“Thank you, Pablo.  That is all I desired to know.”  And he was away again, swinging his lariat and whooping joyously at the cattle.  Pablo watched narrowly.

“Now whatever this mystery may be,” he soliloquized, “the news I gave Don Miguel has certainly not displeased him.  Ah, he is a sharp one, that boy.  He learns everything and without effort, yet for all he knows he talks but little.  Can it be that he has the gift of second sight?  I wonder!”

CHAPTER XXVII

Kay Parker was seated on the bench under the catalpa tree when Miguel Farrel rode up the palm-lined avenue to the hacienda, that night; his face, as he dismounted before her, conveyed instantly to the girl the impression that he was in a more cheerful and contented mood than she had observed since that day she had first met him in uniform.

She smiled a welcome.  He swept off his hat and favored her with a bow which appeared to Kay to be slightly more ceremonious than usual.

“Your horse is tired,” she remarked.  “Are you?”

“’Something accomplished, something done, has earned a night’s repose,’” he quoted cheerfully.  “Rather a hard task to comb this ranch for a few hundred head of cattle when the number of one’s riders is limited, but we have gotten the herd corraled at the old race-track.”  He unbuckled his old leathern chaps, and stepped out of them, threw them across the saddle and with a slap sent his horse away to the barn.

“You’re feeling quite yourself again?” she hazarded hopefully.

“My foolish head doesn’t bother me,” he replied smilingly, “but my equally foolish heart—­” he heaved a gusty Castilian sigh and tried to appear forlorn.

“Filled with mixed metaphors,” he added.  “May I sit here with you?”

She made room for him beside her on the bench.  He seated himself, leaned back against the bole of the catalpa tree and stretched his legs, cramped from a long day in the saddle.  The indolent gaze of his black eyes roved over her approvingly before shifting to the shadowy beauty of the valley and the orange-hued sky beyond, and a silence fell between them.

“I was thinking to-day,” the girl said presently, “that you’ve been so busy since your return you haven’t had time to call on any of your old friends.”

“That is true, Miss Parker.”

“You have called me Kay,” she reminded him.  “Wherefore this sudden formality, Don Mike?”

“My name is Miguel.  You’re right, Kay.  Fortunately, all of my friends called on me when I was in the hospital, and at that time I took pains to remind them that my social activities would be limited for at least a year.”

“Two of your friends called on mother and me today, Miguel.”

“Anita Sepulvida and her mother?”

“Yes.  She’s adorable.”

“They visited me in hospital.  Very old friends—­very dear friends.  I asked them to call on you and your mother.  I wanted you to know Anita.”