the country. Everybody appears to

have known him and loved him."

"One has to die before his virtues are apparent to some people," Farrel

murmured philosophically. "And now that Don Mike Farrel is dead, you

hope to acquire Panchito, eh?"

"I'll be broken-hearted if I cannot."

"He'll cost you a lot of money."

"He's worth a lot of money."

He gazed at her very solemnly.

"I am aware that what I am about to say is but poor return for your

sweet courtesy, but I feel that you might as well begin now to abandon

all hope of ever owning Panchito."

"Why?"

"I--I hate to tell you this, but the fact is--I'm going to acquire him."

She shook, her head and smiled at him--the superior smile of one quite

conscious of her strength.

"He is to be sold at public auction," she informed him. "And the man

who outbids me for that horse will have to mortgage his ranch and

borrow money on his Liberty Bonds."

"We shall see that which we shall see," he returned, enigmatically.

"Waiter, bring me my check, please."

While the waiter was counting out the change from a twenty-dollar bill,

Farrel resumed his conversation with the girl.

"Do you plan to remain in the San Gregorio very long?"

"All summer, I think."

He rose from his chair and bowed to her with an Old-World courtliness.

"Once more I thank you for your kindness to me, _señorita_," he said.

"It is a debt that I shall always remember--and rejoice because I can

never repay it. I dare say we shall meet again in the very near

future, and when we do, I am going to arrange matters so that I may

have the honor of being properly introduced." He pocketed his change.

"Until some day in the San Gregorio, then," he finished, "_adios_!"

Despite his smile, her woman's intuition told her that something more

poignant than the threatened Japanese invasion of the San Gregorio

valley had cast a shadow over his sunny soul. She concluded it must

have been the news of the death of his childhood chum, the beloved Don

Mike.

"What a wonderful fellow Don Mike must have been!" she mused. "White

men sing his praises, and Indians and mixed breeds cry them. No wonder

this ex-soldier plans to outbid me for Panchito. He attaches a

sentimental value to the horse because of his love for poor Don Mike.

I wonder if I ought to bid against him under the circumstances. Poor

dear! He wants his buddy's horse so badly. He's really very nice--so

old-fashioned and sincere. And he's dreadfully good-looking."

"Nature was overgenerous with that young lady," Farrel decided, as he

made his way up to the smoking-car. "As a usual thing, she seldom

dispenses brains with beauty--and this girl has both. I wonder who she

can be? Well, she's too late for Panchito. She may have any other

horse on the ranch, but--"

He glanced down at the angry red scar on the back of his right hand and

remembered. What a charger was Panchito for a battery commander!

IV

Farrel remained in the smoking-car throughout the rest of his journey,

for he feared the possibility of a renewal of acquaintance with his

quondam companion of the dining-car should he return to the

observation-platform. He did not wish to meet her as a discharged

soldier, homeward bound--the sort of stray dog every man, woman, and

child feels free to enter into conversation with and question regarding

his battles, wounds, and post-office address. When he met that girl

again, he wanted to meet her as Don Miguel José Farrel, of Palomar. He

was not so unintelligent as to fail to realize that in his own country

he was a personage, and he had sufficient self-esteem to desire her to

realize it also. He had a feeling that, should they meet frequently in

the future, they would become very good friends. Also, he looked

forward with quiet amusement to the explanations that would ensue when

the supposedly dead should return to life.

During their brief conversation, she had given him much food for

thought--so much, in fact, that presently he forgot about her entirely.

His mind was occupied with the problem that confronts practically all

discharged soldiers--that of readjustment, not to the life of pre-war

days, but to one newer, better, more ambitious, and efficient. Farrel

realized that a continuation of his _dolce-far-niente_ life on the

Rancho Palomar under the careless, generous, and rather shiftless

administration of his father was not for him. Indeed, the threatened

invasion of the San Gregorio by Japanese rendered imperative an

immediate decision to that effect. He was the first of an ancient

lineage who had even dreamed of progress; he _had_ progressed, and he

could never, by any possibility, afford to retrograde.

The Farrels had never challenged competition. They had been content to

make their broad acres pay a sum sufficient to meet operating-expenses

and the interest-charges on the ancient mortgage, meanwhile supporting

themselves in all the ease and comfort of their class by nibbling at

their principal. Just how far his ancestors had nibbled, the last of

the Farrels was not fully informed, but he was young and optimistic,

and believed that, with proper management and the application of modern

ranching principles, he would succeed, by the time he was fifty, in

saving this principality intact for those who might come after him, for

it was not a part of his life plan to die childless--now that the war

was over and he out of it practically with a whole skin. This aspect

of his future he considered as the train rolled into the Southland. He

was twenty-eight years old, and he had never been in love, although,

since his twenty-first birthday, his father and Don Juan Sepulvida, of

the Rancho Carpajo, had planned a merger of their involved estates

through the simple medium of a merger of their families. Anita

Sepulvida was a beauty that any man might be proud of; her blood was of

the purest and best, but, with a certain curious hard-headedness (the

faint strain of Scotch in him, in all likelihood), Don Mike had

declined to please the oldsters by paying court to her.

"There's sufficient of the _mañana_ spirit in our tribe now, even with

the Celtic admixture," he had declared forcibly. "I believe that like

begets like in the human family as well as in the animal kingdom, and

we know from experience that it never fails there. An infusion of pep

is what our family needs, and I'll be hanged if I relish the job of

rehabilitating two decayed estates for a posterity that I know could no

more compete with the Anglo-Saxon race than did their ancestors."

Whereat, old Don Miguel, who possessed a large measure of the Celtic

instinct for domination, had informed Don Mike that the latter was too

infernally particular. By the blood of the devil, his son's statement

indicated a certain priggishness, which he, Don Miguel, could not

deplore too greatly.

"You taught me pride of race," his son reminded him. "I merely desire

to improve our race by judicious selection when I mate. And, of

course, I'll have to love the woman I marry. And I do not love Anita

Sepulvida."

"She loves you," the old don had declared bluntly.

"Then she's playing in hard luck. Believe me, father, I'm no prig, but

I do realize the necessity for grafting a little gringo hustle to our

family tree. Consider the supergrandson you will have if you leave me

to follow my own desires in this matter. In him will be blended the

courtliness and chivalry of Spain, the imagery and romance and

belligerency of the Irish, the thrift and caution of the Scotch, and

the go-get-him-boy, knock-down-and-drag-out spirit of our own Uncle

Sam. Why, that's a combination you cannot improve upon!"

"I wish I could fall in love with some fine girl, marry her, and give

my father optical assurance, before he passes on, that the Farrel tribe

is not, like the mule, without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity,"

he mused; "but I'll be shot if I'll ever permit myself to fall in love

with the sort of woman I want until I know I have something more

tangible than love and kisses to offer her. About all I own in this

world is this old uniform and Panchito--and I'm getting home just in

time to prevent my father from selling him at auction for the benefit

of my estate. And since I'm going to chuck this uniform to-morrow and

give Panchito away the day after--by the gods of War, that girl gave me

a fright when she was trying to remember the name of old man Gonzales's

ranch! If it had been the Palomar instead of the Palomares! I might

be able to stand the sight of Japs on the Palomares end of the San

Gregorio, but on the Palomar--"

At four o'clock, when the train whistled for Sespe, he hurried back to

the observation-car to procure his baggage preparatory to alighting

from the train. The girl sat in the seat opposite his, and she looked

up at him now with friendly eyes.

"Would you care to leave your things in the car and entrust them to

father's man?" she queried. "We would be glad to take them in the

motor as far as the mission. My father suggested it," she added.

"Your father's a brick. I shall be happy to accept, thank you. Just

tell the chauffeur to leave them off in front of the mission and I'll

pick them up when I come over the trail from Sespe. I can make far

better time over the hills without this suitcase, light as it is."

"You're exceedingly welcome, Sergeant. And, by the way, I have decided

not to contest your right to Panchito. It wouldn't be sporty of me to

outbid you for your dead buddy's horse."

His heart leaped.

"I think you're tremendously sweet," he declared bluntly. "As matters

stand, we happen to have a half-brother of Panchito up on the

ranch--or, at least, we did have when I enlisted. He's coming four,

and he ought to be a beauty. I'll break him for you myself. However,"

he added, with a deprecatory grin, "I--I realize you're not the sort of

girl who accepts gifts from strangers; so, if you have a nickel on you,

I'll sell you this horse, sight unseen. If he's gone, I'll give the

nickel back."

"You are quite right," she replied, with an arch smile. "I could not

possibly accept a gift from a stranger. Neither could I buy a horse

from a stranger--no; not even at the ridiculous price of five cents."

"Perhaps if I introduced myself--have I your permission to be that

bold?"

"Well," she replied, still with that bright, friendly, understanding

smile, "that might make a difference."

"I do not deserve such consideration. Consequently, for your gentle

forbearance, you shall be accorded a unique privilege--that of meeting

a dead soldier. I am Miguel José Farrel, better known as 'Don Mike,'

of the Rancho Palomar, and I own Panchito. To quote the language of

Mark Twain, 'the report of my death has been grossly exaggerated,' as

is the case of several thousand other soldiers in this man's army." He

chuckled as he saw a look of amazement replace the sweet smile. "And

you are Miss--" he queried.

She did not answer. She could only stare at him, and in that look he

thought he noted signs of perturbation. While he had talked, the train

had slid to a momentary halt for the flag-station, and while he waited

now for her name, the train began creeping out of Sespe.

"All right," he laughed. "You can tell me your name when we meet

again. I must run for it. Good-by." He hurried through the screen

door to the platform, stepped over the brass railing, and clung there a

moment, looking back into the car at her before dropping lightly to the

ground between the tracks.

"Now what the devil is the meaning of that?" he mused, as he stood

there watching the train. "There were tears in her eyes."

He crossed the tracks, climbed a fence, and after traversing a small

piece of bottom-land, entered a trail through the chaparral, and

started his upward climb to the crest of the range that hid the San

Gregorio. Suddenly he paused.

Had the girl's unfamiliarity with Spanish names caused her to confuse

Palomar with Palomares? And why was Panchito to be sold at auction?

Was it like his father to sacrifice his son's horse to any fellow with

the money to buy him? No! No! Rather would he sell his own mount and

retain Panchito for the sake of the son he mourned as dead. The

Palomares end of the San Gregorio was too infertile to interest an

experienced agriculturist like Okada; there wasn't sufficient acreage

to make a colonization-scheme worth while. On the contrary, fifty

thousand acres of the Rancho Palomar lay in the heart of the valley and

immediately contiguous to the flood-waters at the head of the

ghost-river for which the valley was named.

Don Mike, of Palomar, leaned against the bole of a scrub-oak and closed

his eyes in sudden pain. Presently, he roused himself and went his way

with uncertain step, for, from time to time, tears blinded him. And

the last of the sunlight had faded from the San Gregorio before he

topped the crest of its western boundary; the melody of Brother

Flavio's angelus had ceased an hour previous, and over the mountains to

the east a full moon stood in a cloudless sky, flooding the silent

valley with its silver light, and pricking out in bold relief the

gray-white walls of the Mission de la Madre Dolorosa, crumbling

souvenir of a day that was done.

He ran down the long hill, and came presently to the mission. In the

grass beside the white road, he searched for his straw suitcase, his

gas-mask, and the helmet, but failing to find them, he concluded the

girl had neglected to remind her father's chauffeur to throw them off

in front of the mission, as promised. So he passed along the front of

the ancient pile and let himself in through a wooden door in the high

adobe wall that surrounded the churchyard immediately adjacent to the

mission. With the assurance of one who treads familiar ground, he

strode rapidly up a weed-grown path to a spot where a tall

black-granite monument proclaimed that here rested the clay of one

superior to his peon and Indian neighbors. And this was so, for the

shaft marked the grave of the original Michael Joseph Farrel, the

adventurer the sea had cast up on the shore of San Marcos County.

Immediately to the left of this monument, Don Mike saw a grave that had

not been there when he left the Palomar. At the head of it stood a

tile taken from the ruin of the mission roof, and on this brown tile

some one had printed in rude lettering with white paint:

Falleció

Don Miguel José Noriaga Farrel

Nacio, Junio 3, 1841

Muerto, Deciembre 29, 1919.

The last scion of that ancient house knelt in the mold of his father's

grave and made the sign of the cross.

V

The tears which Don Mike Farrel had descried in the eyes of his

acquaintance on the train were, as he came to realize when he climbed

the steep cattle-trail from Sespe, the tribute of a gentle heart moved

to quick and uncontrollable sympathy. Following their conversation in

the dining-car, the girl--her name was Kay Parker--had continued her

luncheon, her mind busy with thoughts of this strange home-bound

ex-soldier who had so signally challenged her attention. "There's

breeding back of that man," the girl mused. "He's only a rancher's son

from the San Gregorio; where did he acquire his drawing-room manners?"

She decided, presently, that they were not drawing-room manners. They

were too easy and graceful and natural to have been acquired. He must

have been born with them. There was something old-fashioned about

him--as if part of him dwelt in the past century. He appeared to be

quite certain of himself, yet there was not even a hint of ego in his

cosmos. His eyes were wonderful--and passionless, like a boy's. Yes;

there was a great deal of the little boy about him, for all his years,

his wounds, and his adventures. Kay thought him charming, yet he did

not appear to be aware of his charm, and this fact increased her

attraction to him. It pleased her that he had preferred to discuss the

Japanese menace rather than his own exploits, and had been human enough

to fly in a rage when told of her father's plans with the potato baron.

Nevertheless, he had himself under control, for he had smothered his

rage as quickly as he had permitted it to flare up.

"Curious man!" the girl concluded. "However--he's a man, and when we

meet again, I'm going to investigate thoroughly and see what else he

has in his head."

Upon further reflection, she reminded herself that he hadn't disclosed,

in anything he had said, the fact that his head contained thoughts or

information of more than ordinary value. He had merely created that

impression. Even his discussion of the Japanese problem had been

cursory, and, as she mentally back-tracked on their conversation, the

only striking remark of his which she recalled was his whimsical

assurance that he knew why young turkeys are hard to raise in the fall.

She smiled to herself.

"Well, Kay, did you find him pleasant company?"

She looked up and discovered her father slipping into the chair so

lately vacated by the object of her thoughts.

"'Lo, pop! You mean the ex-soldier?" He nodded. "Queerest man I've

ever met. But he is pleasant company."

"I thought so. Tell me, daughter: What you were smiling about just

now."

"He said he knew why young turkeys are hard to raise in the fall."

"Why are they?"

"I don't know, dear. He didn't tell me. Can you?"

"The problem is quite beyond me, Kay." He unfolded his napkin.

"Splendid-looking young chap, that! Struck me he ought to have more in

his head than frivolous talk about the difficulty of rearing young

turkeys."

"I think he has a great deal more in his head than that. In fact, I do

not understand why he should have mentioned young turkeys at all,

because he's a cattleman. And he comes from the San Gregorio valley."

"Indeed! What's his name?"

"He didn't tell me. But he knows all about the ranch you took over

from the Gonzales estate."

"But I didn't foreclose on that. It was the Farrel estate."

"He called it something else--the Palomares rancho, I think."

"Gonzales owns the Palomares rancho, but the Palomar rancho belonged to

old Don Miguel Farrel."

"Was he the father of the boy they call 'Don Mike'--he who was killed

in Siberia?"'

"The same."

"Why did you have to foreclose on his ranch, father?"

"Well, the interest had been unpaid for two years, and the old man was

getting pretty feeble; so, after the boy was killed, I realized that

was the end of the Farrel dynasty and that the mortgage would never be

paid. Consequently, in self-protection, I foreclosed. Of course,

under the law, Don Miguel had a year's grace in which to redeem the

property, and during that year I couldn't take possession without first

proving that he was committing waste upon it. However, the old man

died of a broken heart a few months after receiving news of his son's

death, and, in the protection of my interest, I was forced to petition

the court to grant me permission to enter into possession. It was my

duty to protect the equity of the heirs, if any."

"Are there any heirs?"

"None that we have been able to discover."

The girl thoughtfully traced a pattern on the tablecloth with the tine

of her fork.

"How will it be possible for you to acquire that horse, Panchito, for

me, dearest?" she queried presently.

"I have a deficiency judgment against the Rancho Palomar," he

explained. "Consequently, upon the expiration of the redemption period

of one year, I shall levy an attachment against the Farrel estate. All

the property will be sold at public auction by the sheriff to satisfy

my deficiency judgment, and I shall, of course, bid in this horse."

"I have decided I do not want him, father," she informed him half

sadly. "The ex-soldier is an old boyhood chum of the younger Farrel

who was killed, and he wants the horse."

He glanced at her with an expression of shrewd suspicion.

"As you desire, honey," he replied.

"But I want you to see to it that nobody else outbids him for the

horse," she continued, earnestly. "If some one should run the price up

beyond the limits of his purse, of course I want you to outbid that

some one, but what I do not desire you to do is to run the price up on

him yourself. He wants the horse out of sentiment, and it isn't nice

to force a wounded ex-service-man to pay a high price for his

sentiment."

"Oh, I understand now," her father assured her. "Very well, little

daughter; I have my orders and will obey them."

"Precious old darling!" she whispered, gratefully, and pursed her

adorable lips to indicate to him that he might consider himself kissed.

His stern eyes softened in a glance of father-love supreme.

"Whose little girl are you?" he whispered, and, to that ancient query

of parenthood, she gave the reply of childhood:

"Daddy's."

"Just for that, I'll offer the soldier a tremendous profit on Panchito.

We'll see what his sentiment is worth."

"Bet you a new hat, angel-face, you haven't money enough to buy him,"

Kay challenged.

"Considering the cost of your hats, I'd be giving you rather long odds,

Kay. You say this young man comes from the San Gregorio valley?"

"So he informed me."

"Well, there isn't a young man in the San Gregorio who doesn't need a

couple of thousand dollars far worse than he needs a horse. I'll take

your bet, Peaches. Of course you mentioned to him the fact that you

wanted this horse?"

"Yes. And he said I couldn't have him--that he was going to acquire

him."

"Perhaps he was merely jesting with you."

"No; he meant it."

"I believe," he said, smiling, "that it is most unusual of young men to

show such selfish disregard of your expressed desires."

"Flatterer! I like him all the more for it. He's a man with some

backbone."

"So I noticed. He wears the ribbon of the Congressional Medal of

Honor. Evidently he is given to exceeding the speed-limit. Did he

tell you how he won that pale-blue ribbon with the little white stars

sprinkled on it?"

"He did not. Such men never discuss those things."

"Well, they raise fighting men in the San Gregorio, at any rate," her

father continued. "Two Medal-of-Honor men came out of it. Old Don

Miguel Farrel's boy was awarded one posthumously. I was in El Toro the

day the commanding general of the Western Department came down from San

Francisco and pinned the medal on old Don Miguel's breast. The old

fellow rode in on his son's horse, and when the little ceremony was

over, he mounted and rode back to the ranch alone. Not a tear, not a

quiver. He looked as regal as the American eagle--and as proud.

Looking at that old don, one could readily imagine the sort of son he

had bred. The only trouble with the Farrels," he added, critically,

"was that they and work never got acquainted. If these old

Californians would consent to imbibe a few lessons in industry and

economy from their Japanese neighbors, their wonderful state would be

supporting thirty million people a hundred years from now."

"I wonder how many of that mythical thirty millions would be Japs?" she

queried, innocently.

"That is a problem with which we will not have to concern ourselves,

Kay, because we shall not be here."

"Some day, popsy-wops, that soldier will drop in at our ranch and lock

horns with you on the Japanese question."

"When he does," Parker replied, good-naturedly, "I shall make a

star-spangled monkey out of him. I'm loaded for these Californians.

I've investigated their arguments, and they will not hold water, I tell

you. I'll knock out the contentions of your unknown knight like

tenpins in a bowling-alley. See if I don't."

"He's nobody's fool, dad."

"Quite so. He knows why young turkeys are hard to raise in the fall?"

She bent upon him a radiant smile of the utmost good humor.

"Score one for the unknown knight," she bantered. "That is more than

we know. And turkey was sixty cents a pound last Thanksgiving!

Curious information from our view-point, perhaps, but profitable."

He chuckled over his salad.

"You're hopelessly won to the opposition," he declared. "Leave your

check for me, and I'll pay it. And if your unknown knight returns to

the observation-car, ask him about those confounded turkeys."

VI

But the unknown knight had not returned to the observation-car until

the long train was sliding into Sespe, and Kay had no time to satisfy

her thirst for information anent young turkeys. With unexpected

garrulity, he had introduced himself; with the receipt of this

information, she had been rendered speechless, first with surprise, and

then with distress as her alert mind swiftly encompassed the pitiful

awakening that was coming to this joyous home-comer. Before she could

master her emotions, he was disappearing over the brass rail at the end

of the observation-car; even as he waved her a debonair farewell, she

caught the look of surprise and puzzlement in his black eyes.

Wherefore, she knew the quick tears had betrayed her.

"Oh, you poor fellow!" she whispered to herself, as she dabbed at her

eyes with a wisp of a lace handkerchief. "What a tragedy!"

What a tragedy, indeed!

She had never been in the San Gregorio, and to-day was to mark her

first visit to the Rancho Palomar, although her father and mother and

the servants had been occupying the Farrel hacienda for the past two

months. Of the beauty of that valley, of the charm of that ancient

seat, she had heard much from her parents; if they could be so

enthusiastic about it in two short months, how tremendously attached to

it must be this cheerful Don Mike, who had been born and raised there,

who was familiar with every foot of it, and doubtless cherished every

tradition connected with it. He had imagination, and in imaginative

people wounds drive deep and are hard to heal; he loved this land of

his, not with the passive loyalty of the average American citizen, but

with the strange, passionate intensity of the native Californian for

his state. She had met many Californians, and, in this one particular,

they had all been alike. No matter how far they had wandered from the

Golden West, no matter how long or how pleasant had been their exile,

they yearned, with a great yearning, for that intangible something that

all Californians feel but can never explain--which is found nowhere

save in this land of romance and plenty, of hearty good will, of life

lived without too great effort, and wherein the desire to play gives

birth to that large and kindly tolerance that is the unfailing

sweetener of all human association.

And Don Mike was hurrying home to a grave in the valley, to a home no

longer his, to the shock of finding strangers ensconced in the seat of

his prideful ancestors, to the prospect of seeing the rich acres that

should have been his giving sustenance to an alien race, while he must

turn to a brutal world for his daily bread earned by the sweat of his

brow.

Curiously enough, in that moment, without having given very much

thought to the subject, she decided that she must help him bear it. In

a vague way, she felt that she must see him and talk with him before he

should come in contact with her father and mother. She wanted to

explain matters, hoping that he would understand that she, at least,

was one of the interlopers who were not hostile to him.

For she did, indeed, feel like an interloper now. But, at the same

time, she realized, despite her small knowledge of the law, that, until

the expiration of the redemption period, the equity of Don Mike in the

property was unassailable. With that unpleasant sense of having

intruded came the realization that to-night the Parker family would

occupy the position of uninvited and unwelcome guests. It was not a

comfortable thought.

Fortunately, the potato baron and her father were up in the smoker;

hence, by the time the train paused at El Toro, Kay had composed

herself sufficiently to face her father again without betraying to him

any hint of the mental disturbance of the past forty minutes. She

directed the porter in the disposition of Don Mike's scant impedimenta,

and watched to see that the Parker chauffeur carried it from the

station platform over to the waiting automobile. As he was lashing

their hand-baggage on the running-board, she said,

"William, how long will it take you to get out to the ranch?"

"Twenty miles, miss, over a narrow dirt road, and some of it winds

among hills. I ought to do it handily in an hour without taking any

chances."

"Take a few chances," she ordered, in a voice meant for his ear alone.

"I'm in a hurry."

"Forty-five minutes, miss," he answered, in the same confidential tone.

Kay sat in the front seat with William, while her father and Okada

occupied the tonneau. Within a few minutes, they were clear of the

town and rolling swiftly across a three-mile-wide mesa. Then they

entered a long, narrow cañon, which they traversed for several miles,

climbed a six-per-cent. grade to the crest of a ridge, rolled down into

another cañon, climbed another ridge, and from the summit gazed down on

the San Gregorio in all the glory of her new April gown. Kay gasped

with the shock of such loveliness, and laid a detaining hand on the

chauffeur's arm. Instantly he stopped the car.

"I always get a kick out of the view from here, miss," he informed her.

"Can you beat it? You can't!"

The girl sat with parted lips.

"This--this is the California he loves," she thought.

She closed her eyes to keep back the tears, and the car rolled gently

down the grade into the valley. From the tonneau she could catch

snatches of the conversation between her father and the potato baron;

they were discussing the agricultural possibilities of the valley, and

she realized, with a little twinge of outrage, that its wonderful

pastoral beauty had been quite lost on them.

As they swept past the mission, Kay deliberately refrained from

ordering William to toss Don Mike's baggage off in front of the old

pile, for she knew now whither the latter was bound. She would save

him that added burden. Three miles from the mission, the road swung up

a gentle grade between two long rows of ancient and neglected palms.

The dead, withered fronds of a decade still clung to the corrugated

trunks. In the adjoining oaks vast flocks of crows perched and cawed

raucously. This avenue of palms presently debouched onto a little

mesa, oak-studded and covered with lush grass, which gave it a pretty,

parklike effect. In the center of this mesa stood the hacienda of the

Rancho Palomar.

Like all adobe dwellings of its class, it was not now, nor had it ever

been, architecturally beautiful. It was low, with a plain hip-roof

covered with ancient red tiles, many of which were missing. When the

house had first been built, it had been treated to a coat of excellent

plaster over the adobe, and this plaster had never been renewed. With

the attrition of time and the elements, it had worn away in spots,

through which the brown adobe bricks showed, like the bones in a

decaying corpse. The main building faced down the valley; from each

end out, an ell extended to form a patio in the rear, while a

seven-foot adobe wall, topped with short tile, connected with the ell

and formed a parallelogram.

"The old ruin doesn't look very impressive from the front, Kay," her

father explained, as he helped her out of the car, "but that wall hides

an old-fashioned garden that will delight you. A porch runs all round

the inside of the house, and every door opens on the patio. That long

adobe barracks over yonder used to house the help. In the old days, a

small army of peons was maintained here. The small adobe house back

there in the trees houses the majordomo--that old rascal, Pablo."

"He is still here, dad?"

"Yes--and as belligerent as old billy-owl. He pretends to look after

the stock. I ordered him off the ranch last week; but do you think

he'd go? Not much. He went inside his shack, sorted out a rifle, came

outside, sat down, and fondled the weapon all day long. Ever since

then he has carried it, mounted or afoot. So I haven't bothered him.

He's a bad old Indian, and when I secure final title to the ranch, I'll

have the sheriff of the county come out and remove him."

"But how does he live, dear?"

"How does any Indian live? He killed a steer last week, jerked half of

it, and sold the other half for some beans and flour. It wasn't his

steer and it wasn't mine. It belonged to the Farrel estate, and, since

there is nobody to lodge a complaint against him, I suppose he'll kill

another steer when his rations run low. This way, daughter. Right

through the hole in the wall."

They passed through a big inset gate in the adobe wall, into the patio.

At once the scent of lemon and orange blossoms, mingled with the more

delicate aroma of flowers, assailed them. Kay stood, entranced, gazing

upon the hodgepodge of color; she had the feeling of having stepped out

of one world into another.

Her father stood watching her.

"Wonderful old place, isn't it, Kay?" he suggested. "The garden has

been neglected, but I'm going to clean it out."

"Do not touch it," she commanded, almost sharply. "I want it the way

it is."

"You little tyrant!" he replied good-naturedly. "You run me ragged and

make me like it."

From a rocker on the porch at the eastern end of the patio Kay's mother

rose and called to them, and the girl darted away to greet her. Mrs.

Parker folded the girl to a somewhat ample bosom and kissed her

lovingly on her ripe red lips; to her husband she presented a cheek

that showed to advantage the artistry of a member of that tribe of

genii who strive so valiantly to hold in check the ravages of age. At

fifty, Kay's mother was still a handsome woman; her carriage, her

dress, and a certain repressed vivacity indicated that she had mastered

the art of growing old gracefully.

"Well, kitten," she said, a trifle louder and shriller than one seemed

to expect of her, "are you going to remain with us a little while, or

will next week see you scampering away again?"

"I'll stay all summer, fuss-budget. I'm going to paint the San

Gregorio while it's on exhibition, and then this old house and the

garden. Oh, mother dear, I'm in love with it! It's wonderful!"

The potato baron had followed Parker and his daughter into the patio,

and stood now, showing all of his teeth in an amiable smile. Parker

suddenly remembered his guest.

"My dear," he addressed his wife, "I have brought a guest with me.

This is Mr. Okada, of whom I wrote you."

Okada bowed low--as low as the rules of Japanese etiquette prescribe,

which is to say that he bent himself almost double. At the same time,

he lifted his hat. Then he bowed again twice, and, with a pleasing

smile proffered his hand. Mrs. Parker took it and shook it with hearty

good will.

"You are very welcome, Mr. Okada," she shrilled. "Murray," she added,

turning to the butler, who was approaching with Okada's suitcase, "show

the gentleman to the room with the big bed in it. Dinner will be ready

at six, Mr. Okada. Please do not bother to dress for dinner. We're

quite informal here."

"Sank you very much," he replied, with an unpleasant whistling intake

of breath; with another profound bow to the ladies, he turned and

followed Murray to his room.

