nced a race of six furlongs for ladies' saddle-horses, to
be ridden by their owners.

"You ought to win that with Panchito," he suggested to Kay.

Kay's heart beat happily. In Farrel's suggestion that she ride
Panchito in this race she decided that here was evidence that her host
did not contemplate any action that would tend to render the ranch
untenable for her prior to the _fiesta_; indeed, there was nothing in
his speech or bearing that indicated the slightest mental perturbation
now that he had discovered the compact existing between her and Bill
Conway. Perhaps his pride was not so high as she had rated it; what if
her action had been secretly pleasing to him?

Somehow, Kay found this latter thought disturbing and distasteful. It
was long past midnight before she could dismiss the enigma from her
thoughts and fall asleep.

It was later than that, however, before Don Miguel Jose Federico
Noriaga Farrel dismissed her from his thoughts and succumbed to the
arms of Morpheus. For quite a while after retiring to his room he sat
on the edge of the bed, rubbing his toes with one hand and holding Bill
Conway's promissory note before him with the other.

"That girl and her mother are my secret allies," he soliloquized.
"Bless their dear kind hearts. Kay has confided in Conway and for
reasons best known to himself he has secretly accepted of her aid. Now
I wonder," he continued, "what the devil actuates her to double-cross
her own father in favor of a stranger?"

He tucked the note back in his pocket, removed a sock and rubbed the
other foot thoughtfully. "Well, whatever happens," he decided
eventually, "I've got to keep my secret to myself, while at the same
time effectually preventing this young lady from advancing Bill Conway
any further funds for my relief. I cannot afford her pity or her
charity; I can accept her sympathy, but not her aid. Conway cannot
have so soon spent much of the money he borrowed from her, and if I
insist on the cessation of operations in the Basin he'll promptly give
her back her fifty thousand dollars in order to save the interest
charges; in the meantime I shall mail Kay the note in a plain white
envelope, with the address typewritten, so she will never know where it
came from, for of course she'll have to hand Bill back his canceled
note when he pays it."

He blew out the light and retired, not to sleep, but to revolve plan
after plan for the salvation of the ranch. To float a