aking long enough
to play, although I begged him with tears in my eyes. And I'm not the
crying kind, either. And every time he disobeyed, he blew up. Miguel,
he came home to me as hysterical as a high-school girl, wept on my
shoulder, said he'd kill himself if he couldn't get more sleep, and
then surrendered and permitted me to take him away for six months.
Strange to relate, his business got along very nicely without him. Am
I not right, Kay?"

"You are, mother dear. Dad reminds me of a horse at a livery-stable
fire. You rescue him from the flames, but the instant you let go his
halter-shank, he dashes into the burning barn." She winked ever so
slightly at Farrel. "Thanks to you, Don Mike," she assured him,
"father's claws are clipped for one year; thanks to you, again, we now
have a nice, quiet place to incarcerate him."

Farrel could see that John Parker, while outwardly appearing to enjoy
this combined attack against him, was secretly furious. And Don Mike
knew why. His pride as a business man was being cruelly lacerated; he
had foolishly crawled out on the end of a limb, and now there was a
probability, although a remote one, that Miguel Farrel would saw off
the limb before he could crawl back.

"Perhaps, Mr. Farrel," he replied, with a heroic attempt at jocularity,
"you will understand now that it was not altogether a cold hard heart
that prompted me to decline your request for a renewal of the mortgage
this morning. I couldn't afford to. I had agreed to gamble one
million dollars that you were thoroughly and effectually dead--I
couldn't see one chance in a million where this ranch would get away
from me."

"Well, do not permit yourself to become down-hearted, Mr. Parker," Don
Mike assured him whimsically. "I cannot see one chance in a million
where you are going to lose it."

"Thank you for the heartening effect of those words, Mr. Farrel."

"I think I understand the reason underlying all this speed, Mr. Parker.
You and Okada feared that next year the people of this state will so
amend their faulty anti-alien land law of 1913 that it will be
impossible for any Oriental to own or lease California land then. So
you proceeded with your improvements during the redemption period,
confident that the ranch would never be redeemed, in order that you
might be free to deal with Okada before the new law went into effect.
Okada would not deal with you until he was assured the water could be
gotten on th