“I shipped for the cruise, Don Mike,” she assured him.  “May I ride home with you?  Remember, you’ve got to pick up your rope and that panther’s pelt.”  Her adorable face flushed faintly as her gaze sought her mother’s.  “I have never seen a panther undressed,” she protested.

“Well,” her amiable mother replied, with her customary hearty manner, “far be it from me to deprive you of that interesting sight.  Take good care of her, Miguel.  I hold you responsible for her.”

“You are very kind to trust me so.”

Both Parker and his wife noted that his words were not mere polite patter.  Farrel’s gravely courteous bearing, his respectful bow to Mrs. Parker and the solemnity with which he spoke impressed them with the conviction that this curious human study in light and shadow regarded their approval as an honor, not a privilege.

“I shall take very good care of Miss Kay,” he supplemented.  “We shall be home for dinner.”

He mounted the gray gelding, leaving Pablo to follow with the black mare and the pinto, while he and Kay cantered down the wide white wash of the Rio San Gregorio.

From their semi-concealment among the young willow growth, scrub cattle gazed at them or fled, with tails aloft, for more distant thickets; cottontail rabbits and an occasional jack-rabbit, venturing forth as the shadows grew long in the valley, flashed through the low sage and weeds; from the purpling hillsides cock quails called cheerily to their families to come right home.  The air was still and cool, heavy with the perfume of sage, blackberry briars, yerba santa, an occasional bay tree and the pungent odor of moist earth and decaying vegetation.  There had fallen upon the land that atmosphere of serenity, of peace, that is the peculiar property of California’s foothill valleys in the late afternoon; the world seemed very distant and not at all desirable, and to Kay there came a sudden, keen realization of how this man beside her must love this darkling valley with the hills above presenting their flower-clad breasts to the long spears of light from the dying day. . . .

Don Mike had caught the spirit of the little choristers of his hidden valley, she heard him singing softly in rather a pleasing baritone voice: 

  Pienso en ti, Teresita mia,
  Cuando la luna alumbra la tierra
  He sentido el fuego de tus ojos,
  He sentido las penas del amor.

“What does it mean?” she demanded, imperiously.

“Oh, it’s a very ordinary little sentiment, Miss Kay.  The Spanish cavalier, having settled himself under his lady’s window, thrums a preliminary chord or two, just to let her and the family know he’s not working on the sly; then he says in effect:  ’I think of thee, my little Tessie, when the moonlight is shining on the world; your bright eyes have me going for fair, kid, and due to a queer pain in my interior, I know I’m in love.’”