brought the tears to your eyes at
luncheon to-day?"

"There was a moment, John, when the shadow of a near-break came over his
face. Kay and I both saw it. He looked wistful and lonely and beaten,
and dropped his head like a tired horse, and her heart, her very soul,
went out to him. I saw her hand go out to him, too; she touched his arm
for an instant and then, realizing, she withdrew it. And then I knew!"

"Knew what?"

"That our little daughter, who has been used to queening it over every
man of her acquaintance, is going to batter her heart out against the
pride of Palomar."

"You mean--"

"She loves him. She doesn't know it yet, but I do. Oh, John, I'm old
and wise. I know! If Miguel Farrel were of a piece with the young men
she has always met, I wouldn't worry. But he's so absolutely
different--so natural, so free from that atrocious habit of never being
able to disassociate self from the little, graceful courtesies young men
show women. He's wholesome, free from ego, from that intolerable air of
proprietorship, of masculine superiority and cocksureness that seems so
inseparable from the young men in her set."

"I agree with you, my dear. Many a time I have itched to grasp the
jaw-bone of an ass and spoil a couple of dozen of those young pups with
their story-book notions of life."

"Now, that Don Mike," she continued critically, "is thoughtful of and
very deferential to those to whom deference is due, which characteristic,
coupled with the fact that he is, in a certain sense, a most pathetic
figure at this time, is bound to make a profound impression on any girl
of ready sympathy. And pity is akin to love."

"I see," Parker nodded sagely. "Then you think he'll go down to defeat
with his mouth shut?"

"I'm certain of it, John."

"On the other hand, if he should succeed in sending me down to defeat,
thereby regaining his lost place in the sun, he might--er--"

"Let us be practical, John. Let us call a spade a spade. If he regains
the Rancho Palomar, his thoughts will inevitably turn to the subject of a
mistress for that old hacienda. He has pride of race, I tell you, and he
would be less than human if he could contemplate himself as the last of
that race.

"John, he did not capture that panther alive a few moments ago merely to
be spectacular. His underlying reason was the thirty-dollar bounty on
the pelt and the salvation of his cattle. And he did not capture that
Basque this morn