The silence was broken by a terrible cry from Pablo Artelan.

“Allesandro!  I cut your throat!”

Whether Allesandro heard the warning or whether he had decided that affairs had assumed a dangerous pass, matters not.  He rose a trifle in his saddle, leaned far out on Panchito’s withers and delivered himself of a tribal yell.  It was a cry meant for Panchito, and evidently Panchito understood, for he responded with the only answer a gallant race-horse has for such occasions.  A hundred feet from the wire King Agrippa’s wide-flung nostrils were at Panchito’s saddle girth; under the stimulus of a rain of blows he closed the gap again, only to drop back and finish with daylight showing between his head and Panchito’s flowing tail.

Father Dominic stood gazing down the track.  He was trembling violently.  Brother Anthony turned lack-luster eyes toward Farrel.

“You win, Brother Anthony,” Don Mike said quietly.

“How good is God,” murmured Brother Anthony.  “He has granted me a joy altogether beyond my deserts.  And the joy is sufficient.  The money will buy a few shingles for our roof.”  He slumped down in his seat and wiped away great tears.

Pablo waited not for congratulations or exultations, but scrambled down through the grand-stand to the railing, climbed over it and dropped down into the track, along which he jogged until he met Allesandro galloping slowly back with Panchito.  “Little treasure of the world,” he cried to the boy, “I am happy that I do not have to cut your throat,” and he lifted Allesandro out of the saddle and pressed him to his heart.  That was the faint strain of Catalonian blood in Pablo.

Up in the grand-stand Carolina, in her great excitement, forgot that she was Farrel’s cook.  When he was a baby she had nursed him and she loved him for that.  So she waddled down to him with beaming eyes—­and he patted her cheek.

“Father Dominic,” Don Mike called to the old friar, “your Mission Restoration Fund has been increased ten thousand dollars.”

“So?” the gentle old man echoed.  “Behold, Miguel, the goodness of God.  He willed that Panchito should save for you from the heathen one little portion of our dear land; He was pleased to answer my prayers of fifty years that I be permitted to live until I had restored the Mission of our Mother of Sorrows.”  He closed his eyes.  “So many long years the priest,” he murmured, “so many long years!  And I am base enough to be happy in worldly pleasures.  I am still a little old devil.”

Don Mike turned to the stunned book-makers.  “For some reason best known to yourselves,” he addressed them in English, bowing graciously, “you two gentlemen have seen fit to do business with me through this excellent representative of the civil authority of Tia Juana.  We will dispense with his services, if you have no objection.  Here, my good fellow,” he added, and handed the policeman a ten-dollar bill.