“Oh, John, dear, I’m so glad.”  There were tears in Mrs. Parker’s eyes.  “Aren’t you, John?”

“No, I’m not,” he replied savagely.  “I think it’s an outrage and I’d speak to Farrel about it if it were not apparent nobody realizes more keenly than does he the utter impossibility of permitting his fancy to wander in that direction.”

“John Parker, you’re a hard-hearted man,” she cried, and left him in high dudgeon, to disappear into the garden.  As the gate closed behind her, John Parker drew forth his pocket book and abstracted from it a hundred-dollar bill, which he handed to Pablo Artelan.

“We have had our little differences, Pablo,” he informed that astounded individual, “but we’re gradually working around toward a true spirit of brotherly love.  In the language of the classic, Pablo, I’m here to tell the cock-eyed world that you’re one good Indian.”

Pablo swept his old sombrero to the ground, “Gracias, senor_, mille gracias_,” he murmured, and shuffled away with his prize.

Verily, the ways of this Gringo were many and mysterious.  To-day one hated him; to-morrow—­

“There is no doubt about it,” Pablo soliloquized, “it is better to be the head of a mouse than the tail of a lion!”

CHAPTER XXX

The following day Don Mike, Pablo and the latter’s male relatives, who had so mysteriously appeared on the premises, were early ahorse, driving to El Toro the three hundred-odd head of cattle of all ages and sizes rounded up on the Palomar.  The cattle were corraled at a ranch half-way to El Toro the first night, and there watered and fed; the following night they were in the cattle pens at El Toro, and the following day Farrel loaded them aboard the cars and shipped them out to Los Angeles, accompanying the shipment personally.  Two days later he was back on the ranch, and the Parkers noticed that his exuberant spirits had not in the least subsided.

“I’d give a ripe peach to know what that fellow is up to,” John Parker complained.  “Confidentially, I’ve had him shadowed from the moment he arrived in Los Angeles until the moment he returned to El Toro and started back for the ranch.  He has conferred with nobody except the stock-yard people.  Nevertheless, he has a hen on.”

“Yes, and that hen will hatch a young bald-headed eagle to scratch your eyes out,” his daughter reminded him, whereat he chuckled.

“Old Bill Conway’s drilling away at his dam-site,” he volunteered presently, “and his suit against me for damages, due to breach of contract, is set for trial so far down Judge Morton’s calendar that the old judge will have to use a telescope to find it.  However, I shouldn’t charge the judge with a lack of interest in my affairs, for he has rendered a judgment in my favor in the matter of that mortgage foreclosure and announced from the bench that if this judgment doesn’t stick he’ll throw the case out of court the next time it is presented for trial.  I wonder what Farrel’s next move will be?”