"Well, John," Mrs. Parker demanded, as the Japanese disappeared, "your

little playmate's quite like a mechanical toy. For heaven's sake,

where did you pal up with him?"

"That's the potato baron of the San Joaquin valley, Kate," he informed

her. "I'm trying to interest him in a colonization scheme for his

countrymen. A thousand Japs in the San Gregorio can raise enough

garden-truck to feed the city of Los Angeles--and they will pay a

whooping price for good land with water on it. So I brought him along

for a preliminary survey of the deal."

"He's very polite, but I imagine he's not very brilliant company," his

wife averred frankly. "When you wired me you were bringing a guest, I

did hope you'd bring some jolly young jackanapes to arouse Kay and me."

She sighed and settled back in her comfortable rocking-chair, while

Kay, guided by a maid, proceeded to her room. A recent job of

calcimining had transformed the room from a dirty grayish, white to a

soft shade of pink; the old-fashioned furniture had been "done over,"

and glowed dully in the fading light. Kay threw open the small

square-hinged window, gazed through the iron bars sunk in the thick

walls, and she found herself looking down the valley, more beautiful

than ever now in the rapidly fading light.

"I'll have to wait outside for him," she thought. "It will be dark

when he gets here."

She washed and changed into a dainty little dinner dress, after which

she went on a tour of exploration of the hacienda. Her first port of

call was the kitchen.

"Nishi," she informed the cook, "a gentleman will arrive shortly after

the family has finished dinner. Keep his dinner in the oven. Murray

will serve it to him in his room, I think."

She passed out through the kitchen, and found herself in the rear of

the hacienda. A hundred yards distant, she saw Pablo Artelan squatting

on his heels beside the portal of his humble residence, his back

against the wall. She crossed over to him, smiling as she came.

"How do you do, Pablo?" she said. "Have you forgotten me? I'm the

girl to whom you were kind enough to give a ride on Panchito one day in

El Toro."

The glowering glance of suspicion and resentment faded slowly from old

Pablo's swarthy countenance. He scrambled to his feet and swept the

ground with his old straw sombrero,

"I am at the service of the _señorita_," he replied, gravely.

"Thank you, Pablo. I just wanted to tell you that you need not carry

that rifle any more. I shall see to it that you are not removed from

the ranch."

He stared at her with stolid interest.

"_Muchas gracias, señorita_," he mumbled. Then, remembering she did

not understand Spanish, he resumed in English: "I am an old man, mees.

Since my two boss he's die, pretty soon Pablo die, too. For what use

eet is for live now I don' tell you. Those ol' man who speak me leave

theese rancho--he is your father, no?"

"Yes, Pablo. And he isn't such a terrible man, once you get acquainted

with him."

"I don' like," Pablo muttered frankly. "He have eye like

lookin'-glass. Mebbeso for you, mees, eet is different, but for Pablo

Artelan--" he shrugged. "Eef Don Mike is here, nobody can talk to

me like dose ol' man, your father, he speak to me." And he wagged his

head sorrowfully.

Kay came close to him.

"Listen, Pablo: I have a secret for you. You, must not tell anybody.

Don Mike is not dead."

He raised his old head with languid interest and nodded comprehension.

"My wife, Carolina, she tell me same thing all time. She say: '_Pablo

mio_, somebody make beeg mistake. Don Mike come home pretty queeck,

you see. Nobody can keel Don Mike. Nobody have that mean the

deesposition for keel the boy.' But I don' theenk Don Mike come back

to El Palomar."

"Carolina is right, Pablo. Somebody did make a big mistake. He was

wounded in the hand, but not killed. I saw him to-day, Pablo, on the

train."

"You see Don Mike? You see heem with the eye?"

"Yes. And he spoke to me with the tongue. He will arrive here in an

hour."

Pablo was on his knees before her, groping for her hand. Finding it,

he carried it to his lips. Then, leaping to his feet with an alacrity

that belied his years, he yelled:

"Carolina! Come queeck, _Pronto_! _Aquí_, Carolina."

"_Si, Pablo mio_."

Carolina appeared in the doorway and was literally deluged with a

stream of Spanish. She stood there, hands clasped on her tremendous

bosom, staring unbelievingly at the bearer of these tidings of great

joy, the while tears cascaded down her flat, homely face. With a snap

of his fingers, Pablo dismissed her; then he darted into the house and

emerged with his rifle. A cockerel, with the carelessness of youth,

had selected for his roost the limb of an adjacent oak and was still

gazing about him instead of secreting his head under his wing, as

cockerels should at sunset. Pablo neatly shot his head off, seized the

fluttering carcass, and started plucking out the feathers with neatness

and despatch.

"Don Mike, he's like _gallina con arroz espagñol_," he explained.

"What you, call chick-een with rice Spanish," he interpreted. "Eet

mus' not be that Don Mike come home and Carolina have not cook for heem

the grub he like. _Carramba_!"

"But he cannot possibly eat a chicken before--I mean, it's too soon.

Don Mike will not eat that chicken before the animal-heat is out of it."

"You don' know Don Mike, mees. Wen dat boy he's hongry, he don' speak

so many questions."

"But I've told our cook to save dinner for him."'

"Your cook! _Señorita_, I don' like make fun for you, but I guess you

don' know my wife Carolina, she have been cook for Don Miguel and Don

Mike since long time before he's beeg like little kitten. Don Mike, he

don' understand those gringo grub."

"Listen, Pablo: There is no time to cook Don Mike a Spanish dinner. He

must eat gringo grub to-night. Tell me, Pablo: Which room did Don Mike

sleep in when he was home?"

"The room in front the house--the beeg room with the beeg black bed.

Carolina!" He threw the half-plucked chicken at the old cook, wiped

his hands on his overalls, and started for the hacienda. "I go for

make the bed for Don Mike," he explained, and started running.

Kay followed breathlessly, but he reached the patio before her,

scuttled along the porch with surprising speed, and darted into the

room. Immediately the girl heard his voice raised angrily.

"Hullo! What you been do in my boss's room? _Madre de Dios_! You

theenk I let one Chinaman--no, one Jap--sleep in the bed of Don

Victoriano Noriaga. No! _Vamos_!"

There was a slight scuffle, and the potato baron came hurtling through

the door, propelled on the boot of the aged but exceedingly vigorous

Pablo. Evidently the Jap had been taken by surprise. He rolled off

the porch into a flower-bed, recovered himself, and flew at Pablo with

the ferocity of a bulldog. To the credit of his race, be it said that

it does not subscribe to the philosophy of turning the other cheek.

But Pablo was a peon. From somewhere on his person, he produced a dirk

and slashed vigorously. Okada evaded the blow, and gave ground.

"_Quidado_!" Pablo roared, and charged; whereupon the potato baron,

evidently impressed with the wisdom of the ancient adage that

discretion is the better part of valor, fled before him. Pablo

followed, opened the patio gate, and, with his long dirk, motioned the

Jap to disappear through it. "The hired man, he don' sleep in the bed

of the _gente_," he declared. "The barn is too good for one Jap.

_Santa Maria_! For why I don' keel you, I don' know."

"Pablo!"

The majordomo turned.

"Yes, mees lady."

"Mr. Okada is our guest. I command you to leave him alone. Mr. Okada,

I apologize to you for Pablo's impetuosity. He is not a servant of

ours, but a retainer of the former owner. Pablo, will you please

attend to your own business?" Kay was angry now, and Pablo realized it.

"Don Mike's beesiness, she is my beesiness, too, señorita," he growled.

"Yes; I zink so," Okada declared. "I zink I go 'nother room."

"Murray will prepare one for you, Mr. Okada. I'm so sorry this has

happened. Indeed I am!"

Pablo hooted.

"You sorry, mees? Wait until my Don Mike he's come home and find thees

fellow in hees house."

He closed the gate, returned to the room, and made a critical

inspection of the apartment. Kay could see him wagging his grizzled

head approvingly as she came to the door and looked in.

"Where those fellow _El Mono_, he put my boss's clothes?" Pablo

demanded.

"'_El Mono_?' Whom do you mean, Pablo?"

"_El Mono_--the monkey. He wear long tail to the coat; all the time he

look like mebbeso somebody in the house she's goin' die pretty queeck."

"Oh, you mean Murray, the butler."

Pablo was too ludicrous, and Kay sat down on the edge of the porch and

laughed until she wept. Then, as Pablo still stood truculently in the

doorway, waiting an answer to his query, she called to Murray, who had

rushed to the aid of the potato baron, and asked him if he had found

any clothing in the room, and, if so, what he had done with it.

"I spotted and pressed them all, Miss Kay, and hung them in the

clothes-press of the room next door."

"I go get," growled Pablo, and did so; whereupon the artful Murray took

advantage of his absence to dart over to the royal chamber and remove

the potato baron's effects.

"I don't like that blackamoor, Miss Kay," _El Mono_ confided to the

girl. "I feel assured he is a desperate vagabond to whom murder and

pillage are mere pastimes. Please order him out of the garden. He

pays no attention to me whatsoever."

"Leave him severely alone," Kay advised. "I will find a way to handle

him."

Pablo returned presently, with two suits of clothing, a soft

white-linen shirt, a black necktie, a pair of low-cut brown shoes, and

a pair of brown socks. These articles he laid out on the bed. Then he

made another trip to the other room, and returned bearing an armful of

framed portraits of the entire Noriaga and Farrel dynasty, which he

proceeded to hang in a row on the wall at the foot of the bed. Lastly,

he removed a rather fancy spread from the bed and substituted therefor

an ancient silk crazy-quilt that had been made by Don Mike's

grandmother. Things were now as they used to be, and Pablo was

satisfied.

When he came out, Kay had gone in to dinner; so he returned to his own

_casa_ and squatted against the wall, with his glance fixed upon the

point in the palm avenue where it dipped over the edge of the mesa.

VII

At seven o'clock, dinner being over, Kay excused herself to the family

and Mr. Okada, passed out through the patio gate, and sought a bench

which she had noticed under a catalpa tree outside the wall. From this

seat, she, like Pablo, could observe anybody coming up the palm-lined

avenue. A young moon was rising over the hills, and by its light Kay

knew she could detect Don Mike while he was yet some distance from the

house.

At seven-thirty, he had not appeared, and she grew impatient and

strolled round to the other side of the hacienda. Before Pablo's

_casa_, she saw the red end of a cigarette; so she knew that Pablo also

watched.

"I _must_ see him first," she decided. "Pablo's heart is right toward

Don Mike, but resentful toward us. I do not want him to pass that

resentment on to his master."

She turned back round the hacienda again, crossed down over the lip of

the mesa at right angles to the avenue, and picked her way through the

oaks. When she was satisfied that Pablo could not see her, she made

her way back to the avenue, emerging at the point where it connected

with the wagon-road down the valley. Just off the avenue, a live-oak

had fallen, and Kay sat down on the trunk of it to watch and wait.

Presently she saw him coming, and her heart fluttered in fear at the

meeting. She, who had for months marked the brisk tread of military

men, sensed now the drag, the slow cadence of his approach; wherefore

she realized that he knew! In the knowledge that she would not have to

break the news to him, a sense of comfort stole over her.

As he came closer, she saw that he walked with his chin on his breast;

when he reached the gate at the end of the avenue, he did not see it

and bumped into it. "_Dios mio_!" she heard him mutter. "_Dios!

Dios! Dios!_" The last word ended in tragic crescendo; he leaned on

the gate, and there, in the white silence, the last of the Farrels

stood gazing up the avenue as if he feared to enter.

Kay sat on the oak trunk, staring at him, fascinated by the tragic

tableau.

Suddenly, from the hacienda, a hound gave tongue--a long, bell-like

baying, with a timbre in it that never creeps into a hound's voice

until he has struck a warm scent. Another hound took up the cry--and

still another. Don Mike started.

"That's Nip!" Kay heard him murmur, as the first hound sounded. "Now,

Mollie! Come now, Nailer! Where's Hunter? Hunter's dead! You've

scented me!"

Across the mesa, the pack came bellowing, scattering the wet leaves

among the oaks as they took the short cut to the returning master.

Into the avenue they swept; the leader leaped for the top of the gate,

poised there an instant, and fell over into Don Mike's arms. The

others followed, overwhelming him. They licked his hands; they soiled

him with their reaching paws, the while their cries of welcome

testified to their delight. Presently, one grew jealous of the other

in the mad scramble for his caressing hand, and Nip bit Mollie, who

retaliated by biting Nailer, who promptly bit Nip, thus completing the

vicious circle. In an instant, they were battling each other.

"Stop it!" Don Mike commanded. "Break!"

They "broke" at his command, and, forgetting their animosities, began

running in circles, in a hopeless effort to express their happiness.

Suddenly, as if by common impulse, they appeared to remember a

neglected duty, and fled noisily whence they had come.

"Ah, only my dogs to welcome me!" Kay heard Don Mike murmur. And then

the stubborn tears came and blinded him, so he did not see her white

figure step out into the avenue and come swiftly toward him. The first

he knew of her presence was when her hand touched his glistening black

head bent on his arms over the top rail of the gate.

"No, no, Don Mike," he heard a sweet voice protesting; "somebody else

cares, too. We wouldn't be human if we didn't. Please--please try not

to feel so badly about it."

He raised his haggard face.

"Ah, yes--you!" he cried. "You--you've been waiting here--for me?"

"Yes. I wanted to tell you--to explain before you got to the house.

We didn't know, you see--and the notice was so terribly short; but

we'll go in the morning. I've saved dinner for you, Don Mike--and your

old room is ready for you. Oh, you don't know how sorry I am for you,

you poor man!"

He hid his face again.

"Don't--please!" he cried, in a choked voice. "I can't stand

sympathy--to-night--from you!"

She laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Come, come; you must buck up, old soldier," she assured him. "You'll

have to meet Pablo and Carolina very soon."

"I'm so alone and desperate," he muttered, through clenched teeth.

"You can't--realize what this means--to me. My father was an old

man--he had--accomplished his years--and I weep for him, because I

loved--him. But oh, my home--this--dear land--"

He choked, and, in that moment, she forgot that this man was a stranger

to her. She only knew that he had been stricken, that he was helpless,

that he lacked the greatest boon of the desolate--a breast upon which

he might weep. Gently she lifted the black head and drew it down on

her shoulder; her arm went round his neck and patted his cheek, and his

full heart was emptied.

There was so much of the little boy about him!

VIII

The fierce gust of emotion which swept Don Mike Farrel was of brief

duration. He was too sane, too courageous to permit his grief to

overwhelm him completely; he had the usual masculine horror of an

exhibition of weakness, and although the girl's sweet sympathy and

genuine womanly tenderness had caught him unawares, he was,

nevertheless, not insensible of the incongruity of a grown man weeping

like a child on the shoulder of a young woman--and a strange young

woman at that. With a supreme effort of will, he regained control of

himself as swiftly as he had lost it, and began fumbling for a

handkerchief.

"Here," she murmured; "use mine." She reached up and, with her dainty

wisp of handkerchief, wiped his wet cheeks exactly as if he had been a

child.

He caught the hand that wielded the handkerchief and kissed it

gratefully, reverently.

"God bless your dear, kind heart!" he murmured. "I had thought nobody

could possibly care--that much. So few people--have any interest in

the--unhappiness of others." He essayed a twisted smile. "I'm not

usually this weak," he continued, apologetically. "I never knew until

to-night that I could be such a lubberly big baby, but, then, I wasn't

set for this blow. This afternoon, life executed an about face for

me--and the dogs got me started after I'd promised myself--" He

choked again on the last word.

She patted his shoulder in comradely fashion.

"Buck up, Don Mike!" she pleaded. "Tears from such men as you are

signs of strength, not weakness. And remember--life has a habit of

obeying commanding men. It may execute another about face for you."

"I've lost everything that made life livable," he protested.

"Ah! No, no! You must not say that. Think of that cheerful warrior

who, in defeat, remarked, 'All is lost save honor.'" And she touched

the pale-blue star-sprinkled ribbon on his left breast.

He smiled again, the twisted smile.

"That doesn't amount to a row of pins in civil life." Something of

that sense of bitter disillusionment, of blasted idealism, which is the

immediate aftermath of war, had crept into his voice. "The only thrill

I ever got out of its possession was in the service. My colonel was

never content merely with returning my salute. He always uncovered to

me. That ribbon will have little weight with your father, I fear, when

I ask him to set aside the foreclosure, grant me a new mortgage, and

give me a fighting chance to retain the thing I love." And his

outflung arm indicated the silent, moonlit valley.

"Perhaps," she replied, soberly. "He is a businessman. Nevertheless,

it might not be a bad idea if you were to defer the crossing of your

bridges until you come to them." She unlatched the gate and swung it

open for him to pass through.

He hesitated.

"I didn't intend to enter the house to-night," he explained. "I merely

wanted to see Pablo and have a talk with him. My sudden appearance on

the scene might, perhaps, prove very embarrassing to your family."

"I dare say. But that cannot be helped. Your right of entrance and

occupancy cannot be questioned. Until the period of redemption

expires, I think nobody will dispute your authority as master here."

"I had forgotten that phase of the situation. Thank you." He passed

through the gate and closed it for her. Then he stepped to the side of

the road, wet his handkerchief in a pool of clean rain-water, and

mopped his eyes. "I'll have to abandon the luxury of tears," he

declared, grimly. "They make one's eyes burn. By the way, I do not

know your name."

"I am Kay Parker."

"'Kay' for what?"

"Kathleen."

He nodded approvingly.

"You neglected to leave my dunnage at the mission; Miss Parker."

"After you told me who you were, I realized you would sleep at the

ranch to-night, so I kept your things in the car. They are in your old

room now."

"Thank you for an additional act of kindness and thoughtfulness." He

adjusted his overseas cap, snugged his blouse down over his hips,

flipped from it the wet sand deposited there by the paws of the

hound-pack, and said, "Let's go."

Where the avenue debouched into the ranch-yard, Pablo and Carolina

awaited them. The old majordomo was wrapped in aboriginal dignity.

His Indian blood bade him greet Don Mike as casually as if the latter

had merely been sojourning in El Toro the past two years, but the faint

strain of Spanish in him dictated a different course as Don Mike

stepped briskly up to him with outstretched hand and greeted him

affectionately in Spanish. Off came the weather-stained old sombrero,

flung to the ground beside him, as Pablo dropped on his knees, seized

his master's hand, and bowed his head over it.

"Don Miguel," he said, "my life is yours."

"I know it, you blessed old scalawag!" Don Mike replied in English, and

ruffled the grizzled old head before passing on to the expectant

Carolina, who folded him tightly in her arms and wept soundlessly when

he kissed her leathery cheek. While he was murmuring words of comfort

to her, Pablo got up on his feet and recovered his hat.

"You see," he said to Kay, in a confidential tone, "Don Miguel José

Maria Federico Noriaga Farrel loves us. Never no woman those boy kees

since hees mother die twenty year before. So Carolina have the great

honor like me. Yes!"

"Oh, but you haven't seen him kiss his sweetheart," Kay bantered the

old man--and then blushed, in the guilty knowledge that her badinage

had really been inspired by a sudden desire to learn whether Don Mike

had a sweetheart or not. Pablo promptly and profanely disillusioned

her.

"Those boy, he don' have some sweethearts, mees lady. He's pretty

parteecular." He paused a moment and looked her in the face meaningly.

"Those girls in thees country--pah! Hee's pretty parteecular, those

boy."

His childish arrogance and consuming pride in his master stirred the

girl's sense of humor.

"I think your Don Mike is _too_ particular," she whispered.

"Personally, I wouldn't marry him on a bet."

His slightly bloodshot eyes flickered with rage. "You never get a

chance," he assured her. "Those boy is of the _gente_. An' we don'

call heem 'Don Mike' now. Before, yes; but now he is 'Don Miguel,'

like hees father. Same, too, like hees gran'father."

Throughout this colloquy, Carolina had been busy exculpating herself

from possible blame due to her failure to have prepared for the

prodigal the sort of food she knew he preferred.

Farrel had quite a task pacifying her. At length he succeeded in

gently dismissing both servants, and followed Kay toward the patio.

The girl entered first, and discovered that her family and their guest

were not on the veranda, whereat she turned and gave her hand to Farrel.

"The butler will bring you some dinner to your room. We breakfast at

eight-thirty. Good-night."

"Thank you," he replied. "I shall be deeper in your debt if you will

explain to your father and mother my apparent lack of courtesy in

failing to call upon them this evening."

He held her hand for a moment. Then he bowed, gracefully and with

studied courtesy, cap in hand, and waited until she had turned to leave

him before he, in turn, betook himself to his room.

IX

It was as he had left it. He smiled sadly as he noted his civilian

clothes laid out on the bed. However, he would not wear them to-night.

A little later, while he was hanging them in the clothes-press, a

propitiatory cough sounded at the door. Turning, he beheld the

strangest sight ever seen on the Rancho Palomar--a butler, bearing a

tray covered with a napkin.

"Good-evening," quoth Don Miguel civilly. "Set it down on the little

table yonder, please. May I inquire why you bear the tray on your left

hand and carry a pistol in your right?"

"Your servant, the man Pablo, has threatened my life, sir, if I dared

bear your dinner to you, sir. He met me a moment ago and demanded that

I surrender the tray to him, sir. Instead, I returned to the kitchen,

possessed myself of this pistol, and defied him, sir."

"I apologize for Pablo, and will see to it that he does not disturb you

again--er--"

"Murray, sir."

"Thank you, Murray."

The butler was about to advance into the room and set the tray on the

table as directed, when an unexpected _contretemps_ occurred. A

swarthy hand followed by a chambray-clad arm was thrust in the door,

and the pistol snatched out of Murray's hand before the latter even

knew what was about to transpire. Pablo Artelan stepped into the room.

"_Vamos_! Go!" he ordered, curtly, and relieved the astonished butler

of the tray. Murray glanced at Don Miguel.

"Perhaps you'd better go," Don Miguel suggested, weakly. "Pablo is a

trifle jealous of the job of waiting on me. We'll iron everything out

in the morning. Good-night, Murray."

"_Buenas noches, mono mio_," Pablo grunted.

"I have a slight knowledge of the Spanish tongue, sir," Murray

protested. "This blackamoor has insulted me, sir. Just now he said,

in effect, 'Good-night, monkey mine.' Earlier in the evening, he

attempted to murder Mr. Parker's guest, Mr. Okada."

"It's a pity he didn't succeed," Don Miguel replied, and drew a dollar

from his pocket. "You are very kind, Murray, but hereafter I shall not

require your attendance. Pablo, give Murray his pistol."

Pablo returned the weapon.

"She ees one of those leetle lady-pistols, Don Miguel. She can't kill

somebody if she try," he declared, contemptuously. Murray pouched the

dollar gratefully and beat a hurried retreat.

From under his denim jumper, Pablo brought forth a pint of claret.

"When the damned proheebeetion she's come, you father hee's sell fifty

cow and buy plenty booze," he explained. He broke off into Spanish.

"This wine, we stored in the old bakery, and your father entrusted me

with the key. It is true. Although it is not lawful to permit one of

my blood to have charge of wines and liquors, nevertheless, your

sainted father reposed great confidence in me. Since his death, I have

not touched one drop, although I was beset with temptation, seeing that

if we did not drink it, others would. But Carolina would have none of

it, and, as you know, your father, who is now, beyond doubt, an

archangel, was greatly opposed to any man who drank alone. How often

have I heard him declare that such fellows were not of the _gente_!

And Carolina always refused to believe that you were dead. As a

result, the years will be many before that wine is finished."

"My good Pablo, your great faith deserves a great reward. It is my

wish that, to-night, you and Carolina shall drink one pint each to my

health. Have you given some of this wine to the Parkers?"

Pablo shook his head vigorously.

"That fellow, _El Mono_, was desirous of serving some to his master,

and demanded of me the key, which I refused. Later, Señor Parker made

the same demand. Him I refused also. This made him angry, and he

ordered me to depart from El Palomar. Naturally, I told him to go to

the devil. Don Miguel, this gringo grub appears to be better than I

had imagined."

Farrel had little appetite for food, but, to please Pablo, he drank the

soup and toyed with a piece of toast and a glass of wine while the

majordomo related to him the events which had taken place at El Palomar

since that never-to-be-forgotten day when Tony Moreno had ridden in

with the telegram from Washington.

"Your beloved father--may the smile of Jesus warm him!--said nothing

when he read this accursed message, Don Miguel. For three days, he

tasted no food; throughout the days he sat beside me on the bench under

the catalpa tree, gazing down into the San Gregorio as if he watched

for you to ride up the road. He shed no tears--at least, not in the

presence of his servants--but he was possessed of a great trembling.

At the end of the third day, I rode to the mission and informed Father

Dominic. Ah, Don Miguel, my heart was afflicted tenfold worse than

before to see that holy man weep for you. When he had wept a space, he

ordered Father Andreas to say a high mass for the repose of your soul,

while he came up to the hacienda to remind your father of the comforts

of religion. Whereat, for the first time since that vagabond Moreno

came with his evil tidings, your father smiled. 'Good Father Dominic,'

said he, 'I have need of the comfort of your presence and your

friendship, but I would not blot out with thoughts of religion the

memory of the honor that has come upon my house. God has been good to

me. To me has been given the privilege of siring a man, and I shall

not affront him with requests for further favors. To-morrow, in El

Toro, a general will pin on my breast the medal for gallantry that

belongs to my dead son. As for this trembling, it is but a palsy that

comes to many men of my age.'"

"He had a slight touch of it before I left," Don Miguel reminded Pablo.

"The following day," Pablo continued, "I assisted him to dress, and was

overjoyed to observe that the trembling had abated by half. By his

direction, I saddled Panchito with the black carved-leather saddle, and

he mounted with my aid and rode to El Toro. I followed on the black

mare. At El Toro, in the plaza, in the presence of all the people, a

great general shook your father's hand and pinned upon his breast the

medal that belongs to you. It was a proud moment for all of us. Then

we rode back to the San Gregorio. At the mission, your father

dismounted and went into the chapel to pray for your soul. For two

hours, I waited before entering to seek him. I found him kneeling with

his great body spread out over the _prie-dieu_ where the heads of your

house have prayed since the Mission de la Madre Dolorosa was built.

His brain was alive, but one side of him was dead, and he smiled with

his eyes. We carried him home in Father Dominic's automobile, and, two

weeks later, he died in sanctity. The _gente_ of San Marcos County

attended his funeral.

"In February came _Señor_ Parker, with great assurance, and endeavored

to take possession. He showed me a paper, but what do I know of

papers? I showed him your rifle, and he departed, to return with Don

Nicolás Sandoval, the sheriff, who explained matters to me and warned

me to avoid violence. I have dwelt here since in sorrow and

perplexity, and because I have ridden the fences and watched over the

stock, there has been no great effort made to disturb me. They have a

cook--a Japanese, and two Japanese women servants. Also, this evening,

Señor Parker brought with him as a guest another Japanese, whom he

treats with as much consideration as if the fellow were your sainted

father. I do not understand such people. This Japanese visitor was

given this room, but this honor I denied him."

"My father's business affairs are greatly tangled, Pablo. I shall have

quite a task to place them in order," Don Miguel informed him, sadly.

"If it is permitted an old servant to appear curious, Don Miguel, how

long must we submit to the presence of these strangers?"

"For the present, Pablo, I am the master here; therefore, these people

are my guests. It has never been the custom with my people to be

discourteous to guests."

"I shall try to remember that," Pablo replied, bitterly. "Forgive me,

Don Miguel, for forgetting it. Perhaps I have not played well my part

as the representative of my master during his absence."

"Do not distress yourself further in the matter, Pablo. What food have

we at the ranch? Is there sufficient with which to enable Carolina to

serve breakfast?"

"To serve it where, Don Miguel?"

"Where but in my home?"

"Blood of the devil!" Pablo slapped his thigh and grinned in the

knowledge that the last of the Farrels, having come home, had decided

to waste no time in assuming his natural position as the master of the

Rancho Palomar. "We have oranges," he began, enumerating each course

of the forthcoming meal on his tobacco-stained fingers. "Then there is

flour in my possession for biscuits, and, two weeks ago, I robbed a

bee-tree; so we have honey. Our coffee is not of the best, but it is

coffee. And we have eggs."

"Any butter, sugar, and cream?"

"Alas, no, Don Miguel!"

"Saddle a horse at once, go down to the mission, and borrow some from

Father Dominic. If he has none, ride over to the Gonzales rancho and

get it. Bacon, also, if they have it. Tell Carolina I will have

breakfast for five at half after eight."

"But this Japanese cook of _Señor_ Parker's, Don Miguel?"

"I am not in a mood to be troubled by trifles tonight, Pablo."

"I understand, Don Miguel. The matter may safely be entrusted to me."

He picked up the tray. "Sweet rest to you, sir, and may our Saviour

grant a quick healing to your bruised heart. Good-night."

"Good-night, Pablo." Farrel rose and laid his hand on the old

retainer's shoulder. "I never bothered to tell you this before, Pablo,

but I want you to know that I do appreciate you and Carolina

tremendously. You've stuck to me and mine, and you'll always have a

home with me."

"Child," Pablo queried, huskily, "must we leave the rancho?"

"I'm afraid we must, Pablo. I shall know more about our plans after I

have talked with Señor Parker."

