nder Danny Leighton's tuition, proved an excellent exercise
boy. He learned to sit his horse in the approved jockey fashion; proud
beyond measure at the part he was playing, he paid strict attention to
Leighton's instructions and progressed admirably.

Watching the horse develop under skilled scientific training, it
occurred to Don Mike each time he held his father's old stop-watch on
Panchito that race-horses had, in a great measure, conduced to the ruin
of the Noriagas and Farrels, and something told him that Panchito was
likely to prove the instrument for the utter financial extinction of
the last survivor of that famous tribe. "If he continues to improve,"
Farrel told himself, "he's worth a bet--and a mighty heavy one.
Nevertheless, Panchito's grandfather, leading his field by six open
lengths in the home-stretch, going strong and a sure-fire winner,
tangled his feet, fell on his nose and cost my father a thousand steers
six months before they were ready for market. I ought to leave John
Parker to do all the betting on Panchito, but--well, he's a
race-horse--and I'm a Farrel."

"When will Panchito be ripe to enter in a mile and a sixteenth race?"
he asked Parker.

"About the middle of November. The winter meeting will be on at Tia
Juana, Baja California, then, and Leighton wants to give him a few
try-outs there in fast company over a much shorter course. We will win
with him in a field of ordinary nags and we will be careful not to win
too far or too spectacularly. We have had his registry brought up to
date and of course you will be of record as his owner. In view of our
plans, it would never do for Danny and me to be connected with him in
any way."

Don Mike nodded and rode over to Agua Caliente Basin to visit Bill
Conway. Mr. Conway was still on the job, albeit Don Mike hazarded a
guess that the old schemer had spent almost two hundred thousand
dollars. His dam was, as he facetiously remarked, "taking concrete
shape," and he was rushing the job in order to have the structure
thoroughly dry and "set" against the coming of the winter rains. To
his signal relief, Farrel asked him no embarrassing questions regarding
the identity of the extremely kind-hearted person who was financing
him; he noticed that his young friend appeared a trifle pre-occupied
and depressed. And well he might be. The secret knowledge that he was
obligated to Kay Parker to the extent of the cost of this dam was
irritating to hi