ou--provided, of course, Kay agrees to this course. He's her mount,
you know, while she's on El Palomar."

Parker turned to his daughter. "Kay," he demanded, "do you love your
poor old father?"

"Yes, I do, pa, but you can't have Panchito until you do something for
me."

"Up jumped the devil! What do you want?"

"If you accept a favor from Miguel Farrel you ought to be sport enough
to grant him one. If you ever expect to see Panchito in your racing
colors out in front at the American Derby, Miguel must have a renewal
of his mortgage."

"Oh, the devil take that mortgage. You and your mother never give me a
moment's peace about it. You make me feel like a criminal; it's
getting so I'll have to sit around playing mumbley-peg in order to get
a thrill in my old age. You win, Kay. Farrel, I will grant you a
renewal of the mortgage. I'm weary of being a Shylock."

"Thanks ever so much. I do not desire it, Mr. Parker. One of these
bright days when I get around to it, and provided luck breaks my way,
I'll take up that mortgage before the redemption period expires. I
have resolved to live my life free from the shadow of an accursed
mortgage. Let me see, now. We were talking about horse-racing, were
we not?"

"Miguel Farrel, you'd anger a sheep," Parker cried wrathfully, and
strode away toward his automobile waiting in the infield. Kay and Don
Mike watched him drive straight across the valley to the road and turn
in the direction of El Toro.

"Wilder than a March hare," Don Mike commented.

"Not at all," Kay assured him. "He's merely risking his life in his
haste to reach El Toro and telegraph Dan Leighton to report
immediately."

CHAPTER XXXI

John Parker's boredom had been cured by a stop-watch. One week after
Panchito had given evidence of his royal breeding, Parker's old
trainer, Dan Leighton, arrived at the Palomar. Formerly a jockey, he
was now in his fiftieth year, a wistful little man with a puckered,
shrewd face, which puckered more than usual when Don Mike handed him
Panchito's pedigree.

"He's a marvelous horse, Danny," Parker assured the old trainer.

"No thanks to him. He ought to be," Leighton replied. His cool glance
measured Allesandro Trujillo, standing hard by. "I'll have that dusky
imp for an exercise boy," he announced. "He's built like an
aeroplane--all superstructure and no solids."

For a month the training of Panchito went on each morning. Pablo's
grandson, u