Brother Anthony, whose sense of humor, had he ever possessed one, had long since been ruined in his battles with Father Dominic’s automobile, raised a dour face.

“Speaking of Don Miguel, I am informed that our young Don Miguel has gone to Baja California, there to race Panchito publicly for a purse of ten thousand dollars gold.  I would, Father Dominic, that I might see that race.”

Father Dominic laid his hand on poor Brother Anthony’s shoulder.  “Because you have suffered for righteousness’ sake, Brother Anthony, your wish shall be granted.  Tomorrow you shall drive Pablo and Carolina and me to Tia Juana in Baja California to see Panchito race on the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day.  We will attend mass in San Diego in the morning and pray for victory for him and his glorious young master.”

Big tears stood in Brother Anthony’s eyes.  At last!  At last!  Poor Brother Anthony was a human being, albeit his reason tottered on its throne at certain times of the moon.  He did love race-horses and horse-races, and for a quarter of a century he had been trying to forget them in the peace and quiet of the garden of the Mission de la Madre Dolorosa.

“Our Don Mike has made this possible?” he quavered.  Father Dominic nodded.

“God will pay him,” murmured Brother Anthony, and hastened away to the chapel to remind the Almighty of the debt.

Against the journey to Baja California, Carolina had baked a tremendous pot of brown beans and fried a hundred tortillas.  Pablo had added some twenty pounds of jerked meat and chilli peppers, a tarpaulin Don Mike had formerly used when camping, and a roll of bedding; and when Brother Anthony called for them at daylight the following morning, both were up and arrayed in their Sunday clothes and gayest colors.  In an empty tobacco sack, worn like an amulet around her fat neck and resting on her bosom, Carolina carried some twenty-eight dollars earned as a laundress to Kay and her mother; while in the pocket of Pablo’s new corduroy breeches reposed the two hundred-dollar bills; given him by the altogether inexplicable Senor Parker.  Knowing Brother Anthony to be absolutely penniless (for he had taken the vow of poverty) Pablo suffered keenly in the realization that Panchito, the pride of El Palomar, was to run in the greatest horse race known to man, with not a centavo of Brother Anthony’s money bet on the result.  Pablo knew better than to take Father Dominic into his confidence when the latter joined them at the Mission, but by the time they had reached El Toro, he had solved the riddle.  He changed one of his hundred dollar bills, made up a little roll of ten two-dollar bills and slipped it in the pocket of the brown habit where he knew Brother Anthony kept his cigarette papers and tobacco.

At Ventura, when they stopped at a garage to take on oil and gasoline, Brother Anthony showed Pablo the roll of bills, amounting to twenty dollars, and ascribed his possession of them to nothing more nor less than a divine miracle.  Pablo agreed with him.  He also noticed that for reasons best known to himself, Brother Anthony made no mention of this miracle to his superior, Father Dominic.