X

That night, Miguel Farrel did not sleep in the great bed of his

ancestors. Instead, he lay beneath his grandmother's silk crazy-quilt

and suffered. The shock incident to the discovery of the desperate

straits to which he had been reduced had, seemingly, deprived him of the

power to think coherently. Along toward daylight, however, what with

sheer nervous exhaustion, he fell into a troubled doze from which he was

awakened at seven o'clock by the entrance of Pablo, with a pitcher of hot

water for his shaving.

"Carolina will serve breakfast, Don Miguel," he announced. "The Japanese

cook tried to throw her out of the kitchen; so I have locked him up in

the room where of old I was wont to place vaqueros who desired to settle

their quarrels without interference."

"How about food, Pablo?"

"Unfortunately, Father Dominic had neither sugar nor cream. It appears

such things are looked upon at the mission as luxuries, and the padres

have taken the vow of poverty. He could furnish nothing save half a ham,

which is of Brother Flavio's curing, and very excellent. I have tasted

it before. I was forced to ride to the Gonzales rancho for the cream and

sugar this morning, and have but a few moments ago returned."

Having deposited the pitcher of hot water, Pablo retired and, for several

minutes, Miguel Farrel lay abed, gazing at the row of portraits of

Noriagas and Farrels. His heart was heavy enough still, but the first

benumbing shock of his grief and desperation had passed, and his natural

courage and common sense were rapidly coming to his aid. He told himself

that, with the dawning of the new day, he would no longer afford the

luxury of self-pity, of vain repining for the past. He had to be up and

doing, for a man's-sized task now confronted him. He had approximately

seven months in which to rehabilitate an estate which his forebears had

been three generations in dissipating, and the Gaelic and Celtic blood in

him challenged defeat even in the very moment when, for all he knew to

the contrary, his worldly assets consisted of approximately sixty

dollars, the bonus given him by the government when parting with his

services.

"I'll not give up without a battle," he told his ancestors aloud.

"You've all contributed to my heavy load, but while the pack-straps hold

and I can stand and see, I'll carry it. I'll fight this man Parker up to

the moment he hands the county recorder the commissioner's deed and the

Rancho Palomar has slipped out of my hands forever. But I'll fight fair.

That splendid girl--ah, pooh! Why am I thinking of her?"

Disgusted with himself for having entertained, for a fleeting instant, a

slight sentimental consideration for the daughter of his enemy--for as

such he now regarded this man who planned to colonize the San Gregorio

with Japanese farmers--he got out of bed and under the cold shower-bath

he had installed in the adjoining room years before. It, together with

the tub-bath formerly used by his father, was the only plumbing in the

hacienda, and Farrel was just a little bit proud of it. He shaved,

donned clean linen and an old dressing-gown, and from his closet brought

forth a pair of old tan riding-boots, still in an excellent state of

repair. From his army-kit he produced a boot-brush and a can of tan

polish, and fell to work, finding in the accustomed task some slight

surcease from his troubles.

His boots polished to his satisfaction, he selected from the stock of old

civilian clothing a respectable riding-suit of English whip-cord,

inspected it carefully for spots, and, finding none, donned it. A clean

starched chambray shirt, set off by a black-silk Windsor tie, completed

his attire, with the exception of a soft, wide, flat-brimmed gray-beaver

hat, and stamped him as that which he had once been but was no longer--a

California rancher of taste and means somewhat beyond the average.

It was twenty-five minutes past eight when he concluded his leisurely

toilet; so he stepped out of his room, passed round two sides of the

porched patio, and entered the dining-room. The long dining-table, hewed

by hand from fir logs by the first of the Noriagas, had its rough defects

of manufacture mercifully hidden by a snow-white cloth, and he noted with

satisfaction that places had been set for five persons. He hung his hat

on a wall-peg and waited with his glance on the door.

Promptly at eight-thirty, Carolina, smiling, happy, resplendent in a

clean starched calico dress of variegated colors, stepped outside the

door and rang vigorously a dinner-bell that had called three generations

of Noriagas and an equal number of generations of Farrels to their meals.

As its musical notes echoed through the dewy patio, Murray, the butler,

appeared from the kitchen. At sight of Farrel, he halted, puzzled, but

recognized in him almost instantly the soldier who had so mysteriously

appeared at the house the night before. _El Mono_ was red of face and

obviously controlling with difficulty a cosmic cataclysm.

"Sir," he announced, respectfully, "that Indian of yours has announced

that he will shoot me if I attempt to serve breakfast."

Farrel grinned wanly.

"In that event, Murray," he replied, "if I were you, I should not attempt

to serve breakfast. You might be interested to know that I am now master

here and that, for the present, my own servants will minister to the

appetites of my guests. Thank you for your desire to serve, but, for the

present, you will not be needed here. If you will kindly step into the

kitchen, Carolina will later serve breakfast to you and the maids."

"I'm quite certain I've never heard of anything so extraordinary," Murray

murmured. "Mrs. Parker is not accustomed to being summoned to breakfast

with a bell."

"Indeed? I'm glad you mentioned that, Murray. Perhaps you would be good

enough to oblige me by announcing breakfast to Mr. and Mrs. Parker, Miss

Parker, and their guest, Mr. Okada."

"Thank you, sir," Murray murmured, and departed on his errand.

The first to respond to the summons was Kay. She was resplendent in a

stunning wash-dress and, evidently, was not prepared for the sight of

Farrel standing with his back to the black adobe fireplace. She paused

abruptly and stared at him frankly. He bowed.

"Good-morning, Miss Parker. I trust that, despite the excitement of the

early part of the night, you have enjoyed a very good rest."

"Good-morning, Don Miguel. Yes; I managed rather well with my sleep, all

things considered."

"You mustn't call me 'Don Miguel,'" he reminded her, with a faint smile.

"I am only Don Miguel to the Indians and _pelados_ and a few of my

father's old Spanish friends who are sticklers for etiquette. My father

was one of the last dons in San Marcos County, and the title fitted him

because he belonged to the generation of dons. If you call me, 'Don

Miguel,' I shall feel a little bit alien."

"Well, I agree with you, Mr. Farrel. You are too young and modern for

such an antiquated title. I like 'Don Mike' better."

"There is no further need for that distinguishing appellation," he

reminded her, "since my father's death."

She looked at him for several seconds and said:

"I'm glad to see you've gotten a firm grip on yourself so soon. That

will make it ever so much nicer for everybody concerned. Mother and

father are fearfully embarrassed."

"I shall endeavor to relieve them of their embarrassment the instant I

meet them."

"Here they come now," Kay warned, and glanced at him appealingly.

Her mother entered first, followed by the potato baron, with Parker

bringing up the rear. Mrs. Parker's handsome face was suffused with

confusion, and, from the hesitant manner in which she entered, Farrel

realized she was facing an ordeal.

"Mother, this is Mr. Miguel Farrel," Kay announced.

"You are welcome to my poor house, Mrs. Parker," Farrel informed her,

gravely, as he crossed the room and bent over her hand for a moment,

releasing it to grasp the reluctant hand of her husband. "A double

welcome, sir," he said, addressing Kay's father, who mumbled something in

reply and introduced him to the potato baron, who bowed ceremoniously.

"Won't you please be seated?" Farrel pleaded. He gently steered Kay's

mother to the seat on his right, and tucked her chair in under her, while

Parker performed a similar service for his daughter. With the assurance

of one whose right to do was unquestioned, Farrel took his seat at the

head of the table and reached for the little silver call-bell beside his

plate, while Parker took an unaccustomed seat opposite the potato baron.

"Considering the distressing circumstances under which I arrived," Farrel

observed, addressing himself to Mrs. Parker, and then, with a glance,

including the rest of the company, "I find myself rather happy in the

possession of unexpected company. The situation is delightfully

unique--don't you think so, Mrs. Parker?"

"It isn't the least bit delightful, Mr. Farrel," the lady declared

frankly and forcibly; "but it's dear of you to be so nice about it."

Mr. Parker's momentary embarrassment had passed, and with the feeling

that his silence was a trifle disconcerting, he rallied to meet Miguel

Farrel's attempt at gaiety.

"Well, Mr. Farrel, we find ourselves in a unique position, as you say.

Kay informs me, however, that you are conversant with the circumstances

that have conspired to make us your guests."

"Pray do not mention it. Under the peculiar conditions existing, I quite

realize that you followed the only logical and sensible course."

Mrs. Parker heaved a small sigh of relief and gazed upon Farrel with new

interest. He returned her gaze with one faintly quizzical, whereat,

emboldened, she demanded,

"Well, what do you think of us for a jolly little band of usurpers, Mr.

Farrel?"

"Why, I think I'm going to like you all very much if you'll give me half

a chance."

"I'd give you almost anything rather than be kicked out of this house,"

she replied, in her somewhat loud, high-pitched voice. "I love it, and I

think it's almost sinful on your part to have bobbed up so unexpectedly."

"Mother!" Kay cried reproachfully.

"Tut, tut, Kay, dear! When an obnoxious heir is reported dead, he should

have the decency to stay dead, although, now that our particular nuisance

is here, alive and well, I suppose we ought to let bygones be bygones and

be nice to him--provided, of course, he continues to be nice to us. Are

you inclined to declare war, Mr. Farrel?"

"Not until every diplomatic course has been tried and found wanting," he

replied.

Carolina entered, bearing five portions of sliced oranges.

"O Lord, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass

against us," Mrs. Parker cried. "Where is Murray?"

Farrel glanced down at his oranges and grinned.

"I'm afraid I excused Murray," he confessed.

Mrs. Parker burst into shrill laughter.

"John," she demanded of her husband, "what do you think of this young

man?"

"Pick up the marbles, Mr. Farrel," Parker replied, with poorly assumed

good humor. "You win."

"I think this is a jolly adventure," Kay struck in, quick to note the

advantage of her outspoken mother's course. "Here you have been more

than two months, mother, regarding yourself as the mistress of the Rancho

Palomar, retinting rooms, putting in modern plumbing, and cluttering up

the place with a butler and maids, when--presto!--overnight a stranger

walks in and says kindly, 'Welcome to my poor house!' After which, he

appropriates pa's place at the head of the table, rings in his own cook

and waitress, forces his own food on us, and makes us like it. Young

man, I greatly fear we're going to grow fond of you."

"You had planned to spend the summer here, had you not, Mrs. Parker?"

"Yes. John Parker, have you any idea what's going to become of us?"

"We'll go to Santa Barbara and take rooms at a hotel there for the

present," he informed her.

"I loathe hotels," she protested.

"I think I informed you, Mrs. Parker, that you are welcome to my poor

house," Farrel reminded her. "I shall be happy to have you remain here

until I go away. After that, of course, you can continue to stay on

without any invitation from me."

Parker spoke up.

"My dear Mr. Farrel, that is charming of you! Indeed, from all that we

have heard of you, it is exactly the course we might expect you to take.

Nevertheless, we shall not accept of your kindness. Now that you are

here, I see no reason why I should impose the presence of my family and

myself upon your hospitality, even if the court has given me the right to

enter upon this property. I am confident you are competent to manage the

ranch until I am eliminated or come into final possession."

"John, don't be a nut," his wife implored him. "We'll stay here. Yes,

we shall, John. Mr. Farrel has asked us in good faith. You weren't

trying to be polite just to put us at our ease, were you?" she demanded,

turning to Farrel.

"Certainly not, Mrs. Parker. Of course, I shall do my level best to

acquire the legal right to dispossess you before Mr. Parker acquires a

similar right to dispossess me, but, in the interim, I announce an

armistice. All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying

'Aye.'"

"Aye!" cried Kay, and "Aye!" shrilled her mother.

"No!" roared her husband.

"Excess of sound has no weight with me, Mr. Parker," their host

announced. "The 'Ayes' have it, and it is so ordered. I will now submit

a platform for the approval of the delegates. Having established myself

as host and won recognition as such, the following rules and regulations

will govern the convention."

"Hear! Hear!" cried Mrs. Parker, and tapped the table with her spoon.

"The rapid ringing of a bell will be the signal for meals."

"Approved!" cried Kay.

"Second the motion!" shrilled her mother.

"My cook, Carolina, is queen of the kitchen, and Spanish cuisine will

prevail. When you weary of it, serve notice, and your Japanese cook will

be permitted to vary the monotony."

"Great!" Mrs. Parker almost yelled. "Right as a fox!"

"Murray shall serve meals, and--"

Pablo appeared in the door leading to the kitchen and spoke to Farrel in

Spanish.

"Pardon, folks. Pablo has a telegram for me. Bring it here, Pablo."

The master of Palomar excused himself to his guests long enough to read

the telegram, and then continued the announcement of his platform.

"My old battery commander, to whom I had promised Panchito, wires me

that, for his sins, he has been made a major and ordered to the Army of

Occupation on the Rhine. Therefore, he cannot use Panchito, and forbids

me to express the horse to him. Consequently, Miss Parker, Panchito is

_almost_ yours. Consider him your property while you remain my guest."

"You darling Don Miguel Farrel!"

"Exuberant, my dear," her curious mother remarked, dryly, "but, on the

whole, the point is well taken." She turned to Farrel. "How about some

sort of nag for mother?"

"You may ride my father's horse, if that animal is still on the ranch,

Mrs. Parker. He's a beautiful single-footer." He addressed Parker. "We

used to have a big gray gelding that you'd enjoy riding, sir. I'll look

him up for you after breakfast."

"Thank you, Mr. Farrel," Parker replied, flushing slightly, "I've been

riding him already."

"Fine! He needed exercising. I have a brown mare for Mr. Okada, and you

are all invited out to the corral after luncheon to see me bust

Panchito's wild young brother for my own use."

"Oh, splendid!" Kay cried, enthusiastically.

"The day starts more auspiciously than I had hoped," her mother declared.

"I really believe the Rancho Palomar is going to develop into a regular

place with you around, Mr. Farrel."

XI

"I am convinced," said Miguel Farrel, as he followed his guests out of

the dining-room onto the veranda, "that the Parkers' invasion of my

home is something in the nature of a mixed misfortune. I begin to feel

that my cloud has a silver lining."

"Of all the young men I have ever met, you can say the nicest things,"

Mrs. Parker declared. "I don't think you mean that last remark the

least bit, but still I'm silly enough to like to hear you say it. Do

sit down here awhile, Mr. Farrel, and tell us all about yourself and

family."

"At the risk of appearing discourteous, Mrs. Parker, I shall have to

ask you to excuse me this morning. I have a living to make. It is now

a quarter past nine, and I should have been on the job at seven."

"But you only got home from the army last night," Kay pleaded. "You

owe yourself a little rest, do you not?"

"Not a minute. I must not owe anything I cannot afford. I have

approximately seven months in which to raise approximately a quarter of

a million dollars. Since I am without assets, I have no credit;

consequently, I must work for that money. From to-day I am Little

Mike, the Hustler."

"What's your program, Mr. Farrel?" Parker inquired, with interest.

"I should be grateful for an interview with you, sir, if you can spare

the time. Later, I shall ride out over the ranch and make an inventory

of the stock. Tomorrow, I shall go in to El Toro, see my father's

attorney, ascertain if father left a will, and, if so, whom he named as

executor. If he died intestate, I shall petition for letters of

administration."

"Come, Kay, dear," Mrs. Parker announced; "heavy business-man stuff! I

can't bear it! Will you take a walk with us, Mr. Okada?"

"Very much pleased," the potato baron replied, and flashed his fine

teeth in a fatuous grin.

Farrel smiled his thanks as the good lady moved off with her convoy.

Parker indicated a chair and proffered a cigar.

"Now then, Mr. Farrel, I am quite at your service."

Miguel Farrel lighted his cigar and thoughtfully tossed the burnt match

into a bed of pansies. Evidently, he was formulating his queries.

"What was the exact sum for which the mortgage on this ranch was

foreclosed, Mr. Parker?"

"Two hundred and eighty-three thousand, nine hundred and forty-one

dollars, and eight cents, Mr. Farrel."

"A sizable wad. Mortgage covered the entire ranch?"

Parker nodded.

"When you secured control of the First National Bank of El Toro, you

found that old mortgage carried in its list of assets. You also

discovered that it had been renewed several times, each time for a

larger sum, from which you deduced that the prospects for the ultimate

payment of the mortgage were nebulous and distant. Your hypothesis was

correct. The Farrels never did to-day a task that could be deferred

until to-morrow. Well, you went out and looked over the security for

that mortgage. You found it to be ample--about three to one, as a very

conservative appraisal. You discovered that all of the stockholders in

the First National were old friends of my father and extremely

reluctant to foreclose on him. As a newcomer; you preferred not to

antagonize your associates by forcing the issue upon them, so you

waited until the annual election of stockholders, when you elected your

own Board of Directors. Then this Board of Directors sold you the

mortgage, and you promptly foreclosed it. The shock of this unexpected

move was a severe one on my father; the erroneous report of my death

killed him, and here you are, where you have every legal right in the

world to be. We were never entitled to pity, never entitled to the

half-century of courtesy and consideration we received from the bank.

We met the fate that is bound to overtake impractical dreamers and

non-hustlers in this generation. The Mission Indian disappeared before

the onslaught of the earlier Californians, and the old-time

Californians have had to take a back seat before the onslaught of the

Go-get-'em boys from the Middle West and the East. Presently they,

too, will disappear before the hordes of Japanese that are invading our

state. Perhaps that is progress--the survival of the fittest. _Quién

sabe_?"

He paused and smoked contemplatively. Parker cast a sidelong glance of

curiosity at him, but said nothing, by his silence giving assent to all

that the younger man had said.

"I suppose you wanted the Rancho Palomar," Miguel Farrel suggested,

presently. "I dare say your purchase of this mortgage was not the mere

outgrowth of an altruistic desire to relieve the First National Bank of

El Toro of an annoyance and a burden."

"I think I admire your direct way of speaking, even if I hardly relish

it," Parker answered, good-humoredly. "Yes; I wanted the ranch. I

realized I could do things with it that nobody else in this county

could do or would even think of doing."

"Perhaps you are right. For the sake of argument, I will admit that

you are right. Now then, to business. This ranch is worth a million

dollars, and at the close of the exemption period your claim against it

will probably amount to approximately three hundred thousand dollars,

principal and interest. If I can induce somebody to loan me three

hundred thousand dollars wherewith to redeem this property, I can get

the ranch back."

"Naturally."

"Not much use getting it back, however, unless I can raise another

hundred thousand to restock it with pure-bred or good-grade Herefords

and purchase modern equipment to operate it." Parker nodded

approvingly. "Otherwise," Farrel continued, "the interest would eat me

alive, and in a few years I'd be back where I started."

"Do you think you can borrow four hundred thousand dollars in San

Marcos County, Mr. Farrel?"

"No, sir. No private loan of that magnitude can be floated in this

country. You control the only bank in the county that can even

consider it--and you'll not consider it."

"Hardly."

"Added to which handicap, I have no additional security to offer in the

shape of previous reputation for ability and industry. I am the last

of a long line of indolent, care-free spendthrifts."

"Yes; that is unfortunately true," Parker assented, gravely.

"Oh, not so unfortunate as it is embarrassing and inconvenient. We

have always enjoyed life to the fullest, and, for that, only a fool

would have regret. Would you be willing to file a satisfaction of that

old mortgage and give me a new loan for five years for the amount now

due on the property? I could induce one of the big packing companies

to stake me to the cattle. All I would have to provide would be the

range, and satisfy them that I am honest and know my business. And I

can do that. Such an arrangement would give me time to negotiate a

sale of part of the ranch and pay up your mortgage."

"I am afraid that my present plans preclude consideration of that

suggestion," the banker replied, kindly, but none the less forcibly.

"I didn't think you would, but I thought I'd ask. As a general rule,

it pays to try anything once when a fellow is in as desperate case as I

am. My only hope, then, is that I may be able to sell the Farrel

equity in the ranch prior to the twenty-second day of November."

"That would seem to be your best course, Mr. Farrel."

"When does the redemption period expire?"

Parker squirmed slightly.

"That is a difficult question to answer, Mr. Farrel. It seems your

father was something of a lawyer--"

"Yes; he graduated in law. Why, nobody ever knew, for he never had the

slightest intention of practising it. I believe it must have been

because my grandfather, Michael Joseph I, had an idea that, since his

son was a gentleman, he ought to have a college degree and the right to

follow some genteel profession in case of disaster."

"Your father evidently kept abreast of the law," Parker laughed.

"Before entering suit for foreclosure, I notified him by registered

mail that the mortgage would not be renewed and made formal demand upon

him for payment in full. When he received the notice from the El Toro

postmaster to call for that registered letter, he must have suspected

its contents, for he immediately deeded the ranch to you and then

called for the registered letter."

Farrel began to chuckle.

"Good old dad!" he cried. "Put over a dirty Irish trick on you to gain

time!"

"He did. I do not blame him for it. I would have done the same thing

myself under the same circumstances." And Parker had the grace to join

in the laugh. "When I filed suit for foreclosure," he continued, "he

appeared in court and testified that the property belonged to his son,

who was in the military service, in consequence of which the suit for

foreclosure could not be pressed until after said son's discharge from

the service."

"All praise to the power of the war-time moratoriums," Farrel declared.

"I suppose you re-entered the suit as soon as the report of my death

reached you."

Parker chuckled.

"I did, Mr. Farrel, and secured a judgment. Then I took possession."

"Aren't you the picture of bad luck? Just when everything is shaping

up beautifully for you, I appear in the flesh as exhibit A in the

contention that your second judgment will now have to be set aside,

because, at the time it was entered, it conflicted with the provisions

of that blessed moratorium." Don Miguel smiled mirthlessly.

"There's luck in odd numbers," Parker retorted, dryly. "The next time

I shall make that judgment stick."

"Well, at any rate, all these false starts help me out wonderfully,"

Don Miguel reminded him. "As matters stand this morning, the mortgage

hasn't been foreclosed at all; consequently, you are really and truly

my guests and doubly welcome to my poor house." He rose and stretched

himself, gazing down the while at Parker, who regarded him quizzically.

"Thank you for the interview, Mr. Parker. I imagine we've had our

first and last business discussion. When you are ready to enter your

third suit for foreclosure, I'll drop round to your attorney's office,

accept service of the summons, appear in court, and confess judgment."

Fell a silence. Then, "Do you enjoy the study of people, sir?" Don

Miguel demanded, apropos of nothing.

"Not particularly, Mr. Farrel. Of course, I try to know the man I'm

doing business with, and I study him accordingly, but that is all."

"I have not made myself explicit," his host replied. "The racial

impulses which I observed cropping out in my father--first Irish, then

Spanish--and a similar observance of the raised impulses of the peons

of this country, all of whom are Indian, with a faint admixture of

Spanish blood--always interested me. I agree with Pope that 'the

proper study of mankind is man.' I find it most interesting."

"For instance?" Parker queried. He had a feeling that in any

conversation other than business which he might indulge in with this

young man he would speedily find himself, as it were, in deep water

close to the shore.

"I was thinking of my father. In looking through his effects last

night, I came across indubitable evidence of his Celtic blood.

Following the futile pursuit of an enemy for a quarter of a century, he

died and left the unfinished job to me. Had he been all Spanish, he

would have wearied of the pursuit a decade ago."

"I think every race has some definite characteristics necessary to the

unity of that race," Parker replied, with interest. "Hate makes the

Irish cohesive; pride or arrogance prevents the sun from setting on

British territory; a passionate devotion to the soil has solidified the

French republic in all its wars, while a blind submission to an

overlord made Germany invincible in peace and terrible in war."

"I wonder what spiritual binder holds the people of the United States

together, Mr. Parker?" Don Miguel queried naively.

"Love of country, devotion to the ideals of liberty and democracy,"

Parker replied promptly, just as his daughter joined them.

Farrel rose and surrendered to her his chair, then seated himself on

the edge of the porch with his legs dangling over into a flower-bed.

His face was grave, but in his black eyes there lurked the glint of

polite contempt.

"Did you hear the question and the answer, Miss Parker?" he queried.

She nodded brightly.

"Do you agree with your father's premise?" he pursued.

"Yes, I do, Don Mike."

"I do not. The mucilage in our body politic is the press-agent, the

advertising specialist, and astute propagandist. I wonder if you know

that, when we declared war against Germany, the reason was not to make

the world safe for democracy, for there are only two real reasons why

wars are fought. One is greed and the other self-protection. Thank

God, we have never been greedy or jealous of the prosperity of a

neighbor. National aggrandizement is not one of our ambitions."

Kay stared at him in frank amazement.

"Then you mean that we entered the late war purely as a protective

measure?"

"That's why I enlisted. As an American citizen, I was unutterably

weary of having our hand crowded and our elbow joggled. I saw very

clearly that, unless we interfered, Germany was going to dominate the

world, which would make it very uncomfortable and expensive for us. I

repeat that for the protection of our comfort and our bank-roll we

declared war, and anybody who tells you otherwise isn't doing his own

thinking, he isn't honest with himself, and he's the sort of citizen

who is letting the country go to the dogs because he refuses to take an

intelligent interest in its affairs."

"What a perfectly amazing speech from an ex-soldier!" Kay protested.

He smiled his sad, prescient smile.

"Soldiers deal with events, not theories. They learn to call a spade a

spade, Miss Parker. I repeat: It wasn't a war to make the world safe

for democracy. That phrase was just a slogan in a business

campaign--the selling of stock in a military enterprise to apathetic

Americans. We had to fight or be overrun; when we realized that, we

fought. Are not the present antics of the Supreme Council in Paris

sufficient proof that saving democracy was just another shibboleth? Is

not a ghastly war to be followed by a ghastly peace? The press-agents

and orators popularized the war with the unthinking and the hesitant,

which is proof enough to me that we lack national unity and a definite

national policy. We're a lot of sublimated jackasses, sacrificing our

country to ideals that are worn at elbow and down at heel. 'Other

times, other customs.' But we go calmly and stupidly onward, hugging

our foolish shibboleths to our hearts, hiding behind them, refusing to

do to-day that which we can put off until to-morrow. That is truly an

Anglo-Saxon trait. In matters of secondary importance, we yield a

ready acquiescence which emboldens our enemies to insist upon

acquiescence in matters of primary importance. And quite frequently

they succeed. I tell you the Anglo-Saxon peoples are the only ones

under heaven that possess a national conscience, and because they

possess it, they are generous enough to assume that other races are

similarly endowed."

"I believe," Parker stuck in, as Don Miguel ceased from his passionate

denunciation, "that all this is leading quite naturally to a discussion

of Japanese emigration."

"I admit that the sight of Mr. Okada over in the corner of the patio,

examining with interest the only sweet-lime tree in North America,

inspired my outburst," Farrel answered smilingly.

"You speak of our national shibboleths, Don Mike Farrel," Kay reminded

him. "If you please, what might they be?"

"You will recognize them instantly, Miss Parker. Let us start with our

Declaration of Independence: 'All men are created equal.' Ah, if the

framers of that great document had only written, 'All men are created

theoretically equal!' For all men are not morally, intellectually, or

commercially equal: For instance, Pablo is equal with me before the

law, although I hazard the guess that if he and I should commit a

murder, Pablo would be hanged and I would be sentenced to life

imprisonment; eventually, I might be pardoned or paroled. Are you

willing to admit that Pablo Artelan is not my equal?" he challenged

suddenly.

"Certainly!" Kay and her father both cried in unison.

"Very well. Is Mr. Okada my equal?"

"He is Pablo's superior," Parker felt impelled to declare.

"He is not your equal," Kay declared firmly. "Dad, you're begging the

question."

"We-ll, no," he assented, "Not from the Anglo-Saxon point of view. He

is, however, from the point of view of his own nationals."

"Two parallel lines continued into infinity will never meet, Mr.

Parker. I am a believer in Asia for Asiatics, and, in Japan, I am

willing to accord a Jap equality with me. In my own country, however,

I would deny him citizenship, by any right whatsoever, even by birth, I

would deny him the right to lease or own land for agricultural or other

purposes, although I would accord him office and warehouse space to

carry on legitimate commerce. The Jap does that for us and no more,

despite his assertions to the contrary. I would deny the right of

emigration to this country of all Japanese, with certain exceptions

necessary to friendly intercourse between the two countries; I would

deny him the privilege of economic competition and marriage with our

women. When a member of the great Nordic race fuses with a member of a

pigmented race, both parties to the union violate a natural law. Pablo

is a splendid example of mongrelization."

"You are forgetting the shibboleths," Kay ventured to remind him.

"No; I am merely explaining their detrimental effect upon our

development. The Japanese are an exceedingly clever and resourceful

race. Brilliant psychologists and astute diplomatists, they have taken

advantage of our pet shibboleth, to the effect that all men are equal.

Unfortunately, we propounded this monstrous and half-baked ideal to the

world, and a sense of national vanity discourages us from repudiating

it, although we really ought to. And as I remarked before, we possess

an alert national conscience in international affairs, while the Jap

possesses none except in certain instances where it is obvious that

honesty is the best policy. I think I am justified, however, in

stating that, upon the whole, Japan has no national conscience in

international affairs. Her brutal exploitation of China and her

merciless and bloody conquest of Korea impel that point of view from an

Anglo-Saxon. When, therefore, the Tokyo government says, in effect, to

us: 'For one hundred and forty-four years you have proclaimed to the

world that all men are equal. Very well. Accept us. We are a

world-power. We are on a basis of equality with you,' and we lack the

courage to repudiate this pernicious principle, we have tacitly

admitted their equality. That is, the country in general has, because

it knows nothing of the Japanese race--at least not enough for

moderately practical understanding of the biological and economic

issues involved. Indeed, for a long time, we Californians dwelt in the

same fool's paradise as the remainder of the states. Finally, members

of the Japanese race became so numerous and aggressive here that we

couldn't help noticing them. Then we began to study them, and now,

what we have learned amazes and frightens us, and we want the sister

states to know all that we have learned, in order that they may

cooperate with us. But, still, the Jap has us _tiron_ in other ways."

