"h.e.l.lo, Conway," Parker greeted him, as the old contractor came into the dining room and hung his battered old hat on a wall peg. "Did you bring back my spark plugs?"

"Did better'n that," Conway retorted. "The porcelain on one plug was cracked and sooner or later you were bound to have trouble with it. So I bought you a new one."

"Do any good for yourself in El Toro this morning?"

"Nope. Managed to put over a couple of deals that will help the boy out a little, though. Attached your bank account and your bank stock.

I would have plastered your two automobiles, but that tender-hearted Miguel declared that was carrying a grudge too far. By the way, where is our genial young host?"

"Horse bucked him off this morning. He lit on a rock and ripped a furrow in his sinful young head. So he's sleeping off a headache."

"Oh, is he badly hurt?" Kay cried anxiously.

"Not fatally," Parker replied with a faintly knowing smile. "But he's weak and dizzy and he's lost a lot of blood; every time he winks for the next month his head will ache, however."

"Which horse policed him?" Bill Conway queried casually.

"The gray one--his father's old horse."

"Hum-m-m!" murmured Conway and pursued the subject no further, nor did he evince the slightest interest in the answers which Parker framed glibly to meet the insistent demand for information from his wife and daughter. The meal concluded, he excused himself and sought Pablo, of whom he demanded and received a meticulous account of the "accident" to Miguel Farrel. For Bill Conway knew that the gray horse never bucked and that Miguel Farrel was a hard man to throw.

"Guess I'll have to sit in at this game," he decided, and forthwith climbed into his rattletrap automobile and returned to El Toro.

During the drive in he surrendered his mind to a contemplation of all of the aspects of the case, and arrived at the following conclusions:

Item. Don Nicolas Sandoval had seen the a.s.sa.s.sin walking in from the south about sunset the day previous. If the fellow had walked all the way across country from La Questa valley he must have started about two P.M.

Item. The Potato Baron had left the Farrel hacienda about one o'clock the same day and had, doubtless, arrived in El Toro about two o'clock.

Evidently he had communicated with the man from La Questa valley (a.s.suming that Don Miguel's a.s.sailant had come from there) by telephone from El Toro.

Arrived in El Toro, Bill Conway drove to the sheriff's office. Don Nicolas Sandoval had returned an hour previous from the Rancho Palomar and to him Conway related the events of the morning. "Now, Nick," he concluded, "you drift over to the telephone office and in your official capacity cast your eye over the record of long distance telephone calls yesterday afternoon and question the girl on duty."

"_Bueno_!" murmured Don Nicolas and proceeded at once to the telephone office. Ten minutes later he returned.

"Okada talked to one Kano Ugichi, of La Questa, at 2:08 yesterday afternoon," he reported.

"Considerable water will run under the bridges before Kano Ugichi returns to the bosom of his family," Conway murmured sympathetically.

"He's so badly spoiled, Nick, we've decided to call him a total loss and not put up any headstone to his memory. It is Farrel's wish that the matter be forgotten by everybody concerned."

"I have already forgotten it, my friend," the urbane Don Nicolas replied graciously, and Bill Conway departed forthwith for the Hotel de Las Rosas.

"Got a j.a.p name of Okada stopping here?" he demanded, and was informed that Mr. Okada occupied room 17, but that he was ill and could not be seen.

"He'll see me," quoth Bill Conway, and clumped up the stairs. He rapped peremptorily on the door of room 17, then tried the k.n.o.b. The door opened and the old contractor stepped into the room to find the Potato Baron sitting up in bed, staring at him. Uttering no word, Bill Conway strode to the bed, seized the j.a.panese by the throat and commenced to choke him with neatness and dispatch. When the man's face was turning purple and his eyes rolling wildly, Conway released his death-grip and his victim fell back on the mattress, whereupon Bill Conway sat down on the edge of the bed and watched life surge back into the little brown man.

"If you let one little peep out of you, Okada," he threatened--and snarled ferociously.

"Please, please," Okada pleaded. "I no unnerstan'. 'Scuse, please.

You make one big mistake, yes, I zink so."

"I do, indeed. I permit you to live, which I wouldn't do if I knew where to hide your body. Listen to me, Okada. You sent a countryman of yours from the La Questa valley over to the Rancho Palomar to kill Don Miguel Farrel. I have the man's name, I know the hour you telephoned to him, I know exactly what you said to him and how much you paid him to do the job. Well, this friend of yours overplayed his hand; he didn't succeed in killing Farrel, but he did succeed in getting himself captured."

He paused, with fine dramatic instinct, to watch the effect of this broadside. A faint nervous twitch of the chin and the eyelids--then absolute immobility. The Potato Baron had a.s.sumed the "poker face" of all Orientals--wherefore Bill Conway knew the man was on his guard and would admit nothing. So he decided not to make any effort to elicit information, but to proceed on the theory that everything was known to him.

"Naturally," he continued, "that man Pablo has ways and means of making even a stubborn j.a.p tell everything he knows. Now listen, O child of Nippon, to the white man's words of wisdom. You're going to depart from El Toro in a general northerly direction and you're going to do it immediately if not sooner. And you're never coming back. The day you do, that day you land in the local calaboose with a charge of conspiracy to commit murder lodged against you. We have the witnesses to prove our case and any time you're tried by a San Marcos County jury before a San Marcos County judge you'll rot in San Quentin for life.

And further: If Miguel Farrel should, within the next two years, die out of his own bed and with his boots on, you will be killed on general principles, whether you're guilty or not. Do I make myself clear or must I ill.u.s.trate the point with motion pictures?"

"Yes, sir. 'Scuse, please. Yes, sir, I zink I go very quick, sir."

"Three cheers! The sooner the quicker--the next train, let us say.

I'll be at the station to see you off."

