I had intended to paint the picture that will remain longest in your memory—­the dim candle-light in the white-washed chapel at the Indian Reservation at Pala, during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament—­the young Indian Madonna, with her naked baby lying in her lap, while she sang: 

  “Come, Holy Ghost, creator blest,
  And in my heart take up thy rest.”

But the picture was crowded out in the make-up.  There was too much to write about, and I was always over-set!  I saw and felt, with you, and regarded it as more poignantly pathetic, the tragedy of that little handful of San Luisanos, herded away in the heart of those barren hills to make way for the white man.  And now the white man is almost gone and Father Dominic’s Angelus, ringing from Mission San Luis Rey, falls upon the dull ear of a Japanese farmer, usurping that sweet valley, hallowed by sentiment, by historical association, by the lives and loves and ashes of the men and women who carved California from the wilderness.

I have given to this book the labor of love.  I know it isn’t literature, Mul, but I have joyed in writing it and it has, at least, the merit of sincerity.  It is an expression of faith and for all its faults and imperfections, I think you will find, tucked away in it somewhere, a modicum of merit.  I have tried to limn something, however vague, of the beauty of the land we saw through boyish eyes before the real estate agent had profaned it.

You were born with a great love, a great reverence for beauty.  That must be because you were born in Sonoma County in the light of God’s smile.  Each spring in California the dogwood blossoms are, for you, a creamier white, the buckeye blossoms more numerous and fragrant, the hills a trifle greener and the old order, the old places, the old friends a little dearer.

Wherefore, with much appreciation of your aid in its creation and of your unfaltering friendship and affection, I dedicate “The Pride of Palomar” to you.

Faithfully,

Peter B. Kyne.

SAN FRANCISCO

June 9, 1921.

Acknowledgment is made of the indebtedness of the author for much of the material used in this book to Mr. Montaville Flowers, author of “The Japanese Conquest of American Opinion."

P. B. K.

THE ILLUSTRATIONS

Loi
The Man—­Don Miguel Farrel . . . . Frontispiece

Here amidst the golden romance of the old mission,
  the girl suddenly understood Don Mike

The Girl—­Kay Parker
ELOI

THE PRIDE of PALOMAR

I