"Has us what?" Parker interrupted.

"_Tiron_. Spanish slang. I mean he has us where the hair is short;

we're hobbled."

"How?" Kay demanded.

His bright smile was triumphant.

"By shibboleths, of course. My friends, we're a race of sentimental

idiots, and the Japanese know this and capitalize it. We have

promulgated other fool shibboleths which we are too proud or too stupid

to repudiate. 'America, the refuge for all the oppressed of the

earth!' Ever hear that perfectly damnable shibboleth shouted by a

Fourth of July orator? 'America, the hope of the world!' What kind of

hope? Hope of freedom, social and political equality, equality of

opportunity? Nonsense! Hope of more money, shorter hours, and license

misnamed liberty; and when that hope has been fulfilled, back they go

to the countries that denied them all that we give. How many of them

feel, when they land at Ellis Island, that the ground whereon they

tread is holy, sanctified by the blood and tears of a handful of great,

brave souls who really had an ideal and died for it. Mighty few of the

cattle realize what that hope is, even in the second generation."

"I fear," quoth Parker, "that your army experience has embittered you."

"On the contrary, it has broadened and developed me. It has been a

liberal education, and it has strengthened my love for my country."

"Continue with the shibboleths, Don Mike," Kay pleaded. Her big, brown

eyes were alert with interest now.

"Well, when Israel Zangwill coined that phrase: 'The Melting-Pot,' the

title to his play caught the popular fancy of a shibboleth-crazy

nation, and provided pap for the fanciful, for the theorists, for the

flabby idealists and doctrinaires. If I melt lead and iron and copper

and silver and gold in the same pot, I get a bastard metal, do I not?

It is not, as a fused product, worth a tinker's hoot. Why, even

Zangwill is not an advocate of the melting-pot. He is a Jew, proud of

it, and extremely solicitous for the welfare of the Jewish race. He is

a Zionist--a leader of the movement to crowd the Arabs out of Palestine

and repopulate that country with Jews. He feels that the Jews have an

ancient and indisputable right to Palestine, although, parenthetically

speaking, I do not believe that any smart Jew who ever escaped from

Palestine wants to go back. I wouldn't swap the Rancho Palomar for the

whole country."

Kay and her father laughed at his earnest yet whimsical tirade. Don

Miguel continued:

"Then we have that asinine chatter about 'America, the land of fair

play.' In theory--yes. In actual practice--not always. You didn't

accumulate your present assets, Mr. Parker, without taking an

occasional chance on side-tracking equity when you thought you could

beat the case. But the Jap reminds us of our reputation for fair play,

and smilingly asks us if we are going to prejudice that reputation by

discriminating unjustly against him?"

"It appears," the girl suggested, "that all these ancient national

brags come home, like curses, to roost."

"Indeed they do, Miss Parker! But to get on with our shibboleths. We

hear a great deal of twaddle about the law of the survival of the

fittest. I'm willing to abide by such a natural law, provided the

competition is confined to mine own people--and I'm one of those chaps,

who, to date, has failed to survive. But I cannot see any common sense

in opening the lists to Orientals. We Californians know we cannot win

in competition with them." He paused and glanced at Kay. "Does all

this harangue bore you, Miss Parker?"

"Not at all. Are there any more shibboleths?"

"I haven't begun to enumerate them. Take, for instance, that old

pacifist gag, that Utopian dream that is crystallized in the words:

'The road to universal peace.' All the long years when we were not

bothered by wars or rumors of wars, other nations were whittling each

other to pieces. And these agonized neighbors, longing, with a great

longing, for world-peace, looked to the United States as the only

logical country in which a great cure-all for wars might reasonably be

expected to germinate. So their propagandists came to our shores and

started societies looking toward the establishment of brotherly love,

and thus was born the shibboleth of universal peace, with Uncle Sam

heading the parade like an old bell-mare in a pack train. What these

peace-patriots want is peace at any price, although they do not

advertise the fact. We proclaim to the world that we are a Christian

nation. _Ergo_, we must avoid trouble. The avoidance of trouble is

the policy of procrastinators, the vacillating, and the weak. For one

cannot avoid real trouble. It simply will not be avoided;

consequently, it might as well be met and settled for all time."

"But surely," Parker remarked, "California should subordinate herself

to the wishes of the majority."

"Yes, she should," he admitted doggedly, "and she has in the past. I

think that was before California herself really knew that Oriental

emigration was not solely a California problem but a national problem

of the utmost importance. Indeed, it is international. Of course, in

view of the fact that we Californians are already on the firing-line,

necessarily it follows that we must make some noise and, incidentally,

glean some real first-hand knowledge of this so-called problem. I

think that when our fellow citizens know what we are fighting, they

will sympathize with us and promptly dedicate the United States to the

unfaltering principle that ours is a white man's country, that the

heritage we have won from the wilderness shall be held inviolate for

Nordic posterity and none other."

"Nevertheless, despite your prejudice against the race, you are bound

to admire the Japanese--their manners, thrift, industry, and

cleanliness." Parker was employing one of the old stock protests, and

Don Miguel knew it.

"I do not admire their manners, but I do admire their thrift, industry,

and cleanliness. Their manners are abominable. Their excessive

courtesy is neither instinctive nor genuine; it is camouflage for a

ruthless, greedy, selfish, calculating nature. I have met many

Japanese, but never one with nobility or generosity of soul. They are

disciples of the principles of expediency. If a mutual agreement works

out to their satisfaction, well and good. If it does not, they present

a humble and saddened mien. 'So sorry. I zink you no understand me.

I don't mean zat.' And their peculiar Oriental psychology leads them

to believe they can get away with that sort of thing with the

straight-thinking Anglo-Saxon. They have no code of sportsmanship;

they are irritable and quarrelsome, and their contractual relations are

incompatible with those of the Anglo-Saxon. They are not truthful.

Individually and collectively, they are past masters of evasion and

deceit, and therefore they are the greatest diplomatists in the world,

I verily believe. They are wonderfully shrewd, and they have sense

enough to keep their heads when other men are losing theirs. They are

patient; they plan craftily and execute carefully and ruthlessly.

Would you care to graft their idea of industry on the white race, Mr.

Parker?"

"I would," Parker declared, firmly. "It is getting to be the fashion

nowadays for white men to do as little work as possible, and half do

that."

"I would not care to see my wife or my mother or my sister laboring

twelve to sixteen hours a day as Japanese force their women to labor.

I would not care to contemplate the future mothers of our race drawn

from the ranks of twisted, stunted, broken-down, and prematurely aged

women. Did you ever see a bent Japanese girl of twenty waddling in

from a day of labor in a field? To emulate Japanese industry, with its

peonage, its horrible, unsanitary factory conditions, its hopelessness,

would be to thrust woman's hard-won sphere in modern civilization back

to where it stood at the dawn of the Christian era. Do you know, Miss

Parker, that love never enters into consideration when a Japanese

contemplates marriage? His sole purpose in acquiring a mate is to

beget children, to scatter the seed of Yamato over the world, for that

is a religious duty. A Jap never kisses his wife or shows her any

evidences of affection. She is a chattel, and if anybody should, by

chance, discover him kissing his wife, he would be frightfully

mortified."

"What of their religious views, Don Mike?"

"If Japan can be said to have an official religion, it is Shintoism,

not Buddhism, as so many Occidental people believe. Shintoism is

ancestor-worship, and ascribes divinity to the emperor. They believe

he is a direct descendant of the sun-god, Yamato."

"Why, they're a heathen nation!" Kay's tones were indicative of

amazement.

Farrel smiled his tolerant smile.

"I believe, Miss Parker, that any people who will get down on all fours

to worship the picture of their emperor and, at this period of the

world's progress, ascribe to a mere human being the attributes of

divinity, are certainly deficient in common sense, if not in

civilization. However, for the purpose of insuring the realization of

the Japanese national aspirations, Shintoism is a need vital to the

race. Without it, they could never agree among themselves for they are

naturally quarrelsome, suspicious and irritable. However, by

subordinating everything to the state via this religious channel, there

has been developed a national unity that has never existed with any

other race. The power of cohesion of this people is marvelous, and

will enable it, in days to come, to accomplish much for the race. For

that reason alone, our very lack of cohesion renders the aspirations of

Japan comparatively easy of fulfilment unless we wake up and attend to

business."

"How do you know all this, Mr. Farrel?" Parker demanded incredulously.

"I have read translations from editorials in Japanese newspapers both

in Japan and California; I have read translations of the speeches of

eminent Japanese statesmen; I have read translations from Japanese

official or semi-official magazines, and I have read translations from

patriotic Japanese novels. I know what I am talking about. The

Japanese race holds firmly to the belief that it is the greatest race

on the face of the globe, that its religion, Shintoism, is the one true

faith, that it behooves it to carry this faith to the benighted of

other lands and, if said benighted do not readily accept Shintoism, to

force its blessings upon them willy-nilly. They believe that they know

what is good for the world; they believe that the resources of the

world were put here to be exploited by the people of the world,

regardless of color, creed, or geographical limitation. They feel that

they have as much right in North America as we have, and they purpose

over-running us and making our country Japanese territory. And it was

your purpose to aid in the consummation of this monstrous ambition," he

charged bluntly.

"At least," Parker defended, "they are a more wholesome people than

southern Europeans. And they are not Mongolians."

Farrel's eyebrows arched.

"You have been reading Japanese propaganda," he replied. "Of course

they are Mongolians. Everybody who has reached the age of reason knows

that. One does not have to be a biologist to know that they are

Mongolians. Indeed, the only people who deny it are the Japanese, and

they do not believe it. As for southern Europeans, have you not

observed that nearly all of them possess brachycephalic skulls,

indicating the influence upon them of Mongolian invasions thousands of

years ago and supplying, perhaps, a very substantial argument that, if

we find the faintly Mongoloid type of emigrant repugnant to us, we can

never expect to assimilate the pure-bred Mongol."

"What do you mean, 'brachycephalic'?" Parker queried, uneasily.

"They belong to the race of round heads. Didn't you know that

ethnologists grub round in ancient cemeteries and tombs and trace the

evolution and wanderings of tribes of men by the skulls they find

there?"

"I did not."

Kay commenced to giggle at her father's confusion. The latter had

suddenly, as she realized, made the surprising discovery that in this

calm son of the San Gregorio he had stumbled upon a student, to attempt

to break a conversational lance with whom must end in disaster. His

daughter's mirth brought him to a realization of the sorry figure he

would present in argument.

"Well, my dear, what are you laughing at?" he demanded, a trifle

austerely.

"I'm laughing at you. You told me yesterday you were loaded for these

Californians and could flatten their anti-Japanese arguments in a

jiffy."

"Perhaps I am loaded still. Remember, Kay, Mr. Farrel has done all of

the talking and we have been attentive listeners. Wait until I have

had my innings."

"By the way, Mr. Parker," Farrel asked, "who loaded you up with

pro-Japanese arguments?"

Parker flushed and was plainly ill at ease. Farrel turned to Kay.

"I do not know yet where you folks came from, but I'll make a bet that

I can guess--in one guess."

"What will you bet, my erudite friend?" the girl bantered.

"I'll bet you Panchito against a box of fifty of the kind of cigars

your father smokes."

"Taken. Where do we hail from, Don Mike?"

"From New York city."

"Dad, send Mr. Farrel a box of cigars."

"Now, I'll make you another bet. I'll stake Panchito against another

box of the same cigars that your father is a member of the Japan

Society, of New York city."

"Send Mr. Farrel another box of cigars, popsy-wops. Don Mike, how

_did_ you guess it?"

"Oh, all the real plutocrats in New York have been sold memberships in

that instrument of propaganda by the wily sons of Nippon. The Japan

Society is supposed to be a vehicle for establishing friendlier

commercial and social relations between the United States and Japan.

The society gives wonderful banquets and yammers away about the

Brotherhood of Man and sends out pro-Japanese propaganda. Really, it's

a wonderful institution, Miss Parker. The millionaire white men of New

York finance the society, and the Japs run it. It was some shrewd

Japanese member of the Japan Society who sent you to Okada on this

land-deal, was it not, Mr. Parker?"

"You're too good a guesser for comfort," the latter parried. "I'm

going to write some letters. I'm motoring in to El Toro this

afternoon, and I'll want to mail them."

"'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof'," Don Miguel assured him

lightly. "Whenever you feel the urge for further information about

yourself and your Japanese friends, I am at your service. I expect to

prove to you in about three lessons that you have unwittingly permitted

yourself to develop into a very poor citizen, even if you did load up

with Liberty Bonds and deliver four-minute speeches during all of the

loan drives."

"Oh, I'm as good as the average American, despite what you say,"

retorted the banker, good-naturedly, as he left them.

The master of Palomar gazed after the retreating figure of his guest.

In his glance there was curiosity, pain, and resignation. He continued

to stare at the door through which Parker had disappeared, until roused

from his reverie by Kay's voice.

"The average American doesn't impress you greatly, does he, Don Mike?"

"Oh, I'm not one of that supercilious breed of Americans which toadies

to an alleged European culture by finding fault with his own people,"

he hastened to assure her. "What distresses me is the knowledge that

we are a very moral nation, that we have never subjugated weaker

peoples, that we have never coveted our neighbor's goods, that we can

outthink and outwork and outgame and outinvent every nation under

heaven, and yet haven't brains enough to do our own thinking in

world-affairs. It is discouraging to contemplate the smug complacency,

whether it be due to ignorance or apathy, which permits aliens to

reside in our midst and set up agencies for our destruction and their

benefit. If I-- Why, you're in riding-costume, aren't you?"

"You will never be popular with women if you do not mend your ways,"

she informed him, with a little grimace of disapproval. "Do you not

know that women loathe non-observing men?"

"So do I. Stodgy devils! Sooner or later, the fool-killer gets them

all. Please do not judge me to-day, Miss Parker. Perhaps, after a

while, I may be more discerning. By Jupiter, those very becoming

riding-togs will create no end of comment among the natives!"

"You said Panchito was to be mine while I am your guest, Don Mike."

"I meant it."

"I do not relish the easy manner in which you risk parting with him.

The idea of betting that wonder-horse against a box of filthy cigars!"

"Oh, I wasn't risking him," he retorted, dryly. "However, before you

ride Panchito, I'll put him through his paces. He hasn't been ridden

for three or four months, I dare say, and when he feels particularly

good, he carries on just a little."

"If he's sober-minded, may I ride him to-day?"

"We shall quarrel if you insist upon treating yourself as company. My

home and all I possess are here for your happiness. If your mother and

father do not object--"

"My father doesn't bother himself opposing my wishes, and mother--by

the way, you've made a perfectly tremendous hit with mother. She told

me I could go riding with you."

He blushed boyishly at this vote of confidence. Kay noted the blush,

and liked him all the better for it.

"Very well," he answered. "We'll ride down to the mission first. I

must pay my respects to my friends there--didn't bother to look in on

them last night, you know. Then we will ride over to the Sepulvida

ranch for luncheon. I want you to know Anita Sepulvida. She's a very

lovely girl and a good pal of mine. You'll like her."

"Let's go," she suggested, "while mother is still convoying Mr. Okada.

He is still interested in that sweet-lime tree. By the way," she

continued, as they rose and walked down the porch together, "I have

never heard of a sweet-lime before."

"It's the only one of its kind in this country, Miss Parker, and it is

very old. Just before it came into bearing for the first time, my

grandmother, while walking along the porch with a pan of sugar in her

hands, stubbed her toe and fell off the porch, spilling her pan of

sugar at the base of the tree. The result of this accident is

noticeable in the fruit to this very day."

She glanced up at him suspiciously, but not even the shadow of a smile

hovered on his grave features. He opened the rear gate for her and

they passed out into the compound.

"That open fireplace in the adobe wall under the shed yonder was where

the cowboys used to sit and dry themselves after a rainy day on the

range," he informed her. "In fact, this compound was reserved for the

help. Here they held their bailies in the old days."

"What is that little building yonder--that lean-to against the main

adobe wall?" Kay demanded.

"That was the settlement-room. You must know that the possessors of

dark blood seldom settle a dispute by argument, Miss Parker. In days

gone by, whenever a couple of peons quarreled (and they quarreled

frequently), the majordomo, or foreman of the ranch, would cause these

men to be stripped naked and placed in this room to settle their row

with nature's weapons. When honor was satisfied, the victor came to

this grating and announced it. Not infrequently, peons have emerged

from this room minus an ear or a nose, but, as a general thing, this

method of settlement was to be preferred to knife or pistol."

Farrel tossed an empty box against the door and invited the girl to

climb up on it and peer into the room. She did so. Instantly a

ferocious yell resounded from the semi-darkness within.

"Good gracious! Is that a ghost?" Kay cried, and leaped to the ground.

"No; confound it!" Farrel growled. "It's your Japanese cook. Pablo

locked him in there this morning, in order that Carolina might have a

clear field for her culinary art. Pablo!"

His cry brought an answering hail from Pablo, over at the barn, and

presently the old majordomo entered the compound. Farrel spoke sternly

to him in Spanish, and, with a shrug of indifference, Pablo unlocked

the door of the settlement-room and the Japanese cook bounded out. He

was inarticulate with frenzy, and disappeared through the gate of the

compound with an alacrity comparable only to that of a tin-canned dog.

"I knew he had been placed here temporarily," Don Miguel confessed,

"but I did think Pablo would have sense enough to let him out when

breakfast was over. I'm sorry."

"I'm not. I think that incident is the funniest I have ever seen," the

girl laughed. "Poor outraged fellow!"

"Well, if you think it's funny, so do I. Any sorrow I felt at your

cook's incarceration was due to my apprehension as to your feelings,

not his."

"What a fearful rage he is in, Don Mike!"

"Oh, well, he can help himself to the fruit of our famous lime-tree and

get sweet again. Pablo, you russet scoundrel, no more rough stuff if

you know what's good for you. Where is Panchito?"

"I leave those horse loose in the pasture," Pablo replied, a whit

abashed. "I like for see if those horse he got some brains like before

you go ride heem. For long time Panchito don' hear hees boss call

heem. Mebbeso he forget--no?"

"We shall see, Pablo."

XII

They walked out to the barn. In a little green field in the

oak-studded valley below, a dozen horses were feeding. Farrel whistled

shrilly. Instantly, one of the horses raised his head and listened.

Again Farrel whistled, and a neigh answered him as Panchito broke from

the herd and came galloping up the slope. When his master whistled

again, the gallop developed into a furious burst of speed; whereat

Farrel slipped inside the barn and shut the door, while round and round

the barn Panchito galloped, seeking the lost master.

Suddenly Don Miguel emerged and, with little affectionate nickerings,

the beautiful animal trotted up to him, ran his head over the master's

shoulder, and rubbed his sleek cheek against the man's. Farrel nuzzled

him and rubbed him lovingly between the ears before producing a lump of

sugar. Upon command, Panchito squatted on his hind quarters like a dog

and held his head out stiffly. Upon his nose Farrel balanced the lump

of sugar, backed away, and stood in front of him. The horse did not

move. Suddenly Farrel snapped his fingers. With a gentle toss of his

head, Panchito threw the lump of sugar in the air and made a futile

snap at it as it came down. Then he rose, picked the lump up

carefully, and, holding it between his lips, advanced and proffered his

master a bite.

"Oh, you eat it yourself!" Farrel cried, and reached for the horse's

unkempt mane. With the ease of long practice, he swung aboard the

horse and, at the touch of his heels, Panchito bounded away. Far down

the mesa he raced, Farrel guiding him with his knees; then back and

over the six-foot corral-fence with something of the airy freedom of a

bird. In the corral, Farrel slid off, ran with the galloping animal

for fifty feet, grasping his mane, and sprang completely over him, ran

fifty feet more and sprang back, as nimbly as a monkey. Panchito was

galloping easily, steadily, now, at a trained gait, like a circus

horse, so Farrel sat sideways on him and discarded his boots, after

which he stood erect on the smooth, glossy back and rode him, first on

one foot, then on the other. Next he sat down on the animal again and

clapped his hands.

"Panchito, my boots!" he ordered. But Panchito only pinned his ears

and shook his head. "You see," Farrel called to Kay, "he is a

gentleman, and declines to perform a menial service. But I shall force

him. Panchito, you rebel, pick up my boots and hand them to me."

For answer, Panchito threw his hind end aloft half a dozen times, and

Kay's silvery laugh echoed through the corral as Farrel, appearing to

lose his seat, slid forward on the horse's withers and clung with arms

and legs round Panchito's neck, emulating terror. Thereupon, Panchito

stood up on his hind legs, and Farrel, making futile clutchings at the

horse's mane, slid helplessly back; over his mount's glossy rump and

sat down rather solidly in the dust of the corral.

"Bravo!" the girl cried. "Why, he's a circus horse!"

"I've schooled him a little for trick riding at rodeos, Miss Parker.

We've carried off many a prize, and when I dress in the motley of a

clown and pretend to ride him rough and do that silly slide, most

people enjoy it."

Farrel got up, recovered his boots, and put them on.

"He'll do, the old humorist," he announced, as he joined her. "He

hasn't forgotten anything, and wasn't he glad to see me again? You use

an English saddle, I dare say, and ride with a short stirrup?"

Panchito dutifully followed like a dog at heel to the tack-room, where

Farrel saddled him and carefully fitted the bridle with the

snaffle-bit. Following a commanding slap on the fore leg, the

intelligent animal knelt for Kay to mount him, after which, Farrel

adjusted the stirrup leathers for her.

In the meantime, Pablo was saddling a splendid, big dappled-gray

gelding.

"One of the best roping-horses in California, and very fast for half a

mile. He's half thoroughbred," Farrel explained. "He was my father's

mount." He caressed the gray's head. "Do you miss him, Bob,

old-timer?" he queried.

Kay observed her companion's saddle. It was of black, hand-carved

leather, with sterling-silver trimmings and long _tapaderas_--a saddle

to thrill every drop of the Castilian blood that flowed in the veins of

its owner. The bridle was of finely plaited rawhide, with fancy

sliding knots, a silver Spanish bit, and single reins of silver-link

chain and plaited rawhide. At the pommel hung coiled a well-worn

rawhide riata.

When the gray was saddled, Farrel did not mount, but came to Kay and

handed her the horsehair leading-rope.

"If you will be good enough to take the horses round in front," he

suggested, "I'll go back to the kennels and loose the hounds. On our

way over to the Sepulvida rancho, we're liable to put up a panther or a

coyote, and if we can get our quarry out into the open, we'll have a

glorious chase. I've run coyotes and panthers down with Panchito and

roped them. A panther isn't to be sneezed at," he continued,

apologetically. "The state pays a bounty of thirty dollars for a

panther-pelt, and then gives you back the pelt."

Five minutes later, when he came round the north corner of the old

hacienda, his hounds frisking before him, he met Kay riding to meet him

on Panchito, but the gray gelding was not in sight. The girl was

excited.

"Where is my mount, Miss Parker?" he demanded.

"Just as I rode up in front, a man came out of the patio, and started

that automobile hurriedly. He had scarcely gotten it turned round when

one of his front tires blew out. This seemed to infuriate him and

frighten him. He considered a minute or two, then suddenly ran over to

me, snatched the leading-rope out of my hand, mounted, and fled down

the avenue at top speed."

"'The wicked flee when no man pursueth'," the master of Palomar

replied, quietly, and stepped over to the automobile for an examination

of the license. "Ah, my father's ancient enemy!" he exclaimed, "André

Loustalot has been calling on your father, and has just learned that I

am living. I think I comprehend his reason for borrowing my horse and

dusting out of here so precipitately."

"There he goes now!" Kay cried, as the gray burst from the shelter of

the palms in the avenue and entered the long open stretch of white road

leading down the San Gregorio.

Don Mike's movements were as casual as if the theft of a horse in broad

daylight was an every-day occurrence.

"Unfortunately for that stupid fellow, he borrowed the wrong horse," he

announced, gravely. "The sole result of his action will be to delay

our ride until tomorrow. I'm sorry, but it now becomes necessary for

me to ask you for Panchito."

She slid silently to the ground. Swiftly but calmly he readjusted the

stirrups; then he faced the girl.

"Want to see some fun?" he demanded.

"Why--yes," she replied, breathlessly.

"You're a good little sport. Take your father's car and follow me.

Please bring Pablo with you, and tell him I said he was to bring his

rifle. If Loustalot gets me, he is to follow on Panchito and get

Loustalot. Thank you, Miss Parker."

He swung lightly into the unaccustomed flat saddle and, disdaining to

follow the road, cut straight across country; Panchito taking the

fences easily, the hounds belling lustily as they strung out behind

him. Kay did not wait to follow his flight, but calling for William to

get out the car, she ran round to the barn and delivered Farrel's

message to Pablo, who grunted his comprehension and started for his

cabin at a surprising rate of speed for an old man. Five minutes after

Farrel had left the Rancho Palomar, Kay and Pablo were roaring down the

valley in pursuit.

Half a mile beyond the mission they came upon Don Mike and his father's

enemy. In the first mile, the latter had ridden the gray out; spent,

gasping, the gallant animal was proceeding at a leg-weary, lumbering

gallop when Miguel Farrel, following on Panchito at half that gallant

animal's speed, came up with Loustalot. Straight at the big gray he

drove, "hazing" him off the road and stopping him abruptly. At the

same time, he leaped from Panchito full on top of Loustalot, and bore

the latter crashing to the ground.

The chase was over. Half-stunned, the enemy of Don Miguel José Farrel

II lay flat on his back, blinking up at Don Miguel Farrel III as the

latter's knees pressed the Loustalot breast, the while his fingers

clasped the hairy Loustalot throat in a grip that was a promise of

death if the latter struggled.

As Kay drew up in the car and, white-faced and wondering, gazed at the

unwonted spectacle, Miguel Farrel released his captive and stood erect.

"So sorry to have made a brawl in your presence, Miss Parker, but he

would have ruined our old Bob horse if I hadn't overtaken him." He

turned to the man on the ground. "Get up, Loustalot!" The latter

staggered to his feet. "Pablo," Farrel continued, "take this man back

to the ranch and lock him up in your private calaboose. See that he

does not escape, and permit no one to speak with him."

Prom the gray's saddle he took a short piece of rope, such as vaqueros

use to tie the legs of an animal when they have roped and thrown it.

"Mount!" he commanded. Loustalot climbed wearily aboard the spent

gray, and held his hands behind him with Farrel bound them securely.

Pablo thereupon mounted Panchito, took the gray's leading-rope, and

started back to the ranch.

"How white your face is!" Farrel murmured, deprecatingly, as he came to

the side of the car. "So sorry our ride has been spoiled." He glanced

at his wrist-watch. "Only ten o'clock," he continued. "I wonder if

you'd be gracious enough to motor me in to El Toro. Your father plans

to use the car after luncheon, but we will be back by twelve-thirty."

"Certainly. Delighted!" the girl replied, in rather a small,

frightened voice.

"Thank you." He considered a moment. "I think it no less than fair to

warn you, Miss Parker, that my trip has to do with a scheme that may

deprive your father of his opportunity to acquire the Rancho Palomar at

one-third of its value. I think the scheme may be at least partially

successful, but if I am to succeed at all, I'll have to act promptly."

She held out her hand to him.

"My father plays fair, Don Mike. I hope you win."

And she unlatched the door of the tonneau and motioned him to enter.

XIII

The return of Pablo Artelan to the hacienda with his employer's

prisoner was a silent and dignified one up to the moment they reached

the entrance to the palm avenue. Here the prisoner, apparently having

gathered together his scattered wits, turned in the saddle and

addressed his guard.

"Artelan," he said, in Spanish, "if you will permit me to go, I will

give you five thousand dollars."

"If you are worth five thousand dollars to me," the imperturbable Pablo

replied, calmly, "how much more are you worth to Don Miguel Farrel?"

"Ten thousand! You will be wealthy."

"What need have I for wealth, Loustalot? Does not Don Miguel provide

all things necessary for a happy existence?"

"I will give you twelve thousand. Do not be a fool, Artelan. Come; be

sensible and listen to reason."

"Silence, animal! Is not the blood of my brother on your head? One

word--"

"Fifteen thousand, Artelan. Quick. There is little time to--"

Pablo rode up beside him and quite deliberately smote the man heavily

across the mouth with the back of his hand.

"There will be no more talk of money," he commanded, tersely.

John Parker had finished writing his letters and was standing, with his

wife and the potato baron, in front of the hacienda when Pablo and his

prisoner rode into the yard. Thin rivulets of blood were trickling

from the Basque's nose and lips; his face was ashen with rage and

apprehension.

"Why, Loustalot, what has happened?" Parker cried, and stepped out to

intercept the gray gelding, but Pablo, riding behind, struck the gray

on the flank, and the animal bounded forward. But Parker was not to be

denied. He, too, leaped, seized the reins, and brought the animal to a

halt. Pablo glared at him hatefully; then, remembering that this man

was no longer an interloper, but an honored guest of the house of

Farrel, he removed his sombrero and bowed courteously.