He was as good as his word. The Potato Baron, mounting painfully the steps of the observation car, made hasty appraisal of the station platform and observed Bill Conway swinging his old legs from his perch on an express truck. He favored Okada with a very deliberate nod and a sweeping, semi-military salute of farewell.

When the train pulled out, the old contractor slid off the express truck and waddled over to his automobile. "Well, Liz," he addressed that interesting relic, "I'll bet a red apple I've put the fear of Buddha in that j.a.p's soul. He won't try any more tricks in San Marcos County. He certainly did a.s.similate my advice and drag it out of town _muy p.r.o.nto_. Well, Liz, as the feller says: 'The wicked flee when no man pursueth and a troubled conscience addeth speed to the hind legs.'"

As he was driving out of town to the place of his labors at Agua Caliente basin, he pa.s.sed the Parker limousine driving in. Between John Parker's wife and John Parker's daughter, Don Miguel Jose Farrel sat with white face and closed eyes. In the seat beside his chauffeur John Parker sat, half turned and gazing at Don Miguel with troubled eyes.

"That girl's sweeter than a royal flush," Bill Conway murmured. "I wonder if she's good for a fifty thousand dollar touch to pay my cement bill pending the day I squeeze it out of her father? Got to have cement to build a dam--got to have cash to get cement--got to have a dam to save the Rancho Palomar--got to have the Rancho Palomar before we can pull off a wedding--got to pull off a wedding in order to be happy--got to be happy or we all go to h.e.l.l together. . . . Well . . .

I'm going down to Miguel's place to dinner to-night. I'll ask her."

The entire Parker family was present when the doctor in El Toro washed and disinfected Farrel's wound and, at the suggestion of Kay, made an X-ray photograph of his head. The plate, when developed, showed a small fracture, the contemplation of which aroused considerable interest in all present, with the exception of the patient. Don Mike was still dizzy; because his vision was impaired he kept his eyes closed; he heard a humming noise as if a lethargic b.u.mble bee had taken up his residence inside the Farrel ears. Kay, observing him closely, realized that he was very weak, that only by the exercise of a very strong will had he succeeded in sitting up during the journey in from the ranch. His brow was cold and wet with perspiration, his breathing shallow; his dark, tanned face was now a greenish gray.

The girl saw a shadow of deep apprehension settle over her father's face as the doctor pointed to the fracture. "Any danger?" she heard him whisper,

The doctor shook his head. "Nothing to worry about. An operation will not be necessary. But he's had a narrow squeak. With whom has he been fighting?"

"Thrown from his horse and struck his head on a rock," Parker replied glibly.

Kay saw the doctor's eyebrows lift slightly. "Did he tell you that was what happened?"

Parker hesitated a moment and nodded an affirmative.

"Wound's too clean for that story to impress me," the doctor whispered.

"Not a speck of foreign matter in it. Moreover, the wound is almost on top of his head. Now, if he had been thrown from a horse and had struck on top of his head on a rock with sufficient force to lacerate his scalp and produce a minor fracture, he would, undoubtedly, have crushed his skull more thoroughly or broken his neck. Also, his face would have been marred more or less! And if that isn't good reasoning, I might add that Miguel Farrel is one of the two or three men in this world who have ridden Cyclone, the most famous outlaw horse in America."

Parker shrugged and, by displaying no interest in the doctor's deductions, brought the conversation to a close.

That the return trip to the ranch, in Don Mike's present condition, was not to be thought of, was apparent from the patient's condition. He was, therefore, removed to the single small hospital which El Toro boasted, and after seeing him in charge of a nurse the Parker family returned to the ranch. Conversation languished during the trip; a disturbed conscience on the part of the father, and on the part of Kay and her mother an intuition, peculiar to their s.e.x and aroused by the doctor's comments, that events of more than ordinary portent had occurred that day, were responsible for this.

At the ranch Parker found his attorney who had motored out from El Toro, waiting to confer with him regarding Bill Conway's adroit manoeuver of the morning. Mrs. Parker busied herself with some fancy work while her daughter sought the Farrel library and pretended to read. An atmosphere of depression appeared to have settled over the rancho; Kay observed that even Pablo moved about in a furtive manner; he cleaned and oiled his rifle and tested the sights with shots at varying ranges. Carolina's face was grave and her sweet falsetto voice was not raised in song once during the afternoon.

About four o'clock when the shadows began to lengthen, Kay observed Pablo riding forth on his old pinto pony. Before him on the saddle he carried a pick and shovel and in reply to her query as to what he purposed doing, he replied that he had to clean out a spring where the cattle were accustomed to drink. So she returned to the library and Pablo repaired to a willow thicket in the sandy wash of the San Gregorio and dug a grave. That night, at twilight, while the family and servants were at dinner, Pablo dragged his problem down to this grave, with the aid of the pinto pony, and hid it forever from the sight of men. Neither directly nor indirectly was his exploit ever referred to again and no inquiry was ever inst.i.tuted to fathom the mystery of the abrupt disappearance of Kano Ugichi. Indeed, the sole regret at his untimely pa.s.sing was borne by Pablo, who, shrinking from the task of removing his riata from his victim (for he had a primitive man's horror of touching the dead), was forced to bury his dearest possession with the adventurer from La Questa--a circ.u.mstance which served still further to strengthen his prejudice against the j.a.panese race.

The following morning Pablo saddled Panchito for Kay and, at her request, followed her, in the capacity of groom, to Bill Conway's camp at Agua Caliente basin. The old schemer was standing in the door of his rough temporary office when Kay rode up; he advanced to meet her.

"Well, young lady," he greeted her, "what's on your mind this morning in addition to that sa.s.sy little hat."

"A number of things. I want to know what really happened to Mr. Farrel yesterday forenoon."