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