The Pride of Palomar | Page 9

Indians, and there are
damned few of them left.'
"Padre Dominic, my father, and I will, in all probability, get just a little
bit jingled at dinner. After dinner, we'll sit on the porch flanking the
patio and smoke cigars, and I'll smell the lemon verbena and heliotrope
and other old-fashioned flowers modern gardeners have forgotten how
to grow. About midnight, Father Dominic's brain will have cleared, and
he will be fit to be trusted with his accursed automobile; so he will
snort home in the moonlight, and my father will then carefully lock the
patio gate with a nine-inch key. Not that anybody ever steals anything
in our country, except a cow once in a while--and cows never range in
our patio--but just because we're hell-benders for conforming to custom.
When I was a boy, Pablo Artelan, our majordomo, always slept athwart
that gate, like an old watchdog. I give you my word I've climbed that
patio wall a hundred times and dropped down on Pablo's stomach
without wakening him. And, for a quarter of a century, to my personal
knowledge, that patio gate has supported itself on a hinge and a half.
Oh, we're a wonderful institution, we Farrels!"
"What did you say this Pablo was?"
"He used to be a majordomo. That is, he was the foreman of the ranch
when we needed a foreman. We haven't needed Pablo for a long time,
but it doesn't cost much to keep him on the pay-roll, except when his
relatives come to visit him and stay a couple of weeks."
"And your father feeds them?"
"Certainly. Also, he houses them. It can't be helped. It's an old custom."

"How long has Pablo been a pensioner?"
"From birth. He's mostly Indian, and all the work he ever did never hurt
him. But, then, he was never paid very much. He was born on the ranch
and has never been more than twenty miles from it. And his wife is our
cook. She has relatives, too."
The captain burst out laughing.
"But surely this Pablo has some use," he suggested.
"Well he feeds the dogs, and in order to season his frijoles with the salt
of honest labor, he saddles my father's horse and leads him round to the
house every morning. Throughout the remainder of the day, he sits
outside the wall and, by following the sun, he manages to remain in the
shade. He watches the road to proclaim the arrival of visitors, smokes
cigarettes, and delivers caustic criticisms on the younger generation
when he can get anybody to listen to him."
"How old is your father, Farrel?"
"Seventy-eight."
"And he rides a horse!"
"He does worse than that." Farrel laughed. "He rides a horse that would
police you, sir. On his seventieth birthday, at a rodeo, he won first prize
for roping and hog-tying a steer."
"I'd like to meet that father of yours, Farrel."
"You'd like him. Any time you want to spend a furlough on the
Palomar, we'll make you mighty welcome. Better come in the fall for
the quail-shooting." He glanced at his wrist-watch and sighed. "Well, I
suppose I'd do well to be toddling along. Is the captain going to remain
in the service?"
The captain nodded.

"My people are hell-benders on conforming to custom, also," he added.
"We've all been field-artillerymen.
"I believe I thanked you for a favor you did me once, but to prove I
meant what I said, I'm going to send you a horse, sir. He is a chestnut
with silver points, five years old, sixteen hands high, sound as a Liberty
Bond, and bred in the purple. He is beautifully reined, game, full of
ginger, but gentle and sensible. He'll weigh ten hundred in condition,
and he's as active as a cat. You can win with him at any horse-show and
at the head of a battery. Dios! He is every inch a caballero!"
"Sergeant, you're much too kind. Really--"
"The things we have been through together, sir--all that we have been
to each other--never can happen again. You will add greatly to my
happiness if you will accept this animal as a souvenir of our very
pleasant association."
"Oh, son, this is too much! You're giving me your own private mount.
You love him. He loves you. Doubtless he'll know you the minute you
enter the pasture."
Farrel's fine white teeth, flashed in a brilliant smile, "I do not desire to
have the captain mounted on an inferior horse. We have many other
good horses on the Palomar. This one's name is Panchito; I will express
him to you some day this week."
"Farrel, you quite overwhelm me. A thousand thanks! I'll treasure
Panchito for your sake as well as his own."
The soldier extended his hand, and the