, he broke our fences to let his sheep in to water at our
waterholes, which was very annoying to us, because sheep befoul a range
and destroy it; they eat down to the very grass-roots, and cattle will
not drink at a water-hole patronized by sheep. Well, our patience was
exhausted at last; so my father told Pablo to put out saltpeter at all
of our water-holes. Saltpeter is not harmful to cattle but it is death
to sheep, and the only way we could keep Loustalot off our range
without resorting to firearms was to make his visits unprofitable.
They were. That made Loustalot hate us, and one day, over in the Agua
Caliente basin, when Pablo and his riders found Loustalot and his sheep
there, they rushed about five hundred of his sheep over a rocky bench
and dropped them a sheer two hundred feet into a canon. That started
some shooting, and Pablo's brother and my first cousin, Juan Galvez,
were killed. Loustalot, wounded, escaped on the pack-mule belonging to
his sheep outfit, and after that he and my father didn't speak."

Kay turned in her seat and looked at Farrel curiously.

"If you were not so desperately situated financially," she wanted to
know, "would you continue to pursue this man?"

He smiled grimly.

"Certainly. My father's honor, the blood of my kinsman, and the blood
of a faithful servant call for justice, however long delayed. Also,
the honor of my state demands it now. I am prepared to make any
sacrifice, even of my life, and grasp eagerly at all legal means--to
prevent your father putting through tins monstrous deal with Okada."

She was troubled of soul.

"Of course," she pleaded presently, "you'll play the game with dad as
fairly as he plays it with you."

"I shall play the game with him as fairly as he plays it with this land
to which he owes allegiance," he corrected her sternly.

XVI

It was eleven o'clock when the car rolled down the main street of El
Toro. From the sidewalk, sundry citizens, of diverse shades of color and
conditions of servitude, observing Minuet Farrel, halted abruptly and
stared as if seeing a ghost. Don Mike wanted to shout to them glad words
of greeting, of affectionate badinage, after the fashion of that
easy-going and democratic community, but he feared to make the girl at
his side conspicuous; so he contented himself by uncovering gravely to
the women and waving debonairly to the men. This constituting ocular
evidence that he was not a ghost or a man who