"Señor Parker," he explained, "thees man, Loustalot, have made the beeg

meestake to steal thees horse from Don Miguel Farrel. For long time

since Don Miguel he's beeg like leetle baby, thees Basque he cannot set

the foot on the Rancho Palomar, but to-day, because he theenk Don

Miguel don' leeve, theese fellow have the beeg idea she's all right for

come to theese rancho. Well, he come." Here Pablo shrugged. "I think

mebbeso you tell theese Loustalot Don Miguel have come back.

_Car-ramba_! He is scared like hell. Queeck, like rabbeet, he run for

those automobile, but those automobile she have one leak in the wheel.

_Señor_, thees is the judgment of God. Myself, I theenk the speerit of

Don Miguel's father have put the nail where thees fellow can peeck heem

up. Well, when hee's nothing for do, hee's got for do sometheeng, eh?

_Mira_! If Don Miguel catch thees coyote on the Rancho Palomar, hee's

cut off hees tail like that"--and Pablo snapped his tobacco-stained

fingers. "Queeck! Hee's got for do something for make the vamose.

The Señorita Parker, she rides Panchito and holds the gray horse for

Don Miguel, who has gone for get the dogs. Thees animal, Loustalot,

hee's go crazy with the fear, so he grab thees gray horse from the

Señorita Parker and hee's ride away fast like the devil just when Don

Miguel arrive with the hounds. Then Don Miguel, hee's take Panchito

and go get thees man."

"But where are Don Miguel and Miss Parker now?"

"Mees Parker, she take the automobile; the señorita and Don Miguel go

to El Toro. Me, I come back with thees Basque for put heem in the

calaboose."

"But, Pablo, you cannot confine this man without a warrant."

Pablo, too polite to argue with a guest, merely bowed and smiled

deprecatingly.

"My boss, hee's tell me put thees fellow in the calaboose. If trouble

come from thees--well, Don Miguel have the fault, not Pablo Artelan.

If the _señor_ please for let go the gray horse--no?"

"Farrel has gone to El Toro to attach my bank-account and my sheep,"

the Basque explained in a whisper, leaning low over the gray's neck.

"His father had an old judgment against me. When I thought young

Farrel dead, I dared do business--in my own name--understand? Now, if

he collects, you've lost the Rancho Palomar--help me, for God's sake,

Parker!"

Parker's hand fell away from the reins.

"I have no sympathy for you, Loustalot," he replied, coldly. "If you

have stolen this horse, you must pay the penalty. I shall not help

you. This is no affair of mine." And he stepped aside and waved

Loustalot back into Pablo's possession, who thanked him politely and

rode away round the hacienda wall. Three minutes later, Loustalot, his

hands unbound, was safe under lock and key in the settlement-room, and

Pablo, rifle in lap, sat on a box outside the door and rolled a

brown-paper cigarette.

Throughout the preceding colloquy, Mrs. Parker had said nothing. When

Pablo and his prisoner had disappeared, she asked her husband:

"What did that man say to you? He spoke in such a low tone I couldn't

hear him."

Parker, without hesitation, related to her, in the presence of Okada,

the astonishing news which Loustalot had given him.

"Good!" the lady declared, emphatically. "I hope that delightful Don

Mike collects every penny."

"Very poor business, I zink," Mr. Okada opined, thoughtfully.

"At any rate," Parker observed, "our host isn't letting the grass grow

under his feet. I wonder if he'll attach Loustalot's automobile. It's

new, and worth about eight thousand dollars. Well, we shall see what

we shall see."

"I zink I take little walk. 'Scuse me, please," said Okada, and bowed

to Parker and his wife. He gave both the impression that he had been

an unwilling witness to an unhappy and distressing incident and wished

to efface himself from the scene. Mrs. Parker excused him with a brief

and somewhat wintry smile, and the little Oriental started strolling

down the palm-lined avenue. No sooner had the gate closed behind them,

however, than he hastened back to Loustalot's car, and at the end of

ten minutes of furious labor had succeeded in exchanging the deflated

tire for one of the inflated spare tires at the rear of the car. This

matter attended to, he strolled over to the ranch blacksmith shop and

searched through it until he found that which he sought--a long, heavy

pair of bolt-clippers such as stockmen use for dehorning young cattle.

Armed with this tool, he slipped quietly round to the rear of Pablo's

"calaboose," and went to work noiselessly on the small iron-grilled

window of the settlement-room.

The bars were an inch in diameter and too thick to be cut with the

bolt-clippers, but Okada did not despair. With the tool he grasped the

adobe window-ledge and bit deeply into it. Piece after piece of the

ancient adobe came away, until presently the bases of the iron bars lay

exposed; whereupon Okada seized them, one by one, in his hands and bent

them upward and outward, backward and forward, until he was enabled to

remove them altogether. Then he stole quietly back to the blacksmith

shop, restored the bolt-clippers, went to the Basque's automobile, and

waited.

Presently, Loustalot appeared warily round the corner. A glance at his

automobile showed that the flat tire had been shifted; whereupon he

nodded his thanks to the Japanese, who stared impassively while the

Basque climbed into his car, threw out his low gear, let go his brakes,

and coasted silently out of the yard and into the avenue. The hacienda

screened him from Pablo's view as the latter, all unconscious of what

was happening, dozed before the door of the empty settlement-room.

Once over the lip of the mesa, Loustalot started his car and sped down

the San Gregorio as fast as he dared drive.

XIV

Following his illuminating interview with Pablo and Loustalot, John

Parker returned to a chair on the porch patio, lighted a fresh cigar,

and gave himself up to contemplating the tangle in his hitherto

well-laid plans. An orderly and methodical man always, it annoyed him

greatly to discover this morning that a diabolical circumstance over

which he had no control and which he had not remotely taken into

consideration should have arisen to embarrass and distress him and,

perchance, plunge him into litigation. Mrs. Parker, having possessed

herself of some fancy work, took a seat beside him, and, for the space

of several minutes, stitched on, her thoughts, like her husband's,

evidently bent upon the affairs of Miguel Farrel.

"Who is this gory creature Pablo just brought in?" she demanded,

finally.

"His name is André Loustalot, Kate, and he is a sheep-man from the San

Carpojo country--a Basque, I believe. He hasn't a particularly good

reputation in San Marcos County, but he's one of the biggest sheepmen

in the state and a heavy depositor in the bank at El Toro. He was one

of the reasons that moved me to buy the Farrel mortgage from the bank."

"Explain the reason, John."

"Well, I figured that eventually I would have to foreclose on old Don

Miguel Farrel, and it would require approximately two years after that

before my irrigation system would be completed and the valley lands

ready for colonization. I was tolerably certain I would never restock

the range with cattle, and I knew Loustalot would buy several thousand

young sheep and run them on the Palomar, provided I leased the

grazing-privilege to him for two years at a reasonable figure. I was

here, under authority of a court order, to conserve the estate from

waste, and my attorney assured me that, under that order, I had

authority to use my own judgment in the administration of the estate,

following the order of foreclosure. Now young Farrel shows up alive,

and that will nullify my suit for foreclosure. It also nullifies my

lease to Loustalot."

"I'm quite certain that fiery Don Mike will never consent to the lease,

John," his wife remarked.

"If he declines to approve the lease, I shall be quite embarrassed I

fear, Kate. You see, dear, Loustalot bought about fifteen thousand

sheep to pasture on the Palomar, and now he's going to find himself in

the unenviable position of having the sheep but no pasture. He'll

probably sue me to recover his loss, if any."

"It's too bad you didn't wait ten days before signing that lease, John."

"Yes," he replied, a trifle testily. "But we all were convinced that

young Farrel had been killed in Siberia."

"But you hadn't completed your title to this ranch, John?"

"You wouldn't murder a man who was going to commit suicide, would you?

The ranch was as good as mine. If I had waited to make absolutely

certain Farrel was dead, the wait might have cost me fifty thousand

dollars. I rented the ranch at fifty cents per acre."

"One hundred thousand acres, more or less, for two years, at fifty

cents per acre per annum. So, instead of making fifty thousand you've

lost that sum," his wife mused aloud.

"I've lost one hundred thousand," he corrected. "A one-year lease is

not desirable; Loustalot was my sole client, and I've lost him for

good."

"Why despair, John? I've a notion that if you give Don Mike fifty

thousand dollars to confirm Loustalot in the lease, he will forget his

enmity and agree to the lease. That would, at least, prevent a

law-suit."

Parker's face brightened.

"I might do that," he assented. "The title will remain in Farrel's

name for another year, and I have always believed that half a loaf was

better than none at all. If young Farrel subscribes to the same

sentiments, all may yet go nicely."

"Fifty thousand dollars would be rather a neat sum to save out of the

wreck," she observed, sagely. "He seems quite a reasonable young man."

"I like him," Parker declared. "I like him ever so much."

"So do I, John. He's an old-fashioned gentleman."

"He's a he man--the sort of chap I'd like to see Kay married to some

day."

Mrs. Parker looked searchingly at her husband.

"He told Kay he was half greaser, John. Would you care to have our

little daughter married to that sort of man?"

"How like a woman! You always take the personal viewpoint. I said I'd

like to see Kay married to a he man like Miguel Farrel. And Farrel is

not half greaser. A greaser is, I take it, a sort of mongrel--Indian

and Spanish. Farrel is clean-strain Caucasian, Kate. He's a white

man--inside and out."

"His financial situation renders him impossible, of course."

"Naturally."

"I wish it were otherwise, Johnny. Perhaps, if you were a little easy

with him--if you gave him a chance--"

"Kate, I'd always be afraid of his easy-going Latin blood. If I should

put him on his feet, he would, in all probability, stand still. He

might even walk a little, but I doubt me if he'd ever do a Marathon."

"John, you're wrong," Mrs. Parker affirmed, with conviction. "That

young man will go far. What would you do if Kay should fall in love

with him?"

"I'm sure I do not know, Kate. What would you do?"

"I do not know, John. Nevertheless, it is interesting to contemplate

the situation. If he should win this ranch back from you, he could

have her with my blessing."

"Likewise with mine. That would put him right up in the go-getter

class, which is the class I want to see Kay marry into. But he will

not win back this ranch, Kate."

"How do you know he will not?"

"Because I'm going to do everything in my power to keep him from

redeeming it--and I'm neither a mental nor a financial cripple."

"Where did the potato baron go?" Mrs. Parker queried, suddenly changing

the conversation.

"Down into the valley, I imagine, to look over the land."

"His presence here is not agreeable to Mr. Farrel, John. I think you

might manage to indicate to Mr. Okada that now, Mr. Farrel having

returned so unexpectedly, your land deal must necessarily be delayed

for a year, and consequently, further negotiations at this time are

impossible."

"Yes; I think I had better give him a strong hint to go away. It

irritates Farrel to have him in the house, although he'd never admit it

to us."

"I wonder, John, if it irritates him to have us in the house?"

"I wanted to leave to-day, but when he invited us to stay, you wouldn't

permit me to consider leaving," he reminded her.

"But, John, his manner was so hearty and earnest we had to accept.

Really, I think, we might have hurt his feelings if we had declined."

"Kay seemed happy to stay."

"That is another reason for accepting his invitation. I know she'll

enjoy it so here."

"I wouldn't be at all surprised," Parker replied, dryly. "She has

helped herself to the car and driver in order to aid Farrel at my

expense."

His humorous wife smiled covertly. Parker smoked contemplatively for a

quarter of an hour. Then,

"Here comes the smiling son of Nippon, John," Mrs. Parker remarked.

The potato baron entered the secluded patio and sat down beside them on

the porch. With a preliminary whistling intake of breath, he remarked

that it was a beautiful day and then proceeded, without delay, to

discuss the subject closest to his heart--the fertile stretches of the

San Gregorio valley.

Parker squirmed a trifle uneasily.

"As I explained to you this morning, Mr. Okada," he began, "our deal

has become a trifle complicated by reason of the wholly unexpected

return of Mr. Miguel Farrel."

"Very great misfortune," Okada sympathized. "Very great

disappointment."

Mrs. Parker favored him with a look of violent dislike and departed

abruptly, much to Okada's relief. Immediately he drew his chair close

to Parker's.

"You zink Mr. Farrel perhaps can raise in one year the money to redeem

property?" he demanded.

"I haven't the slightest information as to his money-raising ability,

other than the information given me by that man Pablo has just locked

up. If, as Loustalot informed me, Farrel has a judgment against him,

he is extremely liable to raise a hundred thousand or more to-day, what

with funds in bank and about fifteen thousand sheep."

"I zink Farrel not very lucky to-day wiz sheep, Mr. Parker."

"Well, whether he's lucky or not, he has our deal blocked for one year.

I can do nothing now until title to this ranch is actually vested in

me. I am morally certain Farrel will never redeem the property,

but--well, you realize my predicament, Mr. Okada. Our deal is

definitely hung up for one year."

"Very great disappointment!" Okada replied sadly. "Next year, I zink

California legislature make new law so Japanese people have very much

difficulty to buy land. Attorneys for Japanese Association of

California very much frightened because they know Japanese

treaty-rights not affected by such law. If my people can buy this

valley before that law comes to make trouble for Japanese people, I

zink very much better for everybody."

"But, my dear Mr. Okada, I cannot make a move until Miguel Farrel fails

to redeem the property at the expiration of the redemption period, one

year hence."

"Perhaps that sheeps-man kill Mr. Farrel," Okada suggested, hopefully.

"I hoping, for sake of Japanese people, that sheeps-man very bad luck

for Mr. Farrel."

"Well, I wouldn't care to have him for an enemy. However, I dare say

Farrel knows the man well enough and will protect himself accordingly.

By the way, Farrel is violently opposed to Japanese colonization of the

San Gregorio."

"You zink he have prejudice against Japanese people?"

"I know it, Mr. Okada, and, for that reason, and the further reason

that our deal is now definitely hung up for a year, I suggest that you

return to El Toro with me this afternoon. I am no longer master here,

but I shall be delighted to have you as my guest at the hotel in El

Toro while you are making your investigations of the property. I wish

to avoid the possibility of embarrassment to you, to Mr. Farrel, and to

my family. I am sure you understand our position, Mr. Okada."

The potato baron nodded, scowling slightly.

XV

At a point where the road, having left the valley and climbed a grade

to a mesa that gave almost an air-plane view of the San Gregorio,

Miguel Farrel looked back long and earnestly. For the first time since

entering the car, at Kay Parker's invitation, he spoke.

"It's worth it," he announced, with conviction, "worth a fight to a

finish with whatever weapons come to hand. If I-- By the holy

poker! Sheep! Sheep on the Rancho Palomar! Thousands of them. Look!

Over yonder!"

"How beautiful they look against those green and purple and gold

hillsides!" the girl exclaimed.

"Usually a sheep is not beautiful to a cow-man," he reminded her.

"However, if those sheep belong to Loustalot, they constitute the

fairest sight mine eyes have gazed upon to date."

"And who might he be?"

"That shaggy thief I manhandled a few minutes ago. He's a sheep-man

from the San Carpojo, and for a quarter of a century he has not dared

set foot on the Palomar. Your father, thinking I was dead and that the

ranch would never be redeemed after foreclosure of the mortgage, leased

the grazing-privilege to Loustalot. I do not blame him. I do not

think we have more than five hundred head of cattle on the ranch, and

it would be a shame to waste that fine green feed." Suddenly the sad

and somber mien induced by his recent grief fled his countenance. He

turned to her eagerly. "Miss Parker, if I have any luck worth while

to-day, I think I may win back my ranch."

"I wish you could win it back, Don Mike. I think we all wish it."

"I hope you all do." He laughed joyously. "My dear Miss Parker, this

is the open season on terrible practical jokes. I'm no judge of sheep

in bulk, but there must be not less than ten thousand over on that

hillside, and if the title to them is vested in André Loustalot to-day,

it will be vested in me about a month from now. I shall attach them;

they will be sold at pub-lie auction by the sheriff to satisfy in part

my father's old judgment against Loustalot, and I shall bid them

in--cheap. Nobody in San Marcos County will bid against me, for I can

outbid everybody and acquire the sheep without having to put up a cent

of capital. Oh, my dear, thoughtful, vengeful old dad! Dying, he

assigned that judgment to me and had it recorded. I came across it in

his effects last night.

"What are sheep worth, Don Mike?"

"I haven't the slightest idea, but I should say that by next fall,

those sheep should be worth not less than six dollars a head, including

the wool-clip. They will begin to lamb in February, and by the time

your father dispossesses me a year hence, the increase will amount to

considerable. That flock of sheep should be worth about one hundred

thousand dollars by the time I have to leave the Palomar, and I _know_

I'm going to collect at least fifty thousand dollars in cash in

addition."

He drew from his vest pocket a check for that sum, signed by André

Loustalot and drawn in favor of John Parker, Trustee.

"How did you come by that check?" Kay demanded. "It belongs to my

father, so, if you do not mind, Mr. Farrel, I shall retain it and

deliver it to my father." Quite deliberately, she folded the check and

thrust it into her hand-bag. There was a bright spot of color in each

cheek as she faced him, awaiting his explanation. He favored her with

a Latin shrug.

"Your father will not accept the check, Miss Parker. Loustalot came to

the hacienda this morning for the sole purpose of handing him this

check, but your father refused to accept it on the plea that the lease

he had entered into with Loustalot for the grazing-privilege of the

ranch was now null and void."

"How do you know all this? You were not present."

"No; I was not present. Miss Parker, but--this check is present; those

sheep are present; André Loustalot was present, then absent, and is now

present again. I deduce the facts in the case. The information that I

was alive and somewhere around the hacienda gave Loustalot the fright

of his unwashed existence; that's why he appropriated that gray horse

and fled so precipitately when he discovered his automobile had a fiat

tire. The scoundrel feared to take time to shift wheels."

"Why?"

"He had the promise of a Farrel that a great misfortune would overtake

him if he ever get foot on the Rancho Palomar. And he knows the tribe

of Farrel."

"But how did you secure possession of that check, Don Mike?"

"Miss Parker, when a hard-boiled, unconvicted murderer and grass-thief

borrows my horse without my permission, and I ride that sort of man

down, upset him, sit on him, and choke him, the instincts of my

ancestors, the custom of the country, common sense, and my late

military training all indicate to me that I should frisk him for deadly

weapons. I did that. Well, I found this check when I frisked

Loustalot back yonder. And--if a poor bankrupt like myself may be

permitted to claim a right, you are not so well entitled to that check

as I am. At least, I claim it by right of discovery."

"It is worthless until my father endorses it, Don Mike."

"His clear, bold chirography will not add a mite to its value, Miss

Parker. Checks by André Loustalot on the First National Bank of El

Toro aren't going to be honored for some little time. Why? I'll tell

you. Because Little Mike the Hustler is going to attach his

bank-account this bright April morning."

She laughed happily.

"You haven't wasted much time in vain regret, have you?" she teased

him. "When you start hustling for a living, you're a man what hustles,

aren't you?"

"'Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,'" he quoted. "Those sheep

weren't visible to us from the floor of the valley; so I take it I was

not visible to Loustalot's shepherds from the top of those hills when I

redeemed my father's promise to their employer. They'd never suspect

the identity of either of us, I dare say. Well, Pablo will hold him

_incomunicado_ until I've completed my investigations."

"Why are you incarcerating him in your private bastile, Don Mike?"

"Well, I never thought to profane my private bastile with that fellow,

but I have to keep him somewhere while I'm looking up his assets."

"But he may sue you for false imprisonment, kidnapping, or--or

something."

"Yes; and I imagine he'd get a judgment against me. But what good

would that do him? I haven't any assets."

"But you're going to acquire some rather soon, are you not?"

"I'll give all my money to my friend, Father Dominic, to do with as he

sees fit. He'll see fit to loan it all back to me."

"But can you hide ten thousand sheep?"

"If that fellow tries to levy on my sheep, I'll about murder him,"

Farrel declared. "But we're crossing our bridges before we come to

them."

"So we are, Don Mike. Tell me all about this ancient feud with André

Loustalot."

"Certainly. Twenty-five-odd years ago, this county was pestered by a

gang of petty cow-thieves. They'd run lots of from ten to twenty fat

steers off the range at a time, slaughter them in El Toro, and bury the

hides to conceal the identity of the animals--the brands, you

understand. The meat they would peddle to butchers in towns along the

railroad line. The ringleader owned a slaughter-house in El Toro, and,

for a long time, nobody suspected him--the cattle were driven in at

night. Well, my father grew weary of this form of old-fashioned

profiteering, and it seemed to him that the sheriff of San Marcos

County was too great a simpleton to do anything about it. So my father

stood for the office as an independent candidate and was elected on a

platform which read, 'No steers' taken off this ranch without

permission in writing from the owner.' Within six months, dad had half

a dozen of our prominent citizens in San Quentin Penitentiary; then he

resigned the office to his chief deputy, Don Nicolás Sandoval, who has

held it ever since.

"Now, during that political campaign, which was a warm and bitter one,

André Loustalot permitted himself the privilege of libeling my father.

He declared in a public address to a gathering of voters in the San

Carpojo valley that my father was a crook, the real leader of the

rustlers, and merely seeking the office of sheriff in order to protect

the cow-thieves. When the campaign ended, my father swore to a warrant

charging Loustalot with criminal libel and sued him for one hundred

thousand dollars damages. A San Marcos County jury awarded my father a

judgment in the sum prayed for. Loustalot appealed the case to the

Supreme Court, but inasmuch as there wasn't the slightest doubt of his

guilt, the higher court affirmed the decision of the Superior Court.

"Loustalot was a poor man in those days. He was foreman of a sheep

outfit, with an interest in the increase of the flock, and inasmuch as

these Basques seldom reduce their deals to writing, the sheriff could

never satisfy himself that Loustalot had any assets in the shape of

sheep. At any rate, the Basque and his employer and all of his Basque

friends denied that Loustalot had any assets.

"For twenty-five years, my father has, whenever the statute of

limitations threatened to kill this judgment, revived it by having

Loustalot up on an order of court to be questioned regarding his

ability to meet the judgment; every once in a while my father would sue

out a new writ of execution, which would be returned unsatisfied by the

sheriff. Six months ago, my father had the judgment revived by due

legal process, and, for some reason best known to himself, assigned it

to me and had the assignment recorded. Of course, when I was reported

killed in Siberia, Loustalot's attorneys naturally informed him that my

judgment had died with me unless I had left a will in favor of my

father. But when my father died intestate and there were no known

heirs, Loustalot doubtless felt that at last the curse had been lifted

and probably began doing business in his own name. He's a thrifty

fellow and, I dare say, he made a great deal of money on sheep during

the war. I hope he has. That old judgment has been accumulating

interest at seven per cent. for more than a quarter of a century, and

in this state I believe the interest is compounded."

"But why did Loustalot hate your father so?" the girl queried.

"We had good fences on our ranch, but somehow those fences always

needed repairing whenever André Loustalot's flock wandered over from

the San Carpojo. In this state, one cannot recover for trespass unless

one keeps one's fences in repair--and Loustalot used to trespass on our

range quite frequently and then blame his cussedness on our fences. Of

course, he broke our fences to let his sheep in to water at our

waterholes, which was very annoying to us, because sheep befoul a range

and destroy it; they eat down to the very grass-roots, and cattle will

not drink at a water-hole patronized by sheep. Well, our patience was

exhausted at last; so my father told Pablo to put out saltpeter at all

of our water-holes. Saltpeter is not harmful to cattle but it is death

to sheep, and the only way we could keep Loustalot off our range

without resorting to firearms was to make his visits unprofitable.

They were. That made Loustalot hate us, and one day, over in the Agua

Caliente basin, when Pablo and his riders found Loustalot and his sheep

there, they rushed about five hundred of his sheep over a rocky bench

and dropped them a sheer two hundred feet into a cañon. That started

some shooting, and Pablo's brother and my first cousin, Juan Galvez,

were killed. Loustalot, wounded, escaped on the pack-mule belonging to

his sheep outfit, and after that he and my father didn't speak."

Kay turned in her seat and looked at Farrel curiously.

"If you were not so desperately situated financially," she wanted to

know, "would you continue to pursue this man?"

He smiled grimly.

"Certainly. My father's honor, the blood of my kinsman, and the blood

of a faithful servant call for justice, however long delayed. Also,

the honor of my state demands it now. I am prepared to make any

sacrifice, even of my life, and grasp eagerly at all legal means--to

prevent your father putting through tins monstrous deal with Okada."

She was troubled of soul.

"Of course," she pleaded presently, "you'll play the game with dad as

fairly as he plays it with you."

"I shall play the game with him as fairly as he plays it with this land

to which he owes allegiance," he corrected her sternly.

XVI

It was eleven o'clock when the car rolled down the main street of El

Toro. From the sidewalk, sundry citizens, of diverse shades of color and

conditions of servitude, observing Minuet Farrel, halted abruptly and

stared as if seeing a ghost. Don Mike wanted to shout to them glad words

of greeting, of affectionate badinage, after the fashion of that

easy-going and democratic community, but he feared to make the girl at

his side conspicuous; so he contented himself by uncovering gravely to

the women and waving debonairly to the men. This constituting ocular

evidence that he was not a ghost or a man who bore a striking physical

resemblance to one they mourned as dead, the men so saluted returned his

greeting.

The few who had recognized him as he entered the town, quickly, by their

cries of greeting, roused the loungers and idle conversationalists along

the sidewalks further down the street. There was a rush to shop doors, a

craning of necks, excited inquiries in Spanish and English; more shouts

of greeting. A gaunt, hawk-faced elderly man, with Castilian features,

rode up on a bay horse, showed a sheriff's badge to William, the

chauffeur, and informed him he was arrested for speeding. Then he

pressed his horse close enough to extend a hand to Farrel.

"Miguel, my boy," he said in English, out of deference to the girl in the

car, "this is a very great--a very unexpected joy. We have grieved for

you, my friend."

His faint clipped accent, the tears in his eyes, told Kay that this man

was one of Don Miguel's own people. Farrel clasped the proffered hand

and replied to him in Spanish; then, remembering his manners, he

presented the horseman as Don Nicolás Sandoval, sheriff of the county.

Don Nicolás bent low over his horse's neck, his wide gray hat clasped to

his gallant heart.

"You will forgive the emotion of a foolish old man, Miss Parker," he

said, "but we of San Marcos County love this boy."

Other friends now came running; in a few minutes perhaps a hundred men,

boys, and women had surrounded the car, struggling to get closer, vying

with each other to greet the hero of the San Gregorio. They babbled

compliments and jocularities at him; they cheered him lustily; with

homely bucolic wit they jeered his army record because they were so proud

of it, and finally they began a concerted cry of; "Speech! Speech!

Speech!"

Don Mike stood up in the tonneau and removed his hat. Instantly silence

settled over the crowd, and Kay thought that she had never seen a more

perfect tribute of respect paid anyone. He spoke to them briefly, with a

depth of sentiment only possible in a descendant of two of the most

sentimental races on earth; but he was not maudlin. When he had

concluded his remarks, he repeated them in Spanish for the benefit of

those who had never learned English very well or at all.

And now, although Kay did not understand a word of what he said, she

realized that in his mother tongue he was infinitely more tender, more

touching, more dramatic than he could possibly be in English, for his

audience wagged approving' heads now and paid him the tribute of many a

furtive tear.

Don Nicolás Sandoval rode his horse through the crowd presently and

opened a path for the car.

"I'm afraid this has been a trifle embarrassing for you, Miss Parker,"

Farrel remarked, as they proceeded down the street. "I shall not

recognize any more of them. I've greeted them all in general, and some

day next week I'll come to town and greet them in detail. They were all

glad I came back, though, weren't they?" he added, with a boy's

eagerness. "Lord, but I was glad to see them!"

"I can hardly believe you are the same man I saw manhandling your enemy

an hour ago," she declared.

"Oh," he replied, with a careless shrug, "fighting and loving are the

only two worth-while things in life. Park in front of the court-house,

William, please."

He excused himself to Kay and ran lightly up the steps. Fifteen minutes

later, he returned.

"I have a writ of execution," he declared. "Now to find the sheriff and

have him serve it."

They located Don Nicolás Sandoval at the post-office, one leg cocked over

the pommel of his saddle, and the El Toro _Sentinel_ spread on his knee.

"Father's old business with the Basque, Don Nicolás," Farrel informed

him. "He has money deposited in his own name in the First National Bank

of El Toro."

"I have grown old hunting that fellow's assets, Miguel, my boy," quoth

Don Nicolás. "If I can levy on a healthy bank-account, I shall feel that

my life has not been lived in vain."

He folded his newspaper, uncoiled his leg from the pommel, and started up

the street at the dignified fast walk he had taught his mount. Farrel

returned to the car and, with Kay, arrived before the portals of the bank

a few minutes in advance of the sheriff, just in time to see Andre

Loustalot leap from his automobile, dash up the broad stone steps, and

fairly hurl himself into the bank.

"I don't know whether I ought to permit him to withdraw his money and

have Don Nicolás attach it on his person or not. Perhaps that would be

dangerous," Miguel remarked. He stepped calmly out of the car, assisted

Kay to alight, and, with equal deliberation, entered the bank with the

girl.

"Now for some fun," he whispered. "Behold the meanest man in

America--myself!"

Loustalot was at the customers' desk writing a check to cash for his

entire balance in bank. Farrel permitted him to complete the drawing of

the check, watched the Basque almost trot toward the paying-teller's

window, and as swiftly trotted after him.

