The Pride of Palomar | Page 6

arriving just before luncheon. What with a twenty-mile hike in the sun, he was dry by the time he arrived, and in his uniform, although somewhat bedraggled, he looked gay enough to make a hit with my great-grandfather Noriaga, who invited him to luncheon and begged him to stay a while. Michael Joseph liked the place; so he stayed. You see, there were thousands of horses on the ranch and, like all sailors, he had equestrian ambitions."
"Great snakes! It must have been a sizable place."
"It was. The original Mexican grant was twenty leagues square."
"I take it, then, that the estate has dwindled in size."
"Oh, yes, certainly. My great-grandfather Noriaga, Michael Joseph I, and Michael Joseph II shot craps with it, and bet it on horse-races, and gave it away for wedding-doweries, and, in general, did their little best to put the Farrel posterity out in the mesquite with the last of the Mission Indians."
"How much of this principality have you left?"
"I do not know. When I enlisted, we had a hundred thousand acres of the finest valley and rolling grazing-land in California and the hacienda that was built in 1782. But I've been gone two years, and haven't heard from home for five months."
"Mortgaged?"
"Of course. The Farrels never worked while money could be raised at ten per cent. Neither did the Noriagas. You might as well attempt to yoke an elk and teach him how to haul a cart."
"Oh, nonsense, Farrel! You're the hardest-working man I have ever known."
Farrel smiled boyishly.
"That was in Siberia, and I had to hustle to keep warm. But I know I'll not be home six months before that delicious _ma?ana_ spirit will settle over me again, like mildew on old boots."
The captain shook his head.
"Any man who can see so clearly the economic faults of his race and nevertheless sympathize with them is not one to be lulled to the ruin that has overtaken practically all of the old native California families. That strain of Celt and Gael in you will triumph over the easy-going Latin."
"Well, perhaps. And two years in the army has helped tremendously to eradicate an inherited tendency toward procrastination."
"I shall like to think that I had something to do with that," the officer answered. "What are your plans?"
"Well, sir, this hungry world must be fed by the United States for the next ten years, and I have an idea that the Rancho Palomar can pull itself out of the hole with beef cattle. My father has always raised short-legged, long-horned scrubs, descendants of the old Mexican breeds, and there is no money in that sort of stock. If I can induce him to turn the ranch over to me, I'll try to raise sufficient money to buy a couple of car-loads of pure-bred Hereford bulls and grade up that scrub stock; in four or five years I'll have steers that will weigh eighteen hundred to two thousand pounds on the hoof, instead of the little eight-hundred-pounders that have swindled us for a hundred years."
"How many head of cattle can you run on your ranch?"
"About ten thousand--one to every ten acres. If I could develop water for irrigation in the San Gregorio valley, I could raise alfalfa and lot-feed a couple of thousand more."
"What is the ranch worth?"
"About eight per acre is the average price of good cattle-range nowadays. With plenty of water for irrigation, the valley-land would be worth five hundred dollars an acre. It's as rich as cream, and will grow anything--with water."
"Well, I hope your dad takes a back seat and gives you a free hand, Farrel. I think you'll make good with half a chance."
"I feel that way also," Farrel replied seriously.
"Are you going south to-night?"
"Oh, no. Indeed not! I don't want to go home in the dark, sir." The captain was puzzled. "Because I love my California, and I haven't seen her for two years," Farrel replied, to the other's unspoken query. "It's been so foggy since we landed in San Francisco I've had a hard job making my way round the Presidio. But if I take the eight-o'clock train tomorrow morning, I'll run out of the fog-belt in forty-five minutes and be in the sunshine for the remainder of the journey. Yes, by Jupiter--and for the remainder of my life!"
"You want to feast your eyes on the countryside, eh?"
"I do. It's April, and I want to see the Salinas valley with its oaks; I want to see the bench-lands with the grape-vines just budding; I want to see some