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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.
"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.
Huge timbers of pine and sycamore, hewn on Palomar, the Mountain of Doves, many miles away, had been hauled by oxen over trackless hill and valley, to form the joists and rafters that one sees to-day, after the lapse of more than a century, firm and serviceable, fastened with wooden spikes and stout rawhide lashings. In all these labors Te filo had taken a principal part.
"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.
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.
"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.
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.
"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.
But as I concentrated again on his other side, the sadness disappeared. Atmananda, I realized, had been using me. I grew angry and scared. My thoughts drifted, and I found myself thinking about a bicycle trip I had taken to Palomar Mountain months before. At the top of the mountain one of my brakes had malfunctioned, so I hitched a ride to a bike shop in Escondido. A plumber had picked me up.
"'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."
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