ieve," he said, smiling, "that it is most unusual of young men to
show such selfish disregard of your expressed desires."

"Flatterer! I like him all the more for it. He's a man with some
backbone."

"So I noticed. He wears the ribbon of the Congressional Medal of
Honor. Evidently he is given to exceeding the speed-limit. Did he
tell you how he won that pale-blue ribbon with the little white stars
sprinkled on it?"

"He did not. Such men never discuss those things."

"Well, they raise fighting men in the San Gregorio, at any rate," her
father continued. "Two Medal-of-Honor men came out of it. Old Don
Miguel Farrel's boy was awarded one posthumously. I was in El Toro the
day the commanding general of the Western Department came down from San
Francisco and pinned the medal on old Don Miguel's breast. The old
fellow rode in on his son's horse, and when the little ceremony was
over, he mounted and rode back to the ranch alone. Not a tear, not a
quiver. He looked as regal as the American eagle--and as proud.
Looking at that old don, one could readily imagine the sort of son he
had bred. The only trouble with the Farrels," he added, critically,
"was that they and work never got acquainted. If these old
Californians would consent to imbibe a few lessons in industry and
economy from their Japanese neighbors, their wonderful state would be
supporting thirty million people a hundred years from now."

"I wonder how many of that mythical thirty millions would be Japs?" she
queried, innocently.

"That is a problem with which we will not have to concern ourselves,
Kay, because we shall not be here."

"Some day, popsy-wops, that soldier will drop in at our ranch and lock
horns with you on the Japanese question."

"When he does," Parker replied, good-naturedly, "I shall make a
star-spangled monkey out of him. I'm loaded for these Californians.
I've investigated their arguments, and they will not hold water, I tell
you. I'll knock out the contentions of your unknown knight like
tenpins in a bowling-alley. See if I don't."

"He's nobody's fool, dad."

"Quite so. He knows why young turkeys are hard to raise in the fall?"

She bent upon him a radiant smile of the utmost good humor.

"Score one for the unknown knight," she bantered. "That is more than
we know. And turkey was sixty cents a pound last Thanksgiving!
Curious information from our view-point, perhaps, but profitable."

He chuckled over his sala