vy load, but while the pack-straps hold
and I can stand and see, I'll carry it. I'll fight this man Parker up to
the moment he hands the county recorder the commissioner's deed and the
Rancho Palomar has slipped out of my hands forever. But I'll fight fair.
That splendid girl--ah, pooh! Why am I thinking of her?"

Disgusted with himself for having entertained, for a fleeting instant, a
slight sentimental consideration for the daughter of his enemy--for as
such he now regarded this man who planned to colonize the San Gregorio
with Japanese farmers--he got out of bed and under the cold shower-bath
he had installed in the adjoining room years before. It, together with
the tub-bath formerly used by his father, was the only plumbing in the
hacienda, and Farrel was just a little bit proud of it. He shaved,
donned clean linen and an old dressing-gown, and from his closet brought
forth a pair of old tan riding-boots, still in an excellent state of
repair. From his army-kit he produced a boot-brush and a can of tan
polish, and fell to work, finding in the accustomed task some slight
surcease from his troubles.

His boots polished to his satisfaction, he selected from the stock of old
civilian clothing a respectable riding-suit of English whip-cord,
inspected it carefully for spots, and, finding none, donned it. A clean
starched chambray shirt, set off by a black-silk Windsor tie, completed
his attire, with the exception of a soft, wide, flat-brimmed gray-beaver
hat, and stamped him as that which he had once been but was no longer--a
California rancher of taste and means somewhat beyond the average.

It was twenty-five minutes past eight when he concluded his leisurely
toilet; so he stepped out of his room, passed round two sides of the
porched patio, and entered the dining-room. The long dining-table, hewed
by hand from fir logs by the first of the Noriagas, had its rough defects
of manufacture mercifully hidden by a snow-white cloth, and he noted with
satisfaction that places had been set for five persons. He hung his hat
on a wall-peg and waited with his glance on the door.

Promptly at eight-thirty, Carolina, smiling, happy, resplendent in a
clean starched calico dress of variegated colors, stepped outside the
door and rang vigorously a dinner-bell that had called three generations
of Noriagas and an equal number of generations of Farrels to their meals.
As its musical notes echoed through the dewy patio, Murray, t