"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 t.i.tle 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 j.a.panese people have very much difficulty to buy land. Attorneys for j.a.panese a.s.sociation of California very much frightened because they know j.a.panese treaty-rights not affected by such law. If my people can buy this valley before that law comes to make trouble for j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese colonization of the San Gregorio."

"You zink he have prejudice against j.a.panese 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 embarra.s.sment 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 const.i.tute the fairest sight mine eyes have gazed upon to date."

"And who might he be?"

"That s.h.a.ggy 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 t.i.tle to them is vested in Andre 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. n.o.body 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 a.s.signed 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 Andre 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; Andre 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 gra.s.s-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 ent.i.tled 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 Andre 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 ident.i.ty 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 a.s.sets."

"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 a.s.sets."

"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."