each
cheek as she faced him, awaiting his explanation. He favored her with
a Latin shrug.

"Your father will not accept the check, Miss Parker. Loustalot came to
the hacienda this morning for the sole purpose of handing him this
check, but your father refused to accept it on the plea that the lease
he had entered into with Loustalot for the grazing-privilege of the
ranch was now null and void."

"How do you know all this? You were not present."

"No; I was not present. Miss Parker, but--this check is present; those
sheep are present; Andre Loustalot was present, then absent, and is now
present again. I deduce the facts in the case. The information that I
was alive and somewhere around the hacienda gave Loustalot the fright
of his unwashed existence; that's why he appropriated that gray horse
and fled so precipitately when he discovered his automobile had a fiat
tire. The scoundrel feared to take time to shift wheels."

"Why?"

"He had the promise of a Farrel that a great misfortune would overtake
him if he ever get foot on the Rancho Palomar. And he knows the tribe
of Farrel."

"But how did you secure possession of that check, Don Mike?"

"Miss Parker, when a hard-boiled, unconvicted murderer and grass-thief
borrows my horse without my permission, and I ride that sort of man
down, upset him, sit on him, and choke him, the instincts of my
ancestors, the custom of the country, common sense, and my late
military training all indicate to me that I should frisk him for deadly
weapons. I did that. Well, I found this check when I frisked
Loustalot back yonder. And--if a poor bankrupt like myself may be
permitted to claim a right, you are not so well entitled to that check
as I am. At least, I claim it by right of discovery."

"It is worthless until my father endorses it, Don Mike."

"His clear, bold chirography will not add a mite to its value, Miss
Parker. Checks by Andre Loustalot on the First National Bank of El
Toro aren't going to be honored for some little time. Why? I'll tell
you. Because Little Mike the Hustler is going to attach his
bank-account this bright April morning."

She laughed happily.

"You haven't wasted much time in vain regret, have you?" she teased
him. "When you start hustling for a living, you're a man what hustles,
aren't you?"

"'Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,'" he quoted. "Those sheep
weren't visible to us from the floor of the valley; so I take it I was