He ran down the long hill, and came presently to the mission.  In the grass beside the white road, he searched for his straw suitcase, his gas-mask, and the helmet, but failing to find them, he concluded the girl had neglected to remind her father’s chauffeur to throw them off in front of the mission, as promised.  So he passed along the front of the ancient pile and let himself in through a wooden door in the high adobe wall that surrounded the churchyard immediately adjacent to the mission.  With the assurance of one who treads familiar ground, he strode rapidly up a weed-grown path to a spot where a tall black-granite monument proclaimed that here rested the clay of one superior to his peon and Indian neighbors.  And this was so, for the shaft marked the grave of the original Michael Joseph Farrel, the adventurer the sea had cast up on the shore of San Marcos County.

Immediately to the left of this monument, Don Mike saw a grave that had not been there when he left the Palomar.  At the head of it stood a tile taken from the ruin of the mission roof, and on this brown tile some one had printed in rude lettering with white paint: 

    Fallecio
  Don Miguel Jose Noriaga Farrel
    Nacio, Junio 3, 1841
  Muerto, Deciembre 29, 1919.

The last scion of that ancient house knelt in the mold of his father’s grave and made the sign of the cross.

V

The tears which Don Mike Farrel had descried in the eyes of his acquaintance on the train were, as he came to realize when he climbed the steep cattle-trail from Sespe, the tribute of a gentle heart moved to quick and uncontrollable sympathy.  Following their conversation in the dining-car, the girl—­her name was Kay Parker—­had continued her luncheon, her mind busy with thoughts of this strange home-bound ex-soldier who had so signally challenged her attention.  “There’s breeding back of that man,” the girl mused.  “He’s only a rancher’s son from the San Gregorio; where did he acquire his drawing-room manners?”

She decided, presently, that they were not drawing-room manners.  They were too easy and graceful and natural to have been acquired.  He must have been born with them.  There was something old-fashioned about him—­as if part of him dwelt in the past century.  He appeared to be quite certain of himself, yet there was not even a hint of ego in his cosmos.  His eyes were wonderful—­and passionless, like a boy’s.  Yes; there was a great deal of the little boy about him, for all his years, his wounds, and his adventures.  Kay thought him charming, yet he did not appear to be aware of his charm, and this fact increased her attraction to him.  It pleased her that he had preferred to discuss the Japanese menace rather than his own exploits, and had been human enough to fly in a rage when told of her father’s plans with the potato baron.  Nevertheless, he had himself under control, for he had smothered his rage as quickly as he had permitted it to flare up.