parted for the county garage, where the car would be stored until sold
at auction.

"Who let you out of my calaboose, Loustalot?" Don Mike queried amiably.

"That high-toned Jap friend of Parker's," the Basque replied, with
malicious enjoyment.

"I'm glad it wasn't Mr. Parker. Well, you stayed there long enough to
serve my purpose. By the way, your sheep are trespassing again."

"They aren't my sheep."

"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.

"Home, William," she ordered the driver, and they departed from El Toro,
leaving Andre Loustalot standing on the sidewalk staring balefully after
them.

They were half-way home before Don Mike came out of the reverie into
which that glance of Loustalot's had, apparently, plunged him.

"Some day very soon," he said, "I shall have to kill that man or be
killed. And I'm sorry my guest, Mr. Okada, felt it incumbent upon
himself to interfere. If, between them, they have hurt Pablo, I shall
certainly reduce the extremely erroneous Japanese census records in
California by one."

XVII

John Parker and his wife, with the unsuspecting Okada, were lingering
over a late luncheon when Kay and Don Mike entered the dining-room.

"Well, you bold Spanish cavalier, what do you mean by running away with
my little girl?" Mrs. Parker demanded.

Before Farrel could reply, Kay answered for him.

"We've had quite a wild and woolly Western adventure, mother dear.
Have you seen Pablo since we left together?"

"I have," the lady replied. "He had Monsieur Loustalot in charge, and
related to us the details of the adventure up to the moment you and Mr.
Farrel left him with the prisoner while you two continued on to El
Toro. What happened in El Toro?"

"Don Mike succeeded in attaching Loustalot's bank-account," Kay
informed the company. "The loot will probably amount to something over
fifty thousand dollars."

"I should say that isn't a half-bad stipend to draw for your first
half-day pursuit of the nimble cart-wheel of commerce," Parker
suggested.

Mrs. Parker pursed her lips comically.

"The boy is clever, John. I k