tter half declared hopelessly. "If he is,
he possesses the ability to conceal it admirably."

"I'll bet he's a good poker-player. He has you guessing, old girl, and
the man who does that is a _rara avis_. However, Katie dear, if I were
you I wouldn't worry about this--er--affair."

"John, I can't help it. Naturally, I'm curious to know the thoughts in
the back of that boy's head, but when he turns that smiling innocent
face toward me, all I can see is old-fashioned deference and amiability
and courtesy. I watch him when he's talking to Kay--when he cannot
possibly know I am snooping, and still, except for that frank
friendliness, his face is as communicative as this old adobe wall. A
few days ago he rode in from the range with a great cluster of wild
tiger-lilies--and he presented them to me. Any other young man would
have presented them to my daughter."

"I give it up, Kate, and suggest that we turn this mystery over to
Father Time. He'll solve it."

"But I don't want Kay to fall in love with Don Mike if he isn't going
to fall in love with her," she protested, in her earnestness raising
her voice, as was frequently her habit.

The patio gate latch clicked and Pablo Artelan stood in the aperture.

"_Senora_," he said gravely. "Ef I am you I don' worry very much about
those boy. Before hee's pretty parteecular. All those hightone'
_senorita_ in El Toro she give eet the sweet look to Don Miguel, jus'
the same like thees--" Here Pablo relaxed his old body, permitted
his head to loll sideways and his lower jaw to hang slackly, the while
his bloodshot eyes gazed amorously into the branches of the catalpa
tree. "But those boy he don' pay some attention. Hee's give beeg
smile to thees _senorita_, beeg smile to thees one, beeg smile to that
one, beeg smile for all the mama, but for the _querida_ I tell to you
Don Miguel hee's pretty parteecular. I theenk to myself--Carolina,
too--'Look here, Pablo. What he ees the matter weeth those boy? I
theenk mebbeso those boy she's goin' be old bach. What's the matter
here? When I am twenty-eight _anos_ my oldes' boy already hee's bust
one bronco'." Here Pablo paused to scratch his head. "But now," he
resumed, "by the blood of those devil I know sometheeng!"

"What do you know, you squidgy-nosed old idol, you?" Parker demanded,
with difficulty repressing his laughter.

"I am ol' man," Pablo answered with just the correct shade of
deprecation, "but long time ago