“Well, Mr. Conway,” he shouted pleasantly, “the lost sheep is found again.”

“Whereat there is more rejoicing in San Marcos County than there will be over the return of some other sheep—­and a few goats—­I know of.  How do you do, Mr. Parker?” Conway extended his hand, and, as Kay and her mother rode up, Farrel begged their permission to present him to them.  Followed the usual commonplaces of introduction, which Farrel presently interrupted.

“Well, you confounded old ditch-digger!  How about you?”

“Still making little rocks out of big ones, son.  Say, Mr. Parker, how do we stack up on this contract, now that Little Boy Blue is back on the Palomar, blowing his horn?”

Parker strove gallantly to work up a cheerful grin.

“Oh, he’s put a handful of emery dust in my bearings, confound him, Mr. Conway!  It begins to look as if I had leaped before looking.”

“Very reprehensible habit, Mr. Parker.  Well—­I’m getting so old and worthless nowadays that I make it a point to look before I leap.  Mike, my son, do you happen to be underwriting this contract?”

Don Mike looked serious.  He pursed his lips, arched his brows, drew some bills and small coins from his pocket, and carefully counted them.

“The liquid assets of the present owner of that dirt you’re making so free with, Mr. Conway, total exactly sixty-seven dollars and nine cents.  And I never thought the day would come when a pair of old-time Californians like us would stoop to counting copper pennies.  Before I joined the army, I used to give them away to the cholo children, and when there were no youngsters handy to give the pennies to, I used to throw them away.”

“Yes,” Bill Conway murmured sadly.  “And I remember the roar that went up from the old-timers five years ago when the Palace Hotel in San Francisco reduced the price of three fingers of straight whisky from twenty-five cents to fifteen.  Boy, they’re crowding us out.”

“Who’s been doing most of the crowding in San Marcos County while I’ve been away, Mr. Conway?” Farrel queried innocently.

“Japs, my son.  Say, they’re comin’ in here by the ship-load.”

“You don’t tell me!  Why, two years ago there wasn’t a Jap in San Marcos County with the exception of a couple of shoemakers and a window-washing outfit in El Toro.”

“Well, those hombres aren’t mending shoes or washing windows any more, Miguel.  They saved their money and now they’re farming—­garden-truck mostly.  There must be a thousand Japanese in the county now—­all farmers or farm-laborers.  They’re leasing and buying every acre of fertile land they can get hold of.”

“Have they acquired much acreage?”

“Saw a piece in the El Toro Sentinel last week to the effect that nine thousand and twenty acres have been alienated to the Japs up to the first of the year.  Nearly all the white men have left La Questa valley since the Japs discovered they could raise wonderful winter celery there.”