The Pride of Palomar Part 13

Into the avenue they swept; the leader leaped for the top of the gate, poised there an instant, and fell over into Don Mike's arms. The others followed, overwhelming him. They licked his hands; they soiled him with their reaching paws, the while their cries of welcome testified to their delight. Presently, one grew jealous of the other in the mad scramble for his caressing hand, and Nip bit Mollie, who retaliated by biting Nailer, who promptly bit Nip, thus completing the vicious circle. In an instant, they were battling each other.

"Stop it!" Don Mike commanded. "Break!"

They "broke" at his command, and, forgetting their animosities, began running in circles, in a hopeless effort to express their happiness.

Suddenly, as if by common impulse, they appeared to remember a neglected duty, and fled noisily whence they had come.

"Ah, only my dogs to welcome me!" Kay heard Don Mike murmur. And then the stubborn tears came and blinded him, so he did not see her white figure step out into the avenue and come swiftly toward him. The first he knew of her presence was when her hand touched his glistening black head bent on his arms over the top rail of the gate.

"No, no, Don Mike," he heard a sweet voice protesting; "somebody else cares, too. We wouldn't be human if we didn't. Please--please try not to feel so badly about it."

He raised his haggard face.

"Ah, yes--you!" he cried. "You--you've been waiting here--for me?"

"Yes. I wanted to tell you--to explain before you got to the house.

We didn't know, you see--and the notice was so terribly short; but we'll go in the morning. I've saved dinner for you, Don Mike--and your old room is ready for you. Oh, you don't know how sorry I am for you, you poor man!"

He hid his face again.

"Don't--please!" he cried, in a choked voice. "I can't stand sympathy--to-night--from you!"

She laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Come, come; you must buck up, old soldier," she a.s.sured him. "You'll have to meet Pablo and Carolina very soon."

"I'm so alone and desperate," he muttered, through clenched teeth.

"You can't--realize what this means--to me. My father was an old man--he had--accomplished his years--and I weep for him, because I loved--him. But oh, my home--this--dear land--"

He choked, and, in that moment, she forgot that this man was a stranger to her. She only knew that he had been stricken, that he was helpless, that he lacked the greatest boon of the desolate--a breast upon which he might weep. Gently she lifted the black head and drew it down on her shoulder; her arm went round his neck and patted his cheek, and his full heart was emptied.

There was so much of the little boy about him!

VIII

The fierce gust of emotion which swept Don Mike Farrel was of brief duration. He was too sane, too courageous to permit his grief to overwhelm him completely; he had the usual masculine horror of an exhibition of weakness, and although the girl's sweet sympathy and genuine womanly tenderness had caught him unawares, he was, nevertheless, not insensible of the incongruity of a grown man weeping like a child on the shoulder of a young woman--and a strange young woman at that. With a supreme effort of will, he regained control of himself as swiftly as he had lost it, and began fumbling for a handkerchief.

"Here," she murmured; "use mine." She reached up and, with her dainty wisp of handkerchief, wiped his wet cheeks exactly as if he had been a child.

He caught the hand that wielded the handkerchief and kissed it gratefully, reverently.

"G.o.d bless your dear, kind heart!" he murmured. "I had thought n.o.body could possibly care--that much. So few people--have any interest in the--unhappiness of others." He essayed a twisted smile. "I'm not usually this weak," he continued, apologetically. "I never knew until to-night that I could be such a lubberly big baby, but, then, I wasn't set for this blow. This afternoon, life executed an about face for me--and the dogs got me started after I'd promised myself--" He choked again on the last word.

She patted his shoulder in comradely fas.h.i.+on.

"Buck up, Don Mike!" she pleaded. "Tears from such men as you are signs of strength, not weakness. And remember--life has a habit of obeying commanding men. It may execute another about face for you."

"I've lost everything that made life livable," he protested.

"Ah! No, no! You must not say that. Think of that cheerful warrior who, in defeat, remarked, 'All is lost save honor.'" And she touched the pale-blue star-sprinkled ribbon on his left breast.

He smiled again, the twisted smile.

"That doesn't amount to a row of pins in civil life." Something of that sense of bitter disillusionment, of blasted idealism, which is the immediate aftermath of war, had crept into his voice. "The only thrill I ever got out of its possession was in the service. My colonel was never content merely with returning my salute. He always uncovered to me. That ribbon will have little weight with your father, I fear, when I ask him to set aside the foreclosure, grant me a new mortgage, and give me a fighting chance to retain the thing I love." And his outflung arm indicated the silent, moonlit valley.

"Perhaps," she replied, soberly. "He is a businessman. Nevertheless, it might not be a bad idea if you were to defer the crossing of your bridges until you come to them." She unlatched the gate and swung it open for him to pa.s.s through.

He hesitated.

"I didn't intend to enter the house to-night," he explained. "I merely wanted to see Pablo and have a talk with him. My sudden appearance on the scene might, perhaps, prove very embarra.s.sing to your family."

"I dare say. But that cannot be helped. Your right of entrance and occupancy cannot be questioned. Until the period of redemption expires, I think n.o.body will dispute your authority as master here."

"I had forgotten that phase of the situation. Thank you." He pa.s.sed through the gate and closed it for her. Then he stepped to the side of the road, wet his handkerchief in a pool of clean rain-water, and mopped his eyes. "I'll have to abandon the luxury of tears," he declared, grimly. "They make one's eyes burn. By the way, I do not know your name."

"I am Kay Parker."

"'Kay' for what?"

"Kathleen."

He nodded approvingly.

"You neglected to leave my dunnage at the mission; Miss Parker."

"After you told me who you were, I realized you would sleep at the ranch to-night, so I kept your things in the car. They are in your old room now."

"Thank you for an additional act of kindness and thoughtfulness." He adjusted his overseas cap, snugged his blouse down over his hips, flipped from it the wet sand deposited there by the paws of the hound-pack, and said, "Let's go."

Where the avenue debouched into the ranch-yard, Pablo and Carolina awaited them. The old majordomo was wrapped in aboriginal dignity.

His Indian blood bade him greet Don Mike as casually as if the latter had merely been sojourning in El Toro the past two years, but the faint strain of Spanish in him dictated a different course as Don Mike stepped briskly up to him with outstretched hand and greeted him affectionately in Spanish. Off came the weather-stained old sombrero, flung to the ground beside him, as Pablo dropped on his knees, seized his master's hand, and bowed his head over it.

"Don Miguel," he said, "my life is yours."

"I know it, you blessed old scalawag!" Don Mike replied in English, and ruffled the grizzled old head before pa.s.sing on to the expectant Carolina, who folded him tightly in her arms and wept soundlessly when he kissed her leathery cheek. While he was murmuring words of comfort to her, Pablo got up on his feet and recovered his hat.

"You see," he said to Kay, in a confidential tone, "Don Miguel Jose Maria Federico Noriaga Farrel loves us. Never no woman those boy kees since hees mother die twenty year before. So Carolina have the great honor like me. Yes!"

"Oh, but you haven't seen him kiss his sweetheart," Kay bantered the old man--and then blushed, in the guilty knowledge that her badinage had really been inspired by a sudden desire to learn whether Don Mike had a sweetheart or not. Pablo promptly and profanely disillusioned her.

"Those boy, he don' have some sweethearts, mees lady. He's pretty parteecular." He paused a moment and looked her in the face meaningly.

"Those girls in thees country--pah! Hee's pretty parteecular, those boy."

His childish arrogance and consuming pride in his master stirred the girl's sense of humor.

"I think your Don Mike is _too_ particular," she whispered.

"Personally, I wouldn't marry him on a bet."