“You forget, Farrel, that I’m a regular-army man, and we poor devils get accustomed to being uprooted.  I’ve learned not to build castles in Spain, and I never believe I’m going to get a leave until the old man hands me the order.  Even then, I’m always fearful of an order recalling it.”

“You’re missing a lot of happiness, sir.  Why, I really believe I’ve had more fun out of the anticipation of my home-coming than I may get out of the realization.  I’ve planned every detail for months, and, if anything slips, I’m liable to sit right down and bawl like a kid.”

“Let’s listen to your plan of operations, Farrel,” the captain suggested.  “I’ll never have one myself, in all probability, but I’m child enough to want to listen to yours.”

“Well, in the first place, I haven’t communicated with my father since landing here.  He doesn’t know I’m back in California, and I do not want him to know until I drop in on him.”

“And your mother, Farrel?"’

“Died when I was a little chap.  No brothers or sisters.  Well, if I had written him or wired him when I first arrived, he would have had a week of the most damnable suspense, because, owing to the uncertainty of the exact date of our demobilization, I could not have informed him of the exact time of my arrival home.  Consequently, he’d have had old Carolina, our cook, dishing up nightly fearful quantities of the sort of grub I was raised on.  And that would be wasteful.  Also, he’d sit under the catalpa tree outside the western wall of the hacienda and never take his eyes off the highway from El Toro or the trail from Sespe.  And every night after the sun had set and I’d failed to show up, he’d go to bed heavy-hearted.  Suspense is hard on an old man, sir.”

“On young men, too.  Go on.”

“Well, I’ll drop off the train to-morrow afternoon about four o’clock at a lonely little flag-station called Sespe.  After the train leaves Sespe, it runs south-west for almost twenty miles to the coast, and turns south to El Toro.  Nearly everybody enters the San Gregorio from El Toro, but, via the short-cut trail from Sespe, I can hike it home in three hours and arrive absolutely unannounced and unheralded.

“Now, as I pop up over the mile-high ridge back of Sespe, I’ll be looking down on the San Gregorio while the last of the sunlight still lingers there.  You see, sir, I’m only looking at an old picture I’ve always loved.  Tucked away down in the heart of the valley, there is an old ruin of a mission—­the Mission de la Madre Dolorosa—­the Mother of Sorrows.  The light will be shining on its dirty white walls and red-tiled roof, and I’ll sit me down in the shade of a manzanita bush and wait, because that’s my valley and I know what’s coming.