"All--everything!" Loustalot panted, and reached over the shoulders of

two customers in line ahead of him. But Don Miguel Farrel's arm was

stretched forth also; his long brown fingers closed over the check and

snatched it from the Basque's hand as he murmured soothingly:

"You will have to await your turn, Loustalot. For your bad manners, I

shall destroy this check." And he tore the signature off and crumpled

the little slip of paper into a ball, which he flipped into Loustalot's

brutal face.

The Basque stood staring at him, inarticulate with fury; Don Mike faced

his enemy with a bantering, prescient little smile. Then, with a great

sigh that was in reality a sob, Loustalot abandoned his primal impulse to

hurl himself upon Farrel and attempt to throttle; instead, he ran back to

the customers' desk and started scribbling another check. Thereupon, the

impish Farrel removed the ink, and when Loustalot moved to another

ink-well, Farrel's hand closed over that. Helpless and desperate,

Loustalot suddenly began to weep; uttering peculiar mewing cries, he

clutched at Farrel with the fury of a gorilla. Don Mike merely dodged

round the desk, and continued to dodge until out of the tail of his eye,

he saw the sheriff enter the bank and stop at the cashier's desk.

Loustalot, blinded with tears of rage, failed to see Don Nicolás; he had

vision only for Don Mike, whom he was still pursuing round the customers'

desk.

The instant Don Nicolás served his writ of attachment, the cashier left

his desk, walked round in back of the various tellers' cages, and handed

the writ to the paying teller; whereupon Farrel, pretending to be

frightened, ran out of the bank. Instantly, Loustalot wrote his check

and rushed again to the paying-tellers window.

"Too late, Mr. Loustalot. Your account has been attached," that

functionary informed him.

Meanwhile, Don Nicolás had joined his friend on the sidewalk.

"Here is his automobile, Don Nicolás," Farrel said. "I think we had

better take it away from him."

Don Nicolás climbed calmly into the driver's seat, filled out a blank

notice of attachment under that certain duly authorized writ which his

old friend's son had handed him, and waited until Loustalot came

dejectedly down the bank steps to the side of the car; whereupon Don

Nicolás served him with the fatal document, stepped on the starter, and

departed for the county garage, where the car would be stored until sold

at auction.

"Who let you out of my calaboose, Loustalot?" Don Mike queried amiably.

"That high-toned Jap friend of Parker's," the Basque replied, with

malicious enjoyment.

"I'm glad it wasn't Mr. Parker. Well, you stayed there long enough to

serve my purpose. By the way, your sheep are trespassing again."

"They aren't my sheep."

"Well, if you'll read that document, you'll see that all the sheep on the

Rancho Palomar at this date are attached, whether they belong to you or

not. Now, a word of warning to you, Loustalot: Do not come on the Rancho

Palomar for any purpose whatsoever. Understand ?"

Loustalot's glance met his unflinchingly for fully ten seconds, and, in

that glance, Kay thought she detected something tigerish.

"Home, William," she ordered the driver, and they departed from El Toro,

leaving Andre Loustalot standing on the sidewalk staring balefully after

them.

They were half-way home before Don Mike came out of the reverie into

which that glance of Loustalot's had, apparently, plunged him.

"Some day very soon," he said, "I shall have to kill that man or be

killed. And I'm sorry my guest, Mr. Okada, felt it incumbent upon

himself to interfere. If, between them, they have hurt Pablo, I shall

certainly reduce the extremely erroneous Japanese census records in

California by one."

XVII

John Parker and his wife, with the unsuspecting Okada, were lingering

over a late luncheon when Kay and Don Mike entered the dining-room.

"Well, you bold Spanish cavalier, what do you mean by running away with

my little girl?" Mrs. Parker demanded.

Before Farrel could reply, Kay answered for him.

"We've had quite a wild and woolly Western adventure, mother dear.

Have you seen Pablo since we left together?"

"I have," the lady replied. "He had Monsieur Loustalot in charge, and

related to us the details of the adventure up to the moment you and Mr.

Farrel left him with the prisoner while you two continued on to El

Toro. What happened in El Toro?"

"Don Mike succeeded in attaching Loustalot's bank-account," Kay

informed the company. "The loot will probably amount to something over

fifty thousand dollars."

"I should say that isn't a half-bad stipend to draw for your first

half-day pursuit of the nimble cart-wheel of commerce," Parker

suggested.

Mrs. Parker pursed her lips comically.

"The boy is clever, John. I knew it the moment I met him this morning.

Felicitations, Don Miguel. John intends to strip you down to your

birthday suit--fairly, of course--so keep up the good work, and

everything may still turn out right for you. I'll cheer for you, at

any rate."

"Thank you, dear Mrs. Parker." Don Miguel slipped into his seat at the

head of the table. "I have also attached Loustalot's new automobile,"

"You Shylock! What else?" Mrs. Parker demanded eagerly.

"About ten thousand sheep, more or less. I attached these on

suspicion, although the burden of proving that Loustalot owns them will

be upon me. However," he concluded, with a bright glance at Parker, "I

believe that can readily be accomplished--with your aid."

"I shall be the poorest witness in the world, Mr. Farrel."

"Well, I shall see to it, Mr. Parker, that you are given an opportunity

to tell the judge of the Superior Court in El Toro why Loustalot called

on you this morning, why a great band of sheep is trespassing on the

Rancho Palomar, why Loustalot drew a check in your favor for fifty

thousand dollars, why you declined to take it, what you said to

Loustalot this morning to cause him to steal one of my horses in his

anxiety to get off the ranch, why your attorneys drew up a certain

lease of the grazing-privilege to Loustalot, and why the deal fell

through."

Parker flushed.

"Can you produce that fifty-thousand-dollar check? I happen to know it

has not been cashed."

"No, I cannot, Mr. Parker."

Kay opened her purse and tossed the check across to her father.

"It was drawn in your favor, dad," she informed him; "so I concluded it

was your property, and when Mr. Farrel came by it--ah, illegally--and

showed it to me, I retained it."

"Good girl! Mr. Farrel, have you any objection to my returning this

check?"

"Not the slightest. It has served its purpose. However, you will have

to wait until you meet Loustalot somewhere outside the boundaries of

the Rancho Palomar, sir. I had comforted myself with the thought that

he was safe under lock and key here, but, to my vast surprise, I met

him in the bank at El Toro making futile efforts to withdraw his cash

before I could attach the account. The confounded ingrate informs me

that Mr. Okada turned him loose."

There was no mistaking the disapproval in the glance which Parker

turned upon Okada.

"Is this true, Mr. Okada?"

"It is not true," Okada replied promptly. "I know nozzing about.

Nozzing."

"Well, Pablo thinks it is true, Mr. Okada." Don Miguel's voice was

unruffled, his manner almost benignant. "The old man is outside, and

absolutely broken-hearted. His honor appears to be quite gone. I

imagine," Don Mike continued, with a fleeting and whimsical glance at

the potato baron, "that he has evolved some primitive plan for making

his honor whole again. Direct methods always did appeal to Pablo."

"Mr. Farrel," John Parker began, "I regret this incident more than I

can say. I give you my word of honor I had nothing to do with it

directly or indirectly--"

"John, for goodness' sake, old dear, give Mr. Farrel credit for some

common sense. He knows very well you wouldn't break bread with him and

then betray him. Don't you, Mr. Farrel?" Mrs. Parker pleaded.

"Of course, Mr. Parker's assurance is wholly unnecessary, Mrs. Parker."

"Mr. Okada is leaving this afternoon," Parker hastened to assure him.

"Mr. Okada shows commendable prudence." Don Mike's tones were

exceedingly dry.

Okada rose and bowed his squinch-owl bow.

"I very sorry," he sputtered. "I zink that man Pablo one big liar.

'Scuse, please; I go."

"If he hadn't called Pablo a liar," Don Mike murmured plaintively, "I

should have permitted him to march out with the honors of war. As the

matter stands now, however, I invite all of you to listen attentively.

In a few minutes you're going to hear something that will remind you of

the distant whine of a sawmill. After all, Pablo is a poor old fellow

who lives a singularly humdrum existence."

"Ah, yes; let the poor fellow have his simple little pleasures," Mrs.

Parker pleaded. "'All work and no play'--you know, Don Miguel."

"My dear," Parker answered testily, "there are occasions when your

sense of humor is positively oppressive."

"Very well, John; I'll be serious." His wife turned to Farrel. "Mr.

Farrel," she continued, "while you were away, I had a very bright idea.

You are much too few in the family for such a large house, and it

occurred to me that you might care to lease the Palomar hacienda to us

for a year. I'm so weary of hotels and equally weary of a town house,

with its social obligations and the insolence of servants--particularly

cooks. John needs a year here, and we would so like to remain if it

could be arranged. Your cook, Carolina, is not the sort that leaves

one's employ in the middle of a dinner-party."

"Would five hundred dollars a month for the house and the use of

Carolina and three saddle-horses interest you, Mr. Farrel? From our

conversation of this morning, I judge you have abandoned hope of

redeeming the property, and during the year of the redemption period,

six thousand dollars might--ah--er--"

"Well, it would be better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick,"

Don Miguel replied genially. "I need the money; so I accept--but with

certain reservations. I like Carolina's cooking, too; I have a couple

of hundred head of cattle to look after, and I'd like to reserve one

room, my place at this table, and my position as master of Palomar. Of

course, I'm not so optimistic as to think you folks would accept of my

hospitality for a year, so I suggest that you become what our British

cousins call 'paying guests,' albeit I had never expected to fall low

enough to make such a dastardly proposition. Really, it abases me.

It's never been done before in this house."

"I declare you're the most comfortable young man to have around that I

have ever known. Isn't he, Kay?" Mrs. Parker declared.

"I think you're very kind," the girl assured him. "And I think it will

be very delightful to be paying guests to such a host, Don Mike Farrel."

"Then it's settled," Parker announced, much relieved.

"And let us here highly resolve that we shall always be good friends

and dwell together in peace," Kay suggested.

"I made that resolve when you met me at the gate last night, Miss

Parker. Hark! Methinks I hear a young riot. Well, we cannot possibly

have any interest in it, and, besides, we're talking business now. Mr.

Parker, there isn't the slightest hope of my earning sufficient money

to pay the mortgage you hold against this ranch of mine, so I have

resolved to gamble for it whenever and wherever I can. You have agreed

to pay me six thousand dollars, in return for which I guarantee to feed

you and your family and servants well, and house you comfortably and

furnish three saddle-horses, with saddles and bridles, for a period of

one year. Understand?"

"Understood."

Don Miguel Farrel took two dice out of his pocket and cuddled them in

his palm.

"I'll roll you the bones, one flop, twelve thousand dollars or nothing,

sir," he challenged.

"But if I win--"

"You want to know if I am in a position to support you all for one year

if I lose? I am. There are cattle enough on the ranch to guarantee

that."

"Well, while these little adventures are interesting, Mr. Farrel, the

fact is I've always made it a rule not to gamble."

"Listen to the hypocrite!" his wife almost shouted. "Gambled every day

of his life for twenty-five years on the New York Stock Exchange, and

now he has the effrontery to make a statement like that! John Parker,

roll them bones!"

"Not to-day," he protested. "This isn't my lucky day."

"Well, it's mine," the good soul retorted. "Miguel--you'll pardon my

calling you by your first name: Miguel, but since I was bound to do so

sooner or later, we'll start now--Miguel, I'm in charge of the domestic

affairs of the Parker family, and I've never known a time when this

poor tired old business man didn't honor my debts. Roll 'em, Mike, and

test your luck."

"Mother!" Kay murmured reproachfully.

"Nonsense, dear! Miguel is the most natural gentleman, the first

_regular_ young man I've met in years. I'm for him, and I want him to

know it. Are you for me, Miguel?"

"All the way!" Don Mike cried happily,

"There!" the curious woman declared triumphantly. "I knew we were

going to be good friends. What do I see before me? As I live, a pair

of box cars."

"Mother, where _did_ you learn such slang?" her daughter pleaded.

"From the men your non-gambling father used to bring home to play poker

and shoot craps," she almost shouted. "Well, let us see if I can roll

two sixes and tie the score. I can! What's more, I do! Miguel, are

these dice college-bred? Ah! Old Lady Parker rolls a wretched little

pair of bull's-eyes!"

Don Miguel took the dice and rolled--a pair of deuces.

"I'm going to make big money operating a boarding-house," he informed

the lady.

"'Landlord, fill the flowing bowl until it doth flow over,'" she sang

gaily. "John, you owe Miguel twelve thousand dollars, payable at the

rate of one thousand dollars a month for twelve months. Have your

lawyer in El Toro draw the lease this afternoon."

Parker glanced at her with a broad hint of belligerence in his keen

gray eyes.

"My dear," he rasped, "I wish you would take me seriously once in a

while. For twenty-five years I've tried to keep step with you, and

I've failed. One of these bright days I'm going to strike."

"I recall three occasions when you went on strike, John, and refused to

accept my orders," the mischievous woman retorted sweetly. "At the

conclusion of the strike, you couldn't go back to work. Miguel, three

separate times that man has declined to cease money-making long enough

to play, although I begged him with tears in my eyes. And I'm not the

crying kind, either. And every time he disobeyed, he blew up. Miguel,

he came home to me as hysterical as a high-school girl, wept on my

shoulder, said he'd kill himself if he couldn't get more sleep, and

then surrendered and permitted me to take him away for six months.

Strange to relate, his business got along very nicely without him. Am

I not right, Kay?"

"You are, mother dear. Dad reminds me of a horse at a livery-stable

fire. You rescue him from the flames, but the instant you let go his

halter-shank, he dashes into the burning barn." She winked ever so

slightly at Farrel. "Thanks to you, Don Mike," she assured him,

"father's claws are clipped for one year; thanks to you, again, we now

have a nice, quiet place to incarcerate him."

Farrel could see that John Parker, while outwardly appearing to enjoy

this combined attack against him, was secretly furious. And Don Mike

knew why. His pride as a business man was being cruelly lacerated; he

had foolishly crawled out on the end of a limb, and now there was a

probability, although a remote one, that Miguel Farrel would saw off

the limb before he could crawl back.

"Perhaps, Mr. Farrel," he replied, with a heroic attempt at jocularity,

"you will understand now that it was not altogether a cold hard heart

that prompted me to decline your request for a renewal of the mortgage

this morning. I couldn't afford to. I had agreed to gamble one

million dollars that you were thoroughly and effectually dead--I

couldn't see one chance in a million where this ranch would get away

from me."

"Well, do not permit yourself to become down-hearted, Mr. Parker," Don

Mike assured him whimsically. "I cannot see one chance in a million

where you are going to lose it."

"Thank you for the heartening effect of those words, Mr. Farrel."

"I think I understand the reason underlying all this speed, Mr. Parker.

You and Okada feared that next year the people of this state will so

amend their faulty anti-alien land law of 1913 that it will be

impossible for any Oriental to own or lease California land then. So

you proceeded with your improvements during the redemption period,

confident that the ranch would never be redeemed, in order that you

might be free to deal with Okada before the new law went into effect.

Okada would not deal with you until he was assured the water could be

gotten on the land."

"Pa's thrown out at first base!" Mrs. Parker shrilled. "Poor old pa!"

Don Mike's somber black eyes flashed with mirth. "I understand now why

you leased the hacienda and why that twelve-thousand-dollar board bill

hurt," he murmured. He turned to Kay and her mother. "Why the poor

unfortunate man is forced to remain at the Rancho Palomar in order to

protect his bet." His thick black brows lifted piously. "Don't cheer,

boys," he cried tragically; "the poor devil is going fast now! Is

there anybody present who remembers a prayer or who can sing a hymn?"

Kay's adorable face twitched as she suppressed a chuckle at her

father's expense, but now that Parker was being assailed by all three,

his loyal wife decided to protect him.

"Well, Johnny's a shrewd gambler after all," she declared. "If you do

not redeem the ranch, he will get odds of two and a half to one on his

million-dollar bet and clean up in a year. With water on the lands of

the San Gregorio, Okada's people will pay five hundred dollars an acre

cash for the fifty thousand acres."

"I grant you that, Mrs. Parker, but in the meantime he will have

increased tremendously the value of all of my land in the San Gregorio

valley, and what is to prevent me, nine months from now, from floating

a new loan rather handily, by reason of that increased valuation,

paying off Mr. Parker's mortgage and garnering for myself that two and

a half million dollars' profit you speak of?"

"I fear you will have to excuse us from relishing the prospect of that

joke, Don Mike," Kay murmured.

"Work on that irrigation project will cease on Saturday evening, Mr.

Farrel," Parker assured his host.

Nevertheless, Farrel observed that his manner belied his words;

obviously he was ill at ease. For a moment, the glances of the two men

met; swift though that visual contact was, each read in the other's

glance an unfaltering decision. There would be no surrender.

The gay mood into which Mrs. Parker's humorous sallies had thrown

Farrel relaxed; there came back to him the memory of some graves in the

valley, and his dark, strong face was somber again. Of a sudden,

despite his victory of the morning, he felt old for all his

twenty-eight years--old and sad and embittered, lonely, futile and

helpless.

The girl, watching him closely, saw the light die out in his face, saw

the shadows come, as when a thunder-cloud passes between the sun and a

smiling valley. His chin dropped a little on his breast, and for

perhaps ten seconds he was silent; by the far-away gleam in his eyes,

Kay knew he was seeing visions, and that they were not happy ones.

Instinctively her hand crept round the corner of the table and touched

his arm lightly. Her action was the result of impulse; almost as soon

as she had touched him, she withdrew her hand in confusion.

But her mother had noticed the movement, and a swift glance toward her

husband drew from him the briefest of nods, the most imperceptible of

shrugs.

"Come, Johnny dear," she urged, and her voice had lost its accustomed

shrillness now; "let us go forth and see what has happened to the

Little Old Man of the Spuds."

He followed her outside obediently, and arm in arm they walked around

the patio toward the rear gate.

"Hello!" he murmured suddenly, and, with a firm hand under her chin, he

tilted her handsome face upward. There were tears in her eyes. "What

now?" he demanded tenderly. "How come, old girl?"

"Nothing, John, I'm just an old fool--laughing when I'm not weeping and

weeping when I ought to be laughing."

XVIII

Don Mike's assumption that Pablo would seek balm for his injured

feelings at the expense of the potato baron was one born of a very

intimate knowledge of the mental processes of Pablo and those of his

breed. And Pablo, on that fateful day, did not disappoint his master's

expectations. Old he was, and stiff and creaky of joint, but what he

lacked in physical prowess he possessed in guile. Forbidden to follow

his natural inclination, which was to stab the potato baron frequently

and fatally with a businesslike dirk which was never absent from his

person except when he slept, Pablo had recourse to another artifice of

his peculiar calling--to wit, the rawhide riata.

As Okada emerged from the dining-room into the patio, Pablo entered

from the rear gate, riata in hand; as the Japanese crossed the garden

to his room in the opposite wing of the hacienda, Pablo made a deft

little cast and dropped his loop neatly over the potato baron's body,

pinioning the latter's arms securely to his sides. Keeping a stiff

strain on the riata, Pablo drew his victim swiftly toward the porch,

round an upright of which he had taken a hitch; in a surprisingly brief

period, despite the Jap's frantic efforts to release himself, Pablo had

his man lashed firmly to the porch column, whereupon he proceeded to

flog his prisoner with a heavy quirt which, throughout the operation,

had dangled from his left wrist. With each blow, old Pablo tossed a

pleasantry at his victim, who took the dreadful scourging without an

outcry, never ceasing a dogged effort to twist loose from his bonds

until his straining and flinching loosed the ancient rusty nails at top

and bottom of the upright, and, with a crash, the Oriental fell

headlong backward on the porch, as a tree falls. Thereupon, Pablo

kicked him half a dozen times for good measure, and proceeded to roll

him over and over along the porch toward his room. Eventually this

procedure unwound him from the riata; Pablo then removed the loop, and

Okada staggered into his room and fell, half fainting, on his bed.

His honor now quite clean, Pablo departed from the patio. He had been

less than five minutes on his mission of vengeance, and when John

Parker and his wife came out of the dining-room, the sight of the

imperturbable old majordomo unconcernedly coiling his "twine" roused in

them no apprehension as to the punishment that had overtaken Okada.

Having finished their luncheon--a singularly pleasant

_tête-à-tête_--Don Mike and Kay joined Mr. and Mrs. Parker. At once

Farrel's glance marked the absence of the porch column.

"I declare," he announced, with mock seriousness, "a portion of my

veranda has given way. I wonder if a man could have been tied do it.

I heard a crash, and at the time it occurred to me that it was a heavy

crash--heavier than the weight of that old porch column would produce.

Mr. Parker, may I suggest that you investigate the physical condition

of our Japanese friend? He is doubtless in his room."

Parker flashed his host a quick glance, almost of resentment, and went

to Okada's room. When he returned, he said soberly:

"Pablo has beaten the little fellow into a pitiable condition. He tied

him to that porch column and flogged him with a quirt. While I cannot

defend Okada's action in releasing Loustalot, nevertheless, Mr.

Farrel--" Don Mike's black eyes burned like live coals.

"Nevertheless--I--well--" Parker hesitated.

Don Mike's lips were drawn a trifle in the ghost of a smile that was

not good to see.

"I think, sir," he said softly, distinctly, and with chill suavity,

"that Mr. Okada might be grateful for the services of the excellent

Murray, if the potato baron is, as I shrewdly suspect he will be,

leaving within five minutes."

"Good Heavens, man, I believe it will be an hour before he can walk!"

Farrel glanced critically at his wrist-watch and seemed to ponder this.

"I fear five minutes is all I can permit, sir," he replied. "If he

should be unable to walk from his room, Murray, who is the soul of

thoughtfulness, will doubtless assist him to the waiting automobile."

Five minutes later, the potato baron and the potato baron's suitcase

were lifted into the tonneau of the car by Murray and William. From

over by the blacksmith shop, Don Mike saw Parker bid his Japanese

confrère adieu, and as the car dipped below the mesa, Parker came over

and joined them.

"Thought you were going in to El Toro this afternoon," the young man

suggested.

"I had planned to, but changed my mind after beholding that Nipponese

ruin. To have driven to El Toro with him would have broken my heart."

"Never mind, pa," Mrs. Parker consoled him; "you'll have your day in

court, will you not?"

"I think he's going to have several of them," Don Mike predicted

maliciously, and immediately withdrew the sting from his words by

placing his hand in friendly fashion on Parker's shoulder and shaking

him playfully. "In the interim, however," he continued, "now that our

unwelcome guests have departed and peace has been reestablished on El

Palomar (for I hear Pablo whistling 'La Paloma' in the distance), what

reason, if any, exists why we shouldn't start right now to get some fun

out of life? I've had a wonderful forenoon at your expense, so I want

you and the ladies to have a wonderful afternoon at mine." He glanced

alertly from one to the other, questioningly.

"I wonder if the horses have recovered from their furious chase of this

morning," Kay ventured.

"Of course. That was merely an exercise gallop. How would you all

like to come for a ride with me over to the Agua Caliente basin?"

"Why the Agua Caliente basin?" Parker queried casually. "That's quite

a distance from here, is it not?"

"About seven miles--fourteen over and back. Suppose William follows

with the car after his return from El Toro. You can then ride back

with him, and I'll bring the horses home. I realize fourteen miles is

too great a distance for inexperienced riders."

"Isn't that going to considerable trouble?" Parker suggested suavely.

"Suppose we ride down the valley. I prefer flat land to rolling

country when I ride."

"No game down that way," Farrel explained patiently. "We'll take the

hounds and put something up a tree over Caliente Basin way before we

get back. Besides, I have a great curiosity to inspect the dam you're

building and the artesian wells you're drilling over in that country."

"Confound you, Farrel! You realized the possibilities of that basin,

then?"

"Years ago. The basin comes to a bottle-neck between two high hills;

all you have to do is dam that narrow gorge, and when the Rio San

Gregorio is up and brimming in freshet time, you'll have a lake

a hundred feet deep, a mile wide, and five miles long before you

know it. Did you ever consider the possibility of leading a ditch

from the lake thus formed along the shoulder of El Palomar, that

forty-five-hundred-foot peak for which the ranch is named, and giving

it a sixty-five-per-cent. nine-hundred-foot drop to a snug little

power-station at the base of the mountain. You could develop thirty or

forty thousand horse-power very easily and sell it easier; after your

water had passed through the penstock and delivered its power, you

could run it off through a lateral to the main ditch down the San

Gregorio and sell it to your Japanese farmers for irrigation."

"By Jupiter, I believe you would have done something with this ranch if

you had had the backing, Farrel!"

"Never speculated very hard on securing the backing," Don Mike

admitted, with a frank grin. "We always lived each day as if it were

the last, you know. But over in Siberia, far removed from all my

easy-going associations, both inherited and acquired, I commenced

dreaming of possibilities in the Agua Caliente basin."

"Well then, since you insist, let's go over there and have your

curiosity satiated," Parker agreed, with the best grace possible.

[Illustration: Here amidst the golden romance of the old mission, the

girl suddenly understood Don Mike.]

While the Parkers returned to the hacienda to change into their

riding-clothes, Miguel Farrel strolled over to the corral where Pablo

Artelan, wearing upon his leathery countenance the closest imitation of

a smile that had ever lighted that dark expanse, joined him and, with

Farrel, leaned over the corral fence and gazed at the horses within.

For a long time, neither spoke; then, while his glance still appraised

the horses, Don Mike stiffened a thumb and drove it with considerable

force into Pablo's ancient ribs. Carolina, engaged in hanging out the

Parker wash in the yard of her _casa_, observed Don Mike bestow this

infrequent accolade of approbation and affection, and her heart swelled

with pride. Ah, yes; it was good to have the child back on the rancho

again.

Carolina and Pablo had never heard that the ravens fed Elijah; they had

never heard of Elijah. Nevertheless, if they had, they would not have

envied him the friendship of those divinely directed birds, for the

Farrels had always fed Pablo and Carolina and their numerous brood, now

raised and scattered over the countryside. At sight of that prod in

the ribs, Carolina dismissed forever a worry that had troubled her

vaguely during the period between old Don Miguel's death and the return

of young Don Miguel--the fear that a lifetime of ease and plenty had

ended. Presently, she lifted a falsetto voice in a Spanish love-song

two centuries old.

I await the morrow, Niña mia,

I await the morrow, all through the night,

For the entrancing music and dancing

With thee, my song-bird, my heart's delight.

Come dance, my Niña, in thy mantilla,

Think of our love and do not say no;

Hasten then my treasure, grant me this pleasure,

Dance then tomorrow the bolero!

Over at the corral, Pablo rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and permitted

a thin film of smoke to trickle through his nostrils. He, too, was

content.

"Carolina," he remarked presently, in English, "is happy to beat hell."

"I haven't any right to be, but, for some unknown reason, I'm feeling

gay myself," his master replied.

He started toward the harness-room to get the saddle for Panchito, and

Pablo lingered a moment at the fence, gazing after him curiously.

Could it be possible that Don Miguel José Maria Federico Noriaga Farrel

had, while sojourning in the cold land of the bewhiskered men, lost a

modicum of that particularity with women which had formerly

distinguished him in the eyes of his humble retainers?

"Damn my soul eef I don't know sometheeng!" Pablo muttered, and

followed for a saddle for the gray gelding.

XIX

When the Parkers emerged from the hacienda, they found Don Mike and Pablo

holding the horses and waiting for them. Kay wore a beautifully tailored

riding-habit of dark unfinished material, shot with a faint admixture of

gray; her boots were of shining black undressed leather, and she wore a

pair of little silver-mounted spurs, the sight of which caused Pablo to

exchange sage winks with his master. Her white-piqué stock was fastened

by an exquisite little cameo stick-pin; from under the brim of a

black-beaver sailor-hat, set well down on her head, her wistful brown

eyes looked up at Don Mike, and caught the quick glance of approval with

which he appraised her, before turning to her mother.

"The black mare for you, Mrs. Parker," he suggested. "She's a regular

old sweetheart and single-foots beautifully. I think you'll find that

stock-saddle a far more comfortable seat than the saddle Miss Kay is

using."

"I know I'm not as light and graceful as I used to be, Mike," the amiable

soul assured him, "but it irks me to have men notice it. You _might_

have given me an opportunity to decline Kay's saddle. There is such a

thing as being too thoughtful, you know."

"Mother!" Kay cried reproachfully.

Don Mike blushed, even while he smiled his pleasure at the lady's

badinage. She observed this.

"You're a nice boy, Michael," she murmured, for his ear alone. "Why, you

old-fashioned young rascal!"--as Don Mike stooped and held out his hand.

She placed her left foot in it and was lifted lightly into the saddle.

When he had adjusted the stirrups to fit her, he turned to aid Kay, only

to discover that the gallant Panchito had already performed the honors

for that young lady by squatting until she could reach the stirrup

without difficulty.

Parker rode the gray horse, and Farrel had appropriated a pinto cow pony

that Pablo used when line-riding.

With the hounds questing ahead of them, the four jogged up the San

Gregorio, Don Mike leading the way, with Kay riding beside him. From

time to time she stole a sidelong glance at him, riding with his chin on

his breast, apparently oblivious of her presence. She knew that he was

not in a mood to be entertaining to-day, to be a carefree squire of

dames; his mind was busy grappling with problems that threatened not only

him but everything in life that he held to be worth while.

"Do we go through that gate?" the girl queried, pointing to a five-rail

gate in a wire fence that straggled across the valleys and up the

hillside.

