He looked up with a smiling nod.  “I’m making big medicine, Mrs. Parker.  So big, in fact,” he continued, as he folded his napkin and thrust it carefully into the ring, “that I am going to ask your permission to withdraw.  I have been very remiss in my social duties.  I have been home twenty-four hours and I have passed the Mission de la Madre Dolorosa three times, yet I have not been inside to pay my respects to my old friends there.  I shall be in disgrace if I fail to call this evening for Father Dominic’s blessing.  They’ll be wondering why I neglect them.”

“How do you know they know you’re home?” Parker demanded, suspiciously.  He was wondering if Don Miguel’s excuse to leave the table might have some connection with Bill Conway and the impending imbroglio.

“Brother Flavio told me so to-night.  As we rode down the valley he was ringing the Angelus; and after the Angelus he played on the chimes, ‘I’m Nearer Home To-day.’  May I be excused, Mrs. Parker?”

“By all means, Michael.”

“Thank you.”  He included them all in a courteous nod of farewell.  They heard the patio gate close behind him.

“I wish I dared follow him,” Parker observed.  “I wonder if he really is going down to the Mission.  I think I’ll make certain.”

He left the room, went out to the patio gate, opened it slightly and peered out.  His host’s tall form, indistinct in the moonlight, was disappearing toward the palm-lined avenue, so Parker, satisfied that Don Mike had embarked upon the three-mile walk to the Mission, returned to the dining-room.

“Well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” Kay queried.

“I think he’s headed for the Mission, after all, Kay.”

“I never doubted it.”

“Why?”

“Because he wouldn’t tell a trifling lie to deceive when there was no necessity for deceiving.  His plans are fully matured and he will not act until morning.  In that three-mile walk to the Mission he will perfect the details of his plan of attack.”

“Then he is planning?—­but you said his plans are fully matured.  How do you know, Kay?”

“He told me all about them as we were riding in this evening.”  Both Parker and his wife raised interrogatory eyebrows.  “Indeed!” Mrs. Parker murmured.  “So he’s honoring you with his confidences already?”

The girl ignored her mother’s bantering tones.  “No, he didn’t tell me in confidence.  In fact, his contemplated procedure is so normal and free from guile that he feels there is no necessity for secrecy.  I suppose he feels that it would be foolish to conceal the trap after the mouse has been caught in it.”

“Well, little daughter, I haven’t been caught—­yet.  And I’m not a mouse, but considerable of an old fox.  What’s he up to?”

“He’s going to sell you his equity in the ranch.”

Her father stared hard at her, a puzzled little smile beginning to break over his handsome face.