d through the low sage and
weeds; from the purpling hillsides cock quails called cheerily to their
families to come right home. The air was still and cool, heavy with
the perfume of sage, blackberry briars, _yerba santa_, an occasional
bay tree and the pungent odor of moist earth and decaying vegetation.
There had fallen upon the land that atmosphere of serenity, of peace,
that is the peculiar property of California's foothill valleys in the
late afternoon; the world seemed very distant and not at all desirable,
and to Kay there came a sudden, keen realization of how this man beside
her must love this darkling valley with the hills above presenting
their flower-clad breasts to the long spears of light from the dying
day. . . .

Don Mike had caught the spirit of the little choristers of his hidden
valley, she heard him singing softly in rather a pleasing baritone
voice:

Pienso en ti, Teresita mia,
Cuando la luna alumbra la tierra
He sentido el fuego de tus ojos,
He sentido las penas del amor.

"What does it mean?" she demanded, imperiously.

"Oh, it's a very ordinary little sentiment, Miss Kay. The Spanish
cavalier, having settled himself under his lady's window, thrums a
preliminary chord or two, just to let her and the family know he's not
working on the sly; then he says in effect: 'I think of thee, my little
Tessie, when the moonlight is shining on the world; your bright eyes
have me going for fair, kid, and due to a queer pain in my interior, I
know I'm in love.'"

"You outrageous Celt!"

He chuckled. "A Spaniard takes his love very seriously. He's got to
be sad and despairing about it, even when he knows very well the girl
is saying to herself: 'For heaven's sake, when will this windy bird get
down to brass tacks and pop the question?' He droops like a stale
eschscholtzia, only, unlike that flower he hasn't sense enough to shut
up for the night!"

Her beaming face turned toward him was ample reward for his casual
display of Celtic wit, his knowledge of botany. And suddenly she saw
his first real smile--a flash of beautiful white teeth and a wrinkling
of the skin around the merry eyes. It came and went like a flicker of
lightning; the somber man was an insouciant lad again.

A quarter of a mile across the valley they found the torn and mutilated
carcass of a heifer, with a day-old calf grieving beside her.

"This is the work of our defunct friend, the panther," Farrel
explained. "He ha