He nodded.

"Of course you do not have to go through it," he teased her. "Panchito

can go over it. Pie for him. About five feet and a half."

"Enough for all practical purposes," she replied, and touched her

ridiculous little spurs to the animal's flank, took a firm grip on the

reins with both hands, and sat down firmly in the saddle. "All right,

boy!" she cried, and, at the invitation, Panchito pricked up his ears and

broke into an easy canter, gradually increasing his speed and taking the

gate apparently without effort. Don Mike watched to see the girl rise

abruptly in her seat as the horse came down on the other side of the

gate. But no! She was still sitting down in the saddle, her little

hands resting lightly on the horse's neck; and while Farrel watched her

in downright admiration and her mother sat, white and speechless on the

black mare, Kay galloped ahead a hundred yards, turned, and came back

over the gate again.

"Oh, isn't he a darling?" she cried. "He pulls his feet up under him

like a dog, when he takes off. I want to take him over a seven-foot

hurdle. He can do it with yours truly up. Let's build a seven-foot

hurdle to-morrow and try him out."

"Fine! We'll build it," Don Mike declared enthusiastically, and Parker,

watching his wife's frightened face, threw back his head and laughed.

"You are encouraging my daughter to kill herself," the older woman

charged Farrel. "Kay, you tomboy, do not jump that gate again! Suppose

that horse should stumble and throw you."

"Nonsense, mother. That's mere old hop-Scotch for Panchito. One doesn't

get a jumping-jack to ride every day, and all I've ever done has been to

pussyfoot through Central Park."

"Do you mean to tell me you've never taken a hurdle before?" Don Mike

was scandalized. She nodded.

"She'll do," Parker assured him proudly.

Farrel confirmed this verdict with a nod and opened the gate. They rode

through. Kay waited for him to close the gate. He saw that she had

been, captivated by Panchito, and as their glances met, his smile was a

reflection of hers--a smile thoroughly and childishly happy.

"If you'd only sell him to me, Don Mike," she pleaded. "I'll give you a

ruinous price for him."

"He is not for sale, Miss Kay."

"But you were going to give him away to your late battery commander!"

He held up his right hand with the red scar on the back of it, but made

no further reply.

"Why will you not sell him to me?" she pleaded. "I want him so."

"I love him," he answered at that, "and I could only part with him--for

love. Some day, I may give him to somebody worth while, but for the

present I think I shall be selfish and continue to own him. He's a big,

powerful animal, and if he can carry weight in a long race, he's fast

enough to make me some money."

"Let me ride him in the try-out," she pleaded. "I weigh just a hundred

and twenty."

"Very well. To-morrow I'll hitch up a work-team, and disk the heart out

of our old race-track-- Oh, yes; we have such a thing"--in reply to her

lifted brows. "My grandfather Mike induced my great-grandfather Noriaga

to build it way back in the 'Forties. The Indians and _vaqueros_ used to

run scrub races in those days--in fact, it was their main pastime."

"Where is this old race-track?"

"Down in the valley. A fringe of oaks hides it. It's grass-grown and it

hasn't been used in twenty-five years, except when the Indians in this

part of the country foregather in the valley occasionally and pull off

some scrub races."

"How soon can we put it in commission?" she demanded eagerly,

"I'll disk it to-morrow. The ground is soft now, after this recent rain.

Then I'll harrow it well and run a culti-packer over it--well, by the end

of the week it ought to be a fairly fast track."

"Goody! We'll go in to El Toro to-morrow and I'll wire to San Francisco

for a stop-watch. May I sprint Panchito a little across that meadow?"

"Wait a moment, Miss Kay. We shall have something to sprint after in a

few minutes, I think." As the hounds gave tongue in a path of willows

they had been investigating far to the right, Don Mike pulled up his

horse and listened. "Hot trail," he informed her. "They'll all be

babbling in a moment."

He was right.

"If it's a coyote, he'll sneak up the wash of the river," he informed the

girl, "but if it's a cat, he'll cut through that open space to tree in

the oaks beyond--Ha! There goes a mountain-lion. After him!"

His alert pony went from a halt to a gallop, following a long, lithe

tawny animal that loped easily into view, coming from the distant willow

thicket. In an instant, Kay was beside him.

"Head him off," he commanded curtly. "This ruin of Pablo's is done in a

quarter-mile dash, but Panchito can outrun that cat without trying.

Don't be afraid of him. They're cowardly brutes. Get between him and

the oaks and turn him back to me. Ride him down! He'll dodge out of

your way."

She saw that he was uncoiling his riata as he spoke, and divined his

purpose, as, with a cluck and a boot to Panchito, she thundered after the

big cat, her heart thumping with mingled fear and excitement. Evidently

this was an old game to Panchito, however, for he pinned his ears a

little and headed straight for the quarry. Seemingly he knew what was

expected of him, and had a personal interest in the affair, for as he

came up to the animal, he attempted to run the panther down. The animal

merely snarled and gave ground, while gradually Panchito "hazed" him

until the frightened creature was headed at right angles to the course he

had originally pursued. And now Don Mike, urging the pinto to top speed,

came racing up and cut him off.

"Catch him; catch him!" Kay screamed excitedly. "Don't let him get

away!" She drove Panchito almost on top of the panther, and forced the

beast to stop suddenly and dodge toward the approaching Farrel. As

Panchito dashed by, Kay had a glimpse of Don Mike riding in, his looped

riata swinging in wide, slow concentric circles--casually, even. As she

brought Panchito round on his nimble heels, she saw Don Mike rise in his

stirrups and throw.

Even as the loop left his hand, he appeared to have no doubt of the

outcome, for Kay saw him make a quick turn of his rope round the pommel

of his saddle, whirl at a right angle, and, with a whoop of pure,

unadulterated joy, go by her at top speed, dragging the panther behind

him. The loop had settled over the animal's body and been drawn taut

around his loins.

Suddenly the pinto came to an abrupt pause, sliding on his haunches to

avoid a tiny arroyo, too wide for him to leap. The strain on the riata

was thus momentarily slackened, permitting the big cat to scramble to all

fours and turn to investigate this trap into which he had fallen.

Instantly he charged, spitting and open-mouthed, and, for some unknown

reason, Farrel led the screaming fury straight toward Kay and Panchito.

The cat realized this, also, for suddenly he decided that Panchito

offered the best opportunity to vent his rage, and changed his course

accordingly. Quick as he did so, Farrel whirled his pinto in the

opposite direction, with the result that the panther left the ground with

a jerk and was dragged through the air for six feet before striking

heavily upon his back. He was too dazed to struggle while Farrel dragged

him through the grass and halted under a lone sycamore. While the badly

shaken cat was struggling to his feet and swaying drunkenly, Farrel

passed the end of his riata over a limb, took a new hitch on his pommel,

and ran out, drawing the screaming, clawing animal off the ground until

he swung, head down, the ripping chisels on his front paws tearing the

grass up in great tufts.

The pinto, a trained roping horse, stood, blown and panting, his feet

braced, keeping the rope taut while Farrel dismounted and casually

strolled back to the tree. He broke off a small twig and waited, while

the hounds, belling lustily, came nosing across the meadow. Kay rode up,

as the dogs, catching sight of the helpless cat, quickened their speed to

close in; she heard Farrel shout to them and saw him lay about him with

the twig, beating the eager animals back from their still dangerous prey.

Mr. and Mrs. Parker had, in the meantime, galloped up and stood by,

interested spectators, while Don Mike searched round until he found a

hard, thick, dry, broken limb from the sycamore.

"This certainly is my day for making money," he announced gaily. "Here's

where I put thirty dollars toward that three-hundred-thousand-dollar

mortgage." He stepped up to the lion and stunned it with a blow over the

head, after which he removed the riata from the creature's loins, slipped

the noose round the cat's neck, and hoisted the unconscious brute clear

of the ground.

"Now then," he announced cheerfully, "we'll just leave this fellow to

contemplate the result of a life of shame. He shall hang by the neck

until he is dead--dead--dead! We'll pick him up on our way back, and

to-night I'll skin him. Fall in, my squad! On our way."

"Do you do that sort of thing very often, Mr. Farrel?" Parker queried.

"Life is a bit dull out here, sir. Any time the dogs put up a panther in

the open, we try to rope him and have a little fun. This is the first

one I have roped alone, however. I always did want to rope a panther all

by myself. Ordinarily, I would not have told Miss Kay to head that cat

in toward me, but, then, she didn't flunk the gate back yonder, and I had

a great curiosity to see if she'd flunk the cat. She didn't and"--he

turned toward her with beaming, prideful eyes--"if I were out of debt, I

wouldn't trade my friendship with a girl as game as you, Kay, for the

entire San Gregorio valley. You're a trump."

"You're rather a Nervy Nat yourself, aren't you?" her droll mother struck

in. "As a Christian martyr, you would have had the Colosseum to

yourself; every tiger and lion in Rome would have taken to the tall

timber when you came on."

As he rode ahead, chuckling, to join her daughter, Farrel knew that at

all events he had earned the approval of the influential member of the

Parker family. Mrs. Parker, on her part, was far more excited than her

colloquial humor indicated.

"John," she whispered, "did you notice it?"

"Notice what?"

"I don't know why I continue to live with you--you're so dull! In his

excitement, he just called her 'Kay.' Last night, when they met, she was

'Miss Parker.' At noon to-day, she was 'Miss Kay' and now she's plain

'Kay.'" A cloud crossed his brow, but he made no answer, so, woman-like,

she pressed for one. "Suppose our daughter should fall in love with this

young man?"

"That would be more embarrassing than ever, from a business point of

view," he admitted, "and the Lord knows this fellow has me worried enough

already. He's no mean antagonist."

"That's what the panther probably thought, John."

"His decoration, and that stunt--dazzling to the average girl," he

muttered.

"In addition to his good looks, exquisite manners, and, I am quite

certain, very high sense of honor and lofty ideals," she supplemented.

"In that event, it is more than probable that a consideration of his

desperate financial strait will preclude his indicating any lively

interest in Kay." Parker glanced anxiously at his wife, as if seeking in

her face confirmation of a disturbing suspicion. "At least, that would

be in consonance with the high sense of honor and lofty ideals with which

you credit him. However, we must remember that he has a dash of Latin

blood, and my experience has been that not infrequently the Latinos high

sense of honor and lofty idealism are confined to lip-service only. I

wonder if he'd be above using Kay as a gun to point at my head."

"I'm quite certain that he would, John. Even if he should become

interested in her for her own sake, he would, of course, realize that the

genuineness of his feeling would be open to suspicion by--well, most

people, who comprehend his position--and I doubt very much if, under

these circumstances, he will permit himself to become interested in her."

"He may not be able to help himself. Kay gets them all winging."

"Even so, he will not so far forget his ancestral pride as to admit it,

or even give the slightest intimation of it."

"He is a prideful sort of chap. I noticed that. Still, he's not a prig."

"He has pride of race, John. Pride of ancestry, pride of tradition,

pride of an ancient, undisputed leadership in his own community. He has

been raised to know that he is not vulgar or stupid or plebeian; his

character has been very carefully cultivated and developed."

He edged his horse close to hers.

"Look here, my dear," he queried; "what brought the tears to your eyes at

luncheon to-day?"

"There was a moment, John, when the shadow of a near-break came over his

face. Kay and I both saw it. He looked wistful and lonely and beaten,

and dropped his head like a tired horse, and her heart, her very soul,

went out to him. I saw her hand go out to him, too; she touched his arm

for an instant and then, realizing, she withdrew it. And then I knew!"

"Knew what?"

"That our little daughter, who has been used to queening it over every

man of her acquaintance, is going to batter her heart out against the

pride of Palomar."

"You mean--"

"She loves him. She doesn't know it yet, but I do. Oh, John, I'm old

and wise. I know! If Miguel Farrel were of a piece with the young men

she has always met, I wouldn't worry. But he's so absolutely

different--so natural, so free from that atrocious habit of never being

able to disassociate self from the little, graceful courtesies young men

show women. He's wholesome, free from ego, from that intolerable air of

proprietorship, of masculine superiority and cocksureness that seems so

inseparable from the young men in her set."

"I agree with you, my dear. Many a time I have itched to grasp the

jaw-bone of an ass and spoil a couple of dozen of those young pups with

their story-book notions of life."

"Now, that Don Mike," she continued critically, "is thoughtful of and

very deferential to those to whom deference is due, which characteristic,

coupled with the fact that he is, in a certain sense, a most pathetic

figure at this time, is bound to make a profound impression on any girl

of ready sympathy. And pity is akin to love."

"I see," Parker nodded sagely. "Then you think he'll go down to defeat

with his mouth shut?"

"I'm certain of it, John."

"On the other hand, if he should succeed in sending me down to defeat,

thereby regaining his lost place in the sun, he might--er--"

"Let us be practical, John. Let us call a spade a spade. If he regains

the Rancho Palomar, his thoughts will inevitably turn to the subject of a

mistress for that old hacienda. He has pride of race, I tell you, and he

would be less than human if he could contemplate himself as the last of

that race.

"John, he did not capture that panther alive a few moments ago merely to

be spectacular. His underlying reason was the thirty-dollar bounty on

the pelt and the salvation of his cattle. And he did not capture that

Basque this morning and extort justice, long-delayed, with any thought

that by so doing he was saving his principality for a stranger. He will

not fight you to a finish for that."

"What a philosopher you're getting to be, my dear!" he parried

ironically. And, after a pause, "Well, I see very clearly that if your

predictions come to pass, I shall be as popular in certain circles as the

proverbial wet dog."

Her roguish eyes appraised him.

"Yes, John; you're totally surrounded now. I suppose, when you realize

the enormity of the odds against you, you'll do the decent thing

and--"

"Renew his mortgage? Not in a million years!" Parker's voice carried a

strident note of finality, of purpose inflexible, and he thumped the

pommel of his saddle thrice in emphasis. He was a man who, although

normally kind and amiable, nevertheless reserved these qualities for use

under conditions not connected with the serious business of profiting by

another's loss. Quite early in life he had learned to say "No." He

preferred to say it kindly and amiably, but none the less forcibly; some

men had known him to say it in a manner singularly reminiscent of the

low, admonitory growl of a fierce old dog.

"But, John dear, why are we accumulating all this wealth? Is not Kay our

sole heir? Is not--"

"Do not threaten me with Kay," he interrupted irritably. "I play my game

according to the time-honored rules of that game. I do not ask for

quarter, and I shall not give it. I'm going to do all in my power to

acquire the Rancho Palomar under that mortgage I hold--and I hope that

young man gives me a bully fight. That will make the operation all the

more interesting.

"My dear, the continuous giving of one more chance to the Farrels has

proved their undoing. They first mortgaged part of the ranch in 1870;

when the mortgage fell due, they executed a new note plus the accrued

interest and mortgaged more of the ranch. Frequently they paid the

interest and twice they paid half the principal, bidding for one more

chance and getting it. And all these years they have lived like feudal

barons on their principal, living for to-day, reckless of to-morrow.

Theirs has been the history of practically all of the old California

families. I am convinced it would be no kindness to Don Miguel to give

him another chance now; his Spanish blood would lull him to ease and

forgetfulness; he would tell himself he would pay the mortgage _mañana_.

By giving him another chance, I would merely remove his incentive to

hustle and make good."

"But it seems so cruel, John, to take such a practical view of the

situation. He cannot understand your point of view and he will regard

you as another Shylock."

"Doubtless," he replied; "nevertheless, if we are ever forced to regard

him as a prospective son-in-law, it will be comforting to know that even

if he lost, he made me extend myself. He is a man and a gentleman, and I

like him. He won me in the first minute of our acquaintance. That is

why I decided to stand pat and see what he would do." Parker leaned over

and laid his hand on that of his wife. "I will not play the bully's

part, Kate," he promised her. "If he is worth a chance he will get it,

but I am not a human Christmas tree. He will have to earn it." After a

silence of several seconds he added, "Please God he will whip me yet.

His head is bloody but unbowed. It would be terrible to spoil him."

XX

Miguel Farrel pulled up his pinto on the brow of a hill which, along

the Atlantic seaboard, would have received credit for being a mountain,

and gazed down into the Agua Caliente basin. Half a mile to his right,

the slope dipped into a little saddle and then climbed abruptly to the

shoulder of El Palomar, the highest peak in San Marcos County. The

saddle was less than a hundred yards wide, and through the middle of it

a deep arroyo had been eroded by the Rio San Gregorio tumbling down

from the hills during the rainy season. This was the only outlet to

the Agua Caliente basin, and Don Mike saw at a glance that Parker's

engineers had discovered this, for squarely in the outlet a dozen

two-horse teams were working, scraping out the foundation for the huge

concrete dam for which Parker had contracted. Up the side of El

Palomar peak, something that resembled a great black snake had been

stretched, and Farrel nodded approvingly as he observed it.

"Good idea, that, to lay a half-mile of twelve-inch steel pipe up to

that limestone deposit," he remarked to Parker, who had reined his

horse beside Don Mike's. "Only way to run your crushed rock down to

the concrete mixer at the dam-site. You'll save a heap of money on

delivering the rock, at any rate. Who's your contractor, Mr. Parker?"

"A man named Conway."

"Old Bill Conway, of Santa Barbara?"

"The same, I believe," Parker replied, without interest.

"Great old chap, Bill! One of my father's best friends, although he

was twenty years younger than dad. He must feel at home on the Rancho

Palomar."

Mrs. Parker could not refrain from asking why.

"Well, ever since Bill Conway was big enough to throw a leg over a

horse and hold a gun to his shoulder, he's been shooting deer and quail

and coursing coyotes on this ranch. Whenever he felt the down-hill

drag, he invited himself up to visit us. Hello! Why, I believe the

old horse-thief is down there now; at least that's his automobile. I'd

know that ruin anywhere. He bought it in 1906, and swears he's going

to wear it out if it takes a lifetime. Let's go down and see what

they're up to there. Come on, folks!" And, without waiting to see

whether or not he was followed, he urged the pinto over the crest and

rode down the hillside at top speed, whooping like a wild Indian to

attract the attention of Bill Conway. In a shower of weeds and gravel

the pinto slid on his hind quarters down over the cut-bank where the

grading operations had bitten into the hillside, and landed with a

grunt among the teams and scrapers.

"Bill Conway! Front and center!" yelled the master of Palomar.

"Here! What's the row?" a man shouted, and, from a temporary shack

office a hundred yards away, a man stepped out.

"What do you mean by cutting into my dam-site without my permission?"

Farrel yelled and drove straight at the contractor. "Hey, there, old

settler! Mike Farrel, alive and kicking!" He left the saddle while

the pinto was still at a gallop, landed on his feet in front of Bill

Conway and took that astounded old disciple of dump-wagon and scraper

in a bearlike embrace.

"Miguel! You young scoundrel!" Conway yelled, and forthwith he beat

Farrel between the shoulder-blades with a horny old fist and cursed him

lovingly.

"Cut out the profanity, Mr. Conway," Don Mike warned him. "Some ladies

are about due on the job."

"When'd you light in the Palomar, boy? Gimme your hand. What

the--say, ain't it a pity the old man couldn't have lasted until you

got back? Ain't it, now, son?"

"A very great pity, Mr. Conway. I got home last night."

"Boy, I'm glad to see you. Say, you ran into surprises, didn't you?"

he added, lowering his voice confidentially.

"Rather. But, then, so did the other fellow. In fact, sir, a very

pleasant time was had by all. By the way, I hope you're not deluding

yourself with the belief that I'm going to pay you for building this

dam."

"By Judas priest," the alert old contractor roared, "you certainly do

file a bill of complications! I'll have to see Parker about this right

away--why, here he is now."

The Parkers had followed more decorously than had Farrel; nevertheless,

they had arrived in more or less of a hurry. John Parker rode directly

to Conway and Farrel.

"Well, Mr. Conway," he shouted pleasantly, "the lost sheep is found

again."

"Whereat there is more rejoicing in San Marcos County than there will

be over the return of some other sheep--and a few goats--I know of.

How do you do, Mr. Parker?" Conway extended his hand, and, as Kay and

her mother rode up, Farrel begged their permission to present him to

them. Followed the usual commonplaces of introduction, which Farrel

presently interrupted.

"Well, you confounded old ditch-digger! How about you?"

"Still making little rocks out of big ones, son. Say, Mr. Parker, how

do we stack up on this contract, now that Little Boy Blue is back on

the Palomar, blowing his horn?"

Parker strove gallantly to work up a cheerful grin.

"Oh, he's put a handful of emery dust in my bearings, confound him, Mr.

Conway! It begins to look as if I had leaped before looking."

"Very reprehensible habit, Mr. Parker. Well--I'm getting so old and

worthless nowadays that I make it a point to look before I leap. Mike,

my son, do you happen to be underwriting this contract?"

Don Mike looked serious. He pursed his lips, arched his brows, drew

some bills and small coins from his pocket, and carefully counted them.

"The liquid assets of the present owner of that dirt you're making so

free with, Mr. Conway, total exactly sixty-seven dollars and nine

cents. And I never thought the day would come when a pair of old-time

Californians like us would stoop to counting copper pennies. Before I

joined the army, I used to give them away to the cholo children, and

when there were no youngsters handy to give the pennies to, I used to

throw them away."

"Yes," Bill Conway murmured sadly. "And I remember the roar that went

up from the old-timers five years ago when the Palace Hotel in San

Francisco reduced the price of three fingers of straight whisky from

twenty-five cents to fifteen. Boy, they're crowding us out."

"Who's been doing most of the crowding in San Marcos County while I've

been away, Mr. Conway?" Farrel queried innocently.

"Japs, my son. Say, they're comin' in here by the ship-load."

"You don't tell me! Why, two years ago there wasn't a Jap in San

Marcos County with the exception of a couple of shoemakers and a

window-washing outfit in El Toro."

"Well, those hombres aren't mending shoes or washing windows any more,

Miguel. They saved their money and now they're farming--garden-truck

mostly. There must be a thousand Japanese in the county now--all

farmers or farm-laborers. They're leasing and buying every acre of

fertile land they can get hold of."

"Have they acquired much acreage?"

"Saw a piece in the El Toro Sentinel last week to the effect that nine

thousand and twenty acres have been alienated to the Japs up to the

first of the year. Nearly all the white men have left La Questa valley

since the Japs discovered they could raise wonderful winter celery

there."

"But where do these Japanese farmers come from, Mr. Conway?" Parker

inquired. "They do not come from Japan because, under the gentlemen's

agreement, Japan restricts emigration of her coolie classes."

"Well, now," Bill Conway began judicially. "I'll give Japan the

benefit of any doubts I have as to the sincerity with which she

enforces this gentlemen's agreement. The fact remains, however, that

she does not restrict emigration to Mexico, and, unfortunately, we have

an international boundary a couple of thousand miles long and

stretching through a sparsely settled, brushy country. To guard our

southern boundary in such an efficient manner that no Jap could

possibly secure illegal entry to the United States via the line, we

would have to have sentries scattered at hundred-yard intervals and

closer than that on dark nights. The entire standing army of the

United States would be required for the job. In addition to the

handicap of this unprotected boundary, we have a fifteen-hundred-mile

coast-line absolutely unguarded. Japanese fishermen bring their

nationals up from the Mexican coast in their trawlers and set them

ashore on the southern California coast. At certain times of the year,

any landlubber can land through the surf at low tide; in fact,

ownerless skiffs are picked up on the south-coast beaches right

regularly."

"Well, you can't blame the poor devils for wanting to come to this

wonderful country, Mr. Conway. It holds for them opportunities far

greater than in their own land."

"True, Mr. Parker. But their gain is our loss, and, as a matter of

common sense, I fail to see why we should accord equal opportunity to

an unwelcome visitor who enters our country secretly and illegally. I

grant you it would prove too expensive and annoying to make a firm

effort to stop this illegal immigration by preventive measures along

our international boundary and coast-line, but if we destroy the Jap's

opportunity for profit at our expense, we will eliminate the main

incentive for his secret and illegal entry, which entry is always very

expensive. I believe seven hundred and fifty dollars is the

market-price for smuggling Japs and Chinamen into the United States of

America."

"But we should take steps to discover these immigrants after they

succeed in making entry--"

"Rats!" the bluff old contractor interrupted. "How are we going to do

that under present conditions? The cry of the country is for economy

in governmental affairs, so Congress prunes the already woefully

inadequate appropriation for the Department of Labor and keeps our

force of immigration inspectors down to the absolute minimum. These

inspectors are always on the job; the few we have are splendid, loyal

servants of the government, and they prove it by catching Japs,

Chinamen, and Hindus every day in the week. But for every illegal

entrant they apprehend, ten escape and are never rounded up. Confound

them; they all look alike, anyhow! How are you going to distinguish

one Jap from another?

"Furthermore, Mr. Parker, you must bear this fact in mind: The country

at large is not interested in the problem of Oriental immigration. It

hasn't thought about it; it doesn't know anything about it except what

the Japs have told it, and a Jap is the greatest natural-born liar and

purveyor of half-truths and sugar-coated misinformation this world has

known."

"Easy, old timer!" Don Mike soothed, laying his hand on Conway's

shoulder. "Don't let your angry passions rise."

Conway grinned.

"I always fly into a rage when I get talking about Japs," he explained

deprecatingly to the ladies. "And it's such a helpless, hopeless rage.

There's no outlet for it. You see," he began all over again, "the

dratted Jap propagandist is so smart--he's so cunning that he has

capitalized the fact that California was the first state to protest

against the Japanese invasion. He has made the entire country believe

that this is a dirty little local squabble of no consequence to our

country at large. He keeps the attention of forty-seven states on

California while he quietly proceeds to colonize Oregon, Washington,

and parts of Utah. Lately he has passed blithely over the hot,

lava-strewn, and fairly non-irrigated state of Arizona to the more

fertile agricultural lands of Texas. And yet a couple of hundred prize

boobs in Congress talk sagely about an amicable settlement of the Jap

problem in California! When they want information, they consult the

Japanese ambassador!"

"But why," Kay ventured to ask, "do the Japanese not acquire

agricultural lands in the Middle West? There are no restrictions in

those states in the matter of outright purchases of land, and surely

the soil is fertile enough to suit the most exacting Jap."

"Ah, young lady," Bill Conway boomed. "I'm glad you asked me that

question. The Jap is a product of the temperate zone; he does not take

kindly to extremes of heat and cold. Unlike the white man he cannot

stand such extremes and function with efficiency. That's why the

extreme northern part of Japan, which is very cold in winter, is so

sparsely populated, although excellent agricultural land. Why freeze

to death up there when, by merely following the Japan Current as it

laves the west coast of North America from British Columbia down, one

can, in a pinch, dispense with an overcoat in January?"

"Enough of this anti-Japanese propaganda of yours, Señor Conway," Don

Mike interrupted. "Our friends here haven't listened to anything else

since I got home last night. Mr. Parker, being quite ignorant of the

real issue, has, of course, fallen under the popular delusion; and I've

been trying my best to lead him to the mourner's bench, to convince him

that when he acquires the Rancho Palomar--which, by the way, will not

be for at least a year, now that I've turned up to nullify his judgment

of foreclosure--that it will be a far more patriotic action on his

part, even if less profitable, to colonize the San Gregorio with white

men instead of Japs. In fact, Mr. Parker, I wouldn't be surprised if

you should succeed in putting through a very profitable deal with the

state of California to colonize the valley with ex-soldiers."

Old Bill Conway turned upon John Parker a smoldering gaze.

"So I'm building a dam to irrigate a lot of Jap truck-gardens, am I?"

he rumbled.

The sly, ingenious manner in which Miguel Farrel had so innocently

contrived to strew his already rough path with greater obstacles,

infuriated Parker, and for an instant he lost control of himself.

"What do you care what it's for, Conway, provided you make your profit

out of the contract?" he demanded brusquely.

"Ladies," the contractor replied, turning to Mrs. Parker and Kay, "I

trust you will pardon me for discussing business in your presence just

for a minute. Miguel, am I to understand that this ranch is still

Farrel property?"

"You bet! And for a year to come."

"Then I gather that Mr. Parker has contracted with me to build a dam on

your land and without your approval. Am I right?"

"You are, Mr. Conway. I am not even contemplating giving my approval

to the removal of another scraper of dirt from that excavation."

Conway faced Parker.

"Am I to continue operations?" he demanded. "I have a

cost-plus-fifteen-per-cent. contract with you, Mr. Parker, and if you

are not going to be in position to go through with it, I want to know

it now."

"In the absence of Mr. Farrel's permission, I have no alternative save

to ask you to suspend operations, Mr. Conway," Parker answered

bitterly. "I expect, of course, to settle with you for the abrupt

cancellation of the contract, but I believe we are both reasonable men

and that no difficulty will arise in that direction."

"I'm naturally disappointed, Mr. Parker. I have a good crew and I like

to keep the men busy--particularly when good men are as hard to

procure as they are nowadays. However, I realize your predicament, and

I never was a great hand to hit a man when he was down."

"Thank you, Mr. Conway. If you will drop in at the ranch-house

to-morrow for dinner, we can put you up for the night, I dare say." He

glanced at Farrel, who nodded. "We can then take up the matter of

compensation for the cancelled contract."

"In the meantime, then, I might as well call the job off and stop the

expense," Conway suggested. "We'll load up the equipment and pull out

in the morning."

