ry eyebrows. "Indeed!" Mrs.
Parker murmured. "So he's honoring you with his confidences already?"

The girl ignored her mother's bantering tones. "No, he didn't tell me
in confidence. In fact, his contemplated procedure is so normal and
free from guile that he feels there is no necessity for secrecy. I
suppose he feels that it would be foolish to conceal the trap after the
mouse has been caught in it."

"Well, little daughter, I haven't been caught--yet. And I'm not a
mouse, but considerable of an old fox. What's he up to?"

"He's going to sell you his equity in the ranch."

Her father stared hard at her, a puzzled little smile beginning to
break over his handsome face.

"That sounds interesting," he replied, dryly. "What am I going to pay
for it?"

"Half a million dollars."

"Nonsense."

"Perhaps. But you'll have to admit that his reasoning is not so
preposterous as you think." And she went on to explain to Parker every
angle of the situation as Don Mike viewed it.

Both Parker and his wife listened attentively. "Well, John," the good
soul demanded, when her daughter had finished speaking: "What's wrong
with that prescription?"

"By George, that young man has a head on his shoulders. His reasoning
is absolutely flawless. However, I am not going to pay him any
half-million dollars. I might, in a pinch, consider paying him half
that, but--"

"Would a quit-claim deed be worth half a million to you, Dad?"

"As a matter of cold business, it would. Are you quite certain he was
serious?"

"Oh, quite serious."

"He's a disappointment, Kay. I had hoped he would prove to be a
worth-while opponent, for certainly he is a most likable young man.
However--" He smothered a yawn with his hand, selected a cigar
from his case, carefully cut off the end and lighted it. "Poor devil,"
he murmured, presently, and rose, remarking that he might as well take
a turn or two around the farmyard as a first aid to digestion.

Once outside, he walked to the edge of the mesa and gazed down the
moon-lit San Gregorio. Half a mile away he saw a moving black spot on
the white ribbon of road. "Confound you," he murmured, "you're going
to get some of my tail feathers, but not quite the handful you
anticipate. You cannot stand the acid test, Don Mike, and I'm glad to
know that."

CHAPTER XXIII

As Farrel approached the Mission de la Madre Dolorosa, a man in the
rusty brown habit of a Franciscan friar rose f