“Are there any heirs?”

“None that we have been able to discover.”

The girl thoughtfully traced a pattern on the tablecloth with the tine of her fork.

“How will it be possible for you to acquire that horse, Panchito, for me, dearest?” she queried presently.

“I have a deficiency judgment against the Rancho Palomar,” he explained.  “Consequently, upon the expiration of the redemption period of one year, I shall levy an attachment against the Farrel estate.  All the property will be sold at public auction by the sheriff to satisfy my deficiency judgment, and I shall, of course, bid in this horse.”

“I have decided I do not want him, father,” she informed him half sadly.  “The ex-soldier is an old boyhood chum of the younger Farrel who was killed, and he wants the horse.”

He glanced at her with an expression of shrewd suspicion.

“As you desire, honey,” he replied.

“But I want you to see to it that nobody else outbids him for the horse,” she continued, earnestly.  “If some one should run the price up beyond the limits of his purse, of course I want you to outbid that some one, but what I do not desire you to do is to run the price up on him yourself.  He wants the horse out of sentiment, and it isn’t nice to force a wounded ex-service-man to pay a high price for his sentiment.”

“Oh, I understand now,” her father assured her.  “Very well, little daughter; I have my orders and will obey them.”

“Precious old darling!” she whispered, gratefully, and pursed her adorable lips to indicate to him that he might consider himself kissed.  His stern eyes softened in a glance of father-love supreme.

“Whose little girl are you?” he whispered, and, to that ancient query of parenthood, she gave the reply of childhood: 

“Daddy’s.”

“Just for that, I’ll offer the soldier a tremendous profit on Panchito.  We’ll see what his sentiment is worth.”

“Bet you a new hat, angel-face, you haven’t money enough to buy him,” Kay challenged.

“Considering the cost of your hats, I’d be giving you rather long odds, Kay.  You say this young man comes from the San Gregorio valley?”

“So he informed me.”

“Well, there isn’t a young man in the San Gregorio who doesn’t need a couple of thousand dollars far worse than he needs a horse.  I’ll take your bet, Peaches.  Of course you mentioned to him the fact that you wanted this horse?”

“Yes.  And he said I couldn’t have him—­that he was going to acquire him.”

“Perhaps he was merely jesting with you.”

“No; he meant it.”

“I believe,” he said, smiling, “that it is most unusual of young men to show such selfish disregard of your expressed desires.”

“Flatterer!  I like him all the more for it.  He’s a man with some backbone.”

“So I noticed.  He wears the ribbon of the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Evidently he is given to exceeding the speed-limit.  Did he tell you how he won that pale-blue ribbon with the little white stars sprinkled on it?”