"Why be so precipitate, Mr. Conway?" Don Mike objected, almost

fiercely. "You always were the most easy-going, tender-hearted old

scout imaginable, and that's why you've never been able to afford a new

automobile. Now, I have a proposition to submit to you, Mr. Conway,

and inasmuch as it conflicts radically with Mr. Parker's interests, I

feel that common courtesy to him indicates that I should voice that

proposition in his presence. With the greatest good will in life

toward each other, nevertheless we are implacable opponents. Mr.

Parker has graciously spread, face up on the table for my inspection,

an extremely hard hand to beat; so now it's quite in order for me to

spring my little joker and try to take the odd trick. Mr. Conway, I

want you to do something for me. Not for my sake or the sake of my

dead father, who was a good friend of yours, but for the sake of this

state where we were both born and which we love because it is

symbolical of the United States. I want you to stand pat and refuse to

cancel this contract. Insist on going through with it and make Mr.

Parker pay for it. He can afford it, and he is good for it. He will

not repudiate a promise to pay while he has money in bank or securities

to hypothecate. He is absolutely responsible financially. He owns a

controlling interest in the First National Bank of El Toro, and he has

a three-hundred-thousand-dollar equity in this ranch in the shape of a

first mortgage ripe for foreclosure--you can levy on those assets if he

declines to go through with the contract. Force him to go through;

force him, old friend of my father and mine and enemy of all Japanese!

For God's sake, stand by me! I'm desperate, Mr. Conway--"

"Call me 'Bill,' son," Conway interrupted gently.

"You know what the Farrels have been up against always, Bill," Don Mike

pleaded. "That easy-going Spanish blood! But, Bill, I'm a throw-back.

By God, I am! Give me this chance--this God-given chance--and the

fifty-per-cent, Celtic strain in me and the twenty-five-per-cent.

Gaelic that came with my Galvez blood will save the San Gregorio to

white men! Give me the water, Bill; give me the water that will make

my valley bloom in the August heat, and then, with the tremendous

increase in the value of the land, I'll find somebody, some place, who

will trust me for three hundred thousand paltry dollars to give this

man and save my ranch. This is a white-man's country, and John Parker

is striving, for a handful of silver, to betray us and make it a yellow

paradise."

His voice broke under the stress of his emotion; he gulped and the

tears welled to his eyes.

"Oh, Bill, for God's sake don't fail me!" he begged. "You're a

Californian! You've seen the first Japs come! Only fifteen years ago,

they were such a rare sight the little boys used to chase them and

throw rocks at them just to see them run in terror. But the little

boys do not throw rocks at them now, and they no longer run. They have

the courage of numbers and the prompt and forceful backing of a

powerful fraternity across the Pacific. You've seen them spread

gradually over the land--why, Bill, just think of the San Gregorio five

years hence--the San Gregorio where you and I have hunted quail since I

was ten years old. You gave me my first shot-gun--"

"Sonny," said old Bill Conway gently, passing his arm across Farrel's

shoulders, "I wish to goodness you'd shut up! I haven't got three

hundred thousand dollars, nor a tenth of it. If I had it I'd give it

to you now and save argument. But I'll tell you what I have got, son,

and that's a sense of humor. It's kept me poor all my life, but if you

think it will make you rich you're welcome to it." He looked up, and

his glance met Kay's. "This chap's a limited edition," he informed her

gravely. "After the Lord printed one volume, he destroyed the plates.

Mr. Parker, sir--" He stepped up to John Parker and smote the latter

lightly on the breast--"Tag; you're it!" he announced pleasantly.

"I'll cancel this contract when you hand me a certified check; for

twenty-four billion, nine-hundred and eighty-two million, four hundred

and seventeen thousand, six hundred and one dollars, nine cents, and

two mills."

"Conway," Parker answered him quietly, "I like your sense of humor,

even if it does hurt. However, you force me to fight the devil with

fire. Still, for the sake of the amenities, we should always make

formal declaration of war before beginning hostilities."

"And that's a trick you didn't learn in Japan," the old contractor

reminded him.

"So I hereby declare war. I'm a past master at holding hard to

whatever I do not wish the other fellow to take away from me, so build

your dam and be damned to you. Of course, if you complete your

contract eventually, you will force me to pay you for it, but in the

interim you will have had to use clam-shells and woodpecker heads for

money. I know I can stave off settlement of your judgment for a year;

after that, should I acquire title to the Rancho Palomar, I will settle

with you promptly."

"And if you shouldn't acquire title, I shall look to my young friend,

Don Miguel Farrel, for reimbursement. While at present the future may

look as black to Mike as the Earl of Hell's riding-boots, his credit is

good with me. Is this new law you've promulgated retroactive?"

"What do you mean?"

"You'll settle with me for all work performed up to the moment of this

break in diplomatic relations, won't you?"

"That's quite fair, Conway. I'll do that." Despite the chagrin of

having to wage for the nonce a losing battle, Parker laughed heartily

and with genuine sincerity. Don Mike joined with him and the charged

atmosphere cleared instantly.

"Bill Conway, you're twenty-four carat all through." Farrel laid a hand

affectionately on his father's old friend. "Be sure to come down to

the hacienda tomorrow night and get your check. We dine at six-thirty."

"As is?" Conway demanded, surveying his rusty old business suit and

hard, soiled hands.

"'As is,' Bill."

"Fine! Well, we've come to a complete understanding without falling

out over it, haven't we?" he demanded of Kay and her mother. "With

malice toward none and justice toward all--or words to that effect.

Eh?"

"Oh, get back into your office, Conway, and cast up the account against

me. Figure a full day for the men and the mules, although our break

came at half-past three. I'm a contrary man, but I'm not small. Come

on, Mr. Farrel, let's go home," Parker suggested.

"Little birds in their nest should agree," old Conway warned, as, with

a sweep of his battered old hat to the ladies, he turned to re-enter

his office. With a nod of farewell, John Parker and his wife started

riding down the draw, while Farrel turned to unloosen his saddle-girth

and adjust the heavy stock-saddle on the pinto's back. While he was

thus engaged, Kay rode up to the door of Conway's rough little office,

bent down from Panchito, and peered in.

"Bill Conway!" she called softly.

Bill Conway came to the door.

"What's the big idea, Miss Parker?"

The girl glanced around and saw that Don Mike was busy with the latigo,

so she leaned down, drew her arm around the astounded Conway's neck,

and implanted on his ruddy, bristly cheek a kiss as soft--so Bill

Conway afterward described it--as goose-hair.

"You build that dam," she whispered, blushing furiously, "and see to it

that it's a good dam and will hold water for years. I'm the reserve in

this battle--understand? When you need money, see me, but, oh, please

do not tell Don Mike about it. I'd die of shame."

She whirled Panchito and galloped down the draw, with Miguel Farrel

loping along behind her, while, from the door of his shack of an

office, old Bill Conway looked after them and thoughtfully rubbed a

certain spot on his cheek. Long after the young folks had disappeared

round the base of El Palomar, he continued to gaze. Eventually he was

brought out of his reverie when a cur dog belonging to one of the

teamsters on the grading gang thrust a cold muzzle into his hand.

"Purp," murmured Mr. Conway, softly, "this isn't a half-bad old world,

even if a fellow does grow old, and finds himself hairless and

childless and half broke and shackled to the worst automobile in the

world, bar none. And do you know why it isn't such a rotten world as

some folks claim? No? Well, I'll tell you, purp. It's because it

keeps a-movin'. And do you know what keeps it a-movin'? Purp, it's

love!"

XXI

At the base of El Palomar, Farrel and his party were met by the Parker

chauffeur with the car. Pablo had guided him out and was lounging

importantly in the seat beside William.

"Don Nicolás Sandoval came to the hacienda an hour ago, Don Miguel," he

reported. "He brought with him three others; all have gone forth to

take possession of Loustalot's sheep."

Farrel nodded and dismounted to assist Mrs. Parker as the latter came

down from her horse, somewhat stiffly. When he turned to perform a

similar office for her daughter, however, the girl smilingly shook her

head.

"I shipped for the cruise, Don Mike," she assured him. "May I ride

home with you? Remember, you've got to pick up your rope and that

panther's pelt." Her adorable face flushed faintly as her gaze sought

her mother's. "I have never seen a panther undressed," she protested.

"Well," her amiable mother replied, with her customary hearty manner,

"far be it from me to deprive you of that interesting sight. Take good

care of her, Miguel. I hold you responsible for her."

"You are very kind to trust me so."

Both Parker and his wife noted that his words were not mere polite

patter. Farrel's gravely courteous bearing, his respectful bow to Mrs.

Parker and the solemnity with which he spoke impressed them with the

conviction that this curious human study in light and shadow regarded

their approval as an honor, not a privilege.

"I shall take very good care of Miss Kay," he supplemented. "We shall

be home for dinner."

He mounted the gray gelding, leaving Pablo to follow with the black

mare and the pinto, while he and Kay cantered down the wide white wash

of the Rio San Gregorio.

From their semi-concealment among the young willow growth, scrub cattle

gazed at them or fled, with tails aloft, for more distant thickets;

cottontail rabbits and an occasional jack-rabbit, venturing forth as

the shadows grew long in the valley, flashed through the low sage and

weeds; from the purpling hillsides cock quails called cheerily to their

families to come right home. The air was still and cool, heavy with

the perfume of sage, blackberry briars, _yerba santa_, an occasional

bay tree and the pungent odor of moist earth and decaying vegetation.

There had fallen upon the land that atmosphere of serenity, of peace,

that is the peculiar property of California's foothill valleys in the

late afternoon; the world seemed very distant and not at all desirable,

and to Kay there came a sudden, keen realization of how this man beside

her must love this darkling valley with the hills above presenting

their flower-clad breasts to the long spears of light from the dying

day. . . .

Don Mike had caught the spirit of the little choristers of his hidden

valley, she heard him singing softly in rather a pleasing baritone

voice:

Pienso en ti, Teresita mia,

Cuando la luna alumbra la tierra

He sentido el fuego de tus ojos,

He sentido las penas del amor.

"What does it mean?" she demanded, imperiously.

"Oh, it's a very ordinary little sentiment, Miss Kay. The Spanish

cavalier, having settled himself under his lady's window, thrums a

preliminary chord or two, just to let her and the family know he's not

working on the sly; then he says in effect: 'I think of thee, my little

Tessie, when the moonlight is shining on the world; your bright eyes

have me going for fair, kid, and due to a queer pain in my interior, I

know I'm in love.'"

"You outrageous Celt!"

He chuckled. "A Spaniard takes his love very seriously. He's got to

be sad and despairing about it, even when he knows very well the girl

is saying to herself: 'For heaven's sake, when will this windy bird get

down to brass tacks and pop the question?' He droops like a stale

eschscholtzia, only, unlike that flower he hasn't sense enough to shut

up for the night!"

Her beaming face turned toward him was ample reward for his casual

display of Celtic wit, his knowledge of botany. And suddenly she saw

his first real smile--a flash of beautiful white teeth and a wrinkling

of the skin around the merry eyes. It came and went like a flicker of

lightning; the somber man was an insouciant lad again.

A quarter of a mile across the valley they found the torn and mutilated

carcass of a heifer, with a day-old calf grieving beside her.

"This is the work of our defunct friend, the panther," Farrel

explained. "He had made his kill on this little heifer and eaten

heartily. It occurred to me while we were chasing him that he was

logey. Well--when Mike's away the cats will play."

He reached down, grasped the calf by the forelegs and drew the forlorn

little animal up before him on the saddle. As it stretched out quietly

across his thighs, following a half-hearted struggle to escape, Kay saw

Don Mike give the orphan his left index finger to suck.

"Not much sustenance in it, is there, old timer?" he addressed the

calf. "Coyotes would have had you tonight if I hadn't passed by."

"What a tiny calf," Kay observed, riding close to pat the sleek head.

"He's scrubby and interbred; his mother bore him before she had her own

growth and a hundred generations of him got the same poor start in

life. You've seen people like this little runt. He really isn't worth

carrying home, but--"

It occurred to her that his silence was eloquent of the inherent

generosity of the man, even as his poetic outburst of a few minutes

before had been eloquent of the minstrel in him. She rode in silence,

regarding him critically from time to time, and when they came to the

tree where the panther hung he gave her the calf to hold while he

deftly skinned the dead marauder, tied the pelt behind his saddle,

relieved her of the calf and jogged away toward home.

"Well," he demanded, presently, "you do not think any the less of me

for what I did to your father this afternoon, do you?"

"Of course not. Nobody likes a mollycoddle," she retorted.

"A battle of finances between your father and me will not be a very

desperate one. A gnat attacking a tiger. I shall scarcely interest

him. I am predestined to defeat."

"But with Mr. Conway's aid--"

"Bill's aid will not amount to very much. He was always a splendid

engineer and an honest builder, but a poor business man. He might be

able to maintain work on the dam for awhile, but in the end lack of

adequate finances would defeat us. And I have no right to ask Bill to

sacrifice the profit on this job which your father is willing to pay

him, in return for a cancellation of the contract; I have no right to

ask or expect Bill Conway to risk a penniless old age for me. You see,

I attacked him at his weakest point--his heart. It was selfish of me."

She could not combat this argument, so she said nothing and for a

quarter of a mile her companion rode with his chin on his breast, in

silence. What a man of moods he was, she reflected.

"You despair of being able to pay my father the mortgage and regain

your ranch?" she asked, at length.

He nodded.

"But you'll fight to win--and fight to the finish, will you not?" she

persisted.

He glanced at her sharply. "That is my natural inclination, Miss

Kay--when I permit sentiment to rule me. But when I apply the

principles of sound horse sense--when I view the approach of the

conflict as a military man would view it, I am forced to the conviction

that in this case discretion is the better part of valor. Battles are

never won by valorous fools who get themselves killed in a spectacular

manner."

"I see. You plan to attempt the sale of your equity in the ranch

before my father can finally foreclose on you."

"No, that would be the least profitable course to pursue. A

hundred-thousand-acre ranch is not sold in a hurry unless offered at a

tremendous sacrifice. Even then it is of slow sale. For the following

reasons: Within a few years, what with the rapid growth of population

in this state and the attrition of alien farmers on our agricultural

lands, this wonderful valley land of the Rancho Palomar will cease to

be assessed as grazing land. It is agricultural land and as a matter

of equity it ought to pay taxes to the state on that basis. And it

will. I do not know--I have never heard of--a cattleman with a million

dollars cash on hand, and if I could find such a cattleman who was

looking for a hundred thousand acre ranch he would not want half of it

to be agricultural land and be forced to bankrupt himself paying taxes

on it as such."

"I think I understand. The ranch must be sold to some person or

company who will purchase it with the idea of selling half of the ranch

as grazing land and the valley of the San Gregorio as agricultural

land."

"Quite so. I would have to interest a sub-division expert whose

specialty is the sale of small farms, on time payments. Well, no

business man ever contemplates the purchase, at a top price, of

property that is to be sold on mortgage foreclosure; and I think he

would be an optimist, indeed, who would bid against your father."

"Of course," he continued, patiently, "when the ranch is sold at

auction to satisfy the mortgage your father will bid it in at the

amount of the mortgage, It is improbable that he will have to pay more."

"Am I to understand then, Don Mike, that for approximately three

hundred thousand dollars he will be enabled, under this atrocious code

of business morals, to acquire a property worth at least a million

dollars?"

"Such is the law--a law as old as the world itself."

"Why, then, the whole thing is absurdly simple, Don Mike. All you have

to do is to get a friend to bid against my father and run the price up

on him to something like a half-way decent sum. In that way you should

manage to save a portion of your equity."

He bent upon her a benign and almost paternal glance. "You're

tremendously sweet to put that flea in my ear, Kay. It's a wonderful

prescription, but it lacks one small ingredient--the wealthy,

courageous and self-sacrificing friend who will consent to run the

sandy on your astute parent, as a favor to me."

She gave him a tender, prescient little smile--the smile of one who

sees beyond a veil objects not visible to the eyes of other mortals.

"Well, even if he is my dear father he ought to be nice about it and

see to it that you receive a fair price for your equity." She clenched

her little fist. "Why, Don Mike, that's just like killing the wounded."

"My dear girl, I do not blame your father at all. What claim have I on

his sympathy or his purse? I'm a stranger to him. One has to be a

sport in such matters and take the blow with a smile."

"I don't care. It's all wrong," she replied with spirit. "And I'm

going to tell my father so."

"Oh, I've thought up a plan for escaping with a profit," he assured

her, lightly. "It will leave you folks in undisputed possession of the

house and the ranch, leave Bill Conway free to proceed with his

valuable contract and leave me free to mount Panchito and fare forth to

other and more virgin fields--I trust. All of this within a period of

forty-eight hours."

Was it fancy, or had her face really blanched a little?

"Why--why, Don Mike! How extraordinary!"

"On the contrary, quite ordinary. It's absurdly simple. I need some

getaway money. I ought to have it--and I'm going to get it by the

oldest known method--extortion through intimidation. Your father is a

smart man and he will see the force of my argument."

"He's a very stubborn man and doesn't bluff worth a cent," she warned

him and added: "Particularly when he doesn't like one or when he is

angry. And whatever you do, do not threaten him. If you threaten him,

instantly he will be consumed with curiosity to see you make good."

"I shall not threaten him. I shall merely talk business to him.

That's a language he understands."

"How much money do you expect to realize?"

"About half a million dollars."

"In return for what?"

"A quit claim deed to the Rancho Palomar. He can have a title in fee

simple to the ranch by noon tomorrow and thus be spared the necessity

for a new suit to foreclose that accursed mortgage and the concomitant

wait of one year before taking possession. He will then be free to

continue his well-drilling and dam-building in Caliente Basin; he can

immediately resume his negotiations with Okada for the purchase of the

entire valley and will be enabled, in all probability, to close the

deal at a splendid profit. Then he can proceed to erect his

hydro-electric plant and sell it for another million dollars' profit to

one of the parent power companies throughout the state; when that has

been disposed of he can lease or sell the range land to André Loustalot

and finally he can retire with the prospect of unceasing dividends from

the profits of his irrigation company. Within two years he will have a

profit of at least two million dollars, net, but this will not be

possible until he has first disposed of me at a total disposing price

of five hundred thousand dollars."

"Please explain that."

"As I think I have remarked in your presence once before, there is

extreme probability that the State of California will have passed

additional anti-Jap legislation, designed to tighten the present law

and eliminate the legal loop-holes whereby alien Japanese continue to

acquire land despite the existing law. If I stand pat no Jap can set

foot in the San Gregorio valley for at least one year from date and by

that time this legislation may be in force, in which event the Jap deal

will be killed forever. Also, there is always the off chance that I

may manage, mysteriously, to redeem the property in the interim. It

would be worth a quarter of a million dollars to your father this

minute if he could insure himself against redemption of the mortgage;

and it would be worth an additional quarter of a million dollars to him

if he were free to do business with Okada to-morrow morning. Okada is

a sure-fire prospect. He will pay cash for the entire valley if I

permit the deal to go through now. If, however, through my

stubbornness, your father loses out with Okada, it will be a year hence

before he can even recommence work on his irrigation system and another

year before he will have it completed. Many things may occur during

those two years--the principal danger to be apprehended being the

sudden collapse of inflated war-time values, with resultant money

panics, forced liquidation and the destruction of public confidence in

land investments. The worry and exasperation I can hand your respected

parent must be as seriously considered as the impending tremendous loss

of profit."

"I believe you are a very shrewd young man, Don Mike," the girl

answered, sadly. "I think your plan will be much more likely to

produce half a million dollars of what you call 'getaway money' than my

suggestion that a friend run up the price on father at the sale. But

how do you know Okada will pay cash?"

"I do not know. But if your father's attorneys are Californians they

will warn him to play safe when dealing with a Jap."

"But is it not possible that Okada may not have sufficient money to

operate on the excessive scale you outline?"

"Not a chance. He is not buying for himself; he is the representative

of the Japanese Association of California."

"Well, Don Miguel Farrel," the girl declared, as he ceased speaking, "I

have only known you twenty-four hours, but in that time I have heard

you do a deal of talking on the Japanese question in California. And

now you have proved a terrible disappointment to me."

"In what way?" he demanded, and pulled his horse up abruptly. He was

vaguely distressed at her blunt statement, apprehensive as to the

reason for her flushed face and flashing eye, the slightly strident

note in her voice.

"I have regarded you as a true blue American--a super-patriot. And now

you calmly plan to betray your state to the enemy for the paltry sum of

half a million dollars!"

He stared at her, a variety of emotions in his glance. "Well," he

replied, presently, "I suppose I shall deserve that, if I succeed with

my plan. However, as a traitor, I'm not even a runner-up with your

father. He's going to get a couple of million dollars as the price of

his shame! And he doesn't even need the money. On the other hand, I

am a desperate, mighty unhappy ex-soldier experiencing all of the

delights of a bankrupt, with the exception of an introduction to the

referee in bankruptcy. I'm whipped. Who cares what becomes of me?

Not a soul on earth except Pablo and Carolina and they, poor creatures,

are dependent upon me. Why should I sacrifice my last chance for

happiness in a vain effort to stem a yellow tide that cannot be

stemmed? Why do you taunt me with my aversion to sacrifice for my

country--I who have sacrificed two years of my life and some of my

blood and much of my happiness?"

Suddenly she put her little gauntleted hand up to her face and

commenced to weep. "Oh, Don Mike, please forgive me! I'm sorry.

I--I--have no right to demand such a sacrifice, but oh, I

thought--perhaps--you were different from all the others--that you'd be

a true--knight and die--sword in--hand--oh, dear, I'm such a--little

ninny--"

He bit his lower lip but could not quite conceal a smile.

"You mean you didn't think I was a quitter!" His voice was grim and

crisp. "Well, in the dirty battle for bread and butter there are no

decorations for gallantry in action; in that conflict I do not have to

live up to the one that Congress gave me. And why shouldn't I quit? I

come from a long line of combination fighter-quitters. We were never

afraid of hardship or physical pain, danger or death, but--we couldn't

face conditions; we balked and quit in the face of circumstance; we

retired always before the economic onslaught of the Anglo-Saxon."

"Ah, but you're Anglo-Saxon," she sobbed. "You belong to the race that

doesn't quit--that somehow muddles through."

"If I but possessed blue eyes and flaxen hair--if I but possessed the

guerdon of a noble lady's love--I might not have disappointed you, Kay.

I might still have been a true knight and died sword in hand.

Unfortunately, however, I possess sufficient Latin blood to make me a

little bit lazy--to counsel quitting while the quitting is good."

"I'm terribly disappointed," she protested. "Terribly."

"So am I. I'm ashamed of myself, but--a contrite heart is not hockable

at the only pawnshop in El Toro. Buck up, Miss Parker!"

"You have called me Kay three times this afternoon, Miguel--"

He rode close to her, reached over and gently drew one little hand from

her crimson face. "You're a dear girl, Kay," he murmured, huskily.

"Please cease weeping. You haven't insulted me or even remotely hurt

my little feelings. God bless your sweet soul! If you'll only stop

crying, I'll give you Panchito. He's yours from this minute. Saddle

and bridle, too. Take him. Do what you please with him, but for

heaven's sake don't let your good mother think we've been

quarreling--and on the very second day of our acquaintance."

She dashed the tears away and beamed up at him. "You give Panchito to

me! You don't mean it!"

"I do. I told you I might give him away to somebody worth while."

"You haven't known me long enough to give me valuable presents,

Miguel," she demurred. "You're a dear to want to give him to me and

I'm positively mad to own him, but Mother and Dad might think--well,

that is, they might not understand. Of course we understand perfectly,

but--well--you understand, don't you, Miguel?"

"I understand that I cannot afford to have your father suspect that I

am unmindful of--certain conditions," he answered her, and flushed with

embarrassment. "If you do not want Panchito as a gift I shall not

insist--"

"I think it would be a good idea for you to permit Dad to buy him for

me. He's worth every cent of five thousand dollars--"

"I'll never sell him. I told you this afternoon I love him. I never

sell a horse or a dog that I love or that loves me. I shall have to

take him back, Kay--for the present."

"I think that would be the better way, Miguel." She bent upon him an

inscrutable smile but in the depths of her brown eyes he thought he

detected laughter.

"You'll buck up now?" he pleaded.

"I'm already bucked up."

As they rode up to the great barn, Kay dismounted. "Leave the old

trifle at the door, Kay," Farrel told her. "Pablo will get him home.

Excuse me, please, while I take this calf over to Carolina. She'll

make a man out of him. She's a wonder at inducing little mavericks

like this fellow to drink milk from a bucket."

He jogged away, while Panchito, satisfied that he had performed

throughout the day like a perfect gentleman, bent his head and rubbed

his forehead against Kay's cheek, seeking some evidence of growing

popularity with the girl. To his profound satisfaction she scratched

him under the jawbone and murmured audibly:

"Never mind, old dear. Some day you'll be my Panchito. He loves you

and didn't he say he could only give you away for love?"

CHAPTER XXII

Dinner that night was singularly free from conversation. Nobody

present felt inclined to be chatty. John Parker was wondering what

Miguel Farrel's next move would be, and was formulating means to

checkmate it; Kay, knowing what Don Mike's next move would be and

knowing further that she was about to checkmate it, was silent through

a sense of guilt; Mrs. Parker's eight miles in the saddle that

afternoon had fatigued her to the point of dissipating her buoyant

spirits, and Farrel had fallen into a mood of deep abstraction.

"Are we to listen to naught but the champing of food?" Mrs. Parker

inquired presently.

"Hello!" her husband declared. "So you've come up for air, eh, Katie?"

"Oh, I'm feeling far from chatty, John. But the silence is oppressive.

Miguel, are you plotting against the whites?"

He looked up with a smiling nod. "I'm making big medicine, Mrs.

Parker. So big, in fact," he continued, as he folded his napkin and

thrust it carefully into the ring, "that I am going to ask your

permission to withdraw. I have been very remiss in my social duties.

I have been home twenty-four hours and I have passed the Mission de la

Madre Dolorosa three times, yet I have not been inside to pay my

respects to my old friends there. I shall be in disgrace if I fail to

call this evening for Father Dominic's blessing. They'll be wondering

why I neglect them."

"How do you know they know you're home?" Parker demanded, suspiciously.

He was wondering if Don Miguel's excuse to leave the table might have

some connection with Bill Conway and the impending imbroglio.

"Brother Flavio told me so to-night. As we rode down the valley he was

ringing the Angelus; and after the Angelus he played on the chimes,

'I'm Nearer Home To-day.' May I be excused, Mrs. Parker?"

"By all means, Michael."

"Thank you." He included them all in a courteous nod of farewell.

They heard the patio gate close behind him.

"I wish I dared follow him," Parker observed. "I wonder if he really

is going down to the Mission. I think I'll make certain."

He left the room, went out to the patio gate, opened it slightly and

peered out. His host's tall form, indistinct in the moonlight, was

disappearing toward the palm-lined avenue, so Parker, satisfied that

Don Mike had embarked upon the three-mile walk to the Mission, returned

to the dining-room.

"Well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?" Kay queried.

"I think he's headed for the Mission, after all, Kay."

"I never doubted it."

"Why?"

"Because he wouldn't tell a trifling lie to deceive when there was no

necessity for deceiving. His plans are fully matured and he will not

act until morning. In that three-mile walk to the Mission he will

perfect the details of his plan of attack."

"Then he is planning?--but you said his plans are fully matured. How

do you know, Kay?"

"He told me all about them as we were riding in this evening." Both

Parker and his wife raised interrogatory eyebrows. "Indeed!" Mrs.

Parker murmured. "So he's honoring you with his confidences already?"

The girl ignored her mother's bantering tones. "No, he didn't tell me

in confidence. In fact, his contemplated procedure is so normal and

free from guile that he feels there is no necessity for secrecy. I

suppose he feels that it would be foolish to conceal the trap after the

mouse has been caught in it."

"Well, little daughter, I haven't been caught--yet. And I'm not a

mouse, but considerable of an old fox. What's he up to?"

"He's going to sell you his equity in the ranch."

Her father stared hard at her, a puzzled little smile beginning to

break over his handsome face.

"That sounds interesting," he replied, dryly. "What am I going to pay

for it?"

"Half a million dollars."

"Nonsense."

"Perhaps. But you'll have to admit that his reasoning is not so

preposterous as you think." And she went on to explain to Parker every

angle of the situation as Don Mike viewed it.

Both Parker and his wife listened attentively. "Well, John," the good

soul demanded, when her daughter had finished speaking: "What's wrong

with that prescription?"

"By George, that young man has a head on his shoulders. His reasoning

is absolutely flawless. However, I am not going to pay him any

half-million dollars. I might, in a pinch, consider paying him half

that, but--"

"Would a quit-claim deed be worth half a million to you, Dad?"

"As a matter of cold business, it would. Are you quite certain he was

serious?"

"Oh, quite serious."

"He's a disappointment, Kay. I had hoped he would prove to be a

worth-while opponent, for certainly he is a most likable young man.

However--" He smothered a yawn with his hand, selected a cigar

from his case, carefully cut off the end and lighted it. "Poor devil,"

he murmured, presently, and rose, remarking that he might as well take

a turn or two around the farmyard as a first aid to digestion.

Once outside, he walked to the edge of the mesa and gazed down the

moon-lit San Gregorio. Half a mile away he saw a moving black spot on

the white ribbon of road. "Confound you," he murmured, "you're going

to get some of my tail feathers, but not quite the handful you

anticipate. You cannot stand the acid test, Don Mike, and I'm glad to

know that."