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 identity 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 assets."

"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 assets."

"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."

"So we are, Don Mike. Tell me all about this ancient feud with Andre
Loustalot."

"Certainly. Twenty-five-odd years ago, this county was pestered by a
gang of petty cow-thieves. They'd run lots of from ten to twenty fat
steers off the range at a time, slaughter them in El Toro, and bury the
hides to conceal the identity of the animals--the brands, you
understand. The meat they would peddle to butchers in towns along the
railroad line. The ringleader owned a slaughter-house in El Toro, and,
for a long time, nobody suspected him--the cattle were driven in at
night. Well, my father grew weary of this form of old-fashioned
profiteering, and it seemed to him that the sheriff of San Marcos
County was too great a simpleton to do anything about it. So my father
stood for the office as an independent candidate and was elected on a
platform which read, 'No steers' taken off this ranch without
permission in writing from the owner.' Within six months, dad had half
a dozen of our prominent citizens in San Quentin Penitentiary; then he
resigned the office to his chief deputy, Don Nicolas Sandoval, who has
held it ever since.

"Now, during that political campaign, which was a warm and bitter one,
Andre Loustalot permitted himself the privilege of libeling my father.
He declared in a public address to a gathering of voters in the San
Carpojo valley that my father was a crook, the real leader of the
r