"Oh, I understand now," her father a.s.sured 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 j.a.panese 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 j.a.ps?" 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 j.a.panese 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 n.o.body'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 encompa.s.sed the pitiful awakening that was coming to this joyous home-comer. Before she could master her emotions, he was disappearing over the bra.s.s 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 pa.s.sive loyalty of the average American citizen, but with the strange, pa.s.sionate 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 a.s.sociation.

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 una.s.sailable. 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 canon, which they traversed for several miles, climbed a six-per-cent. grade to the crest of a ridge, rolled down into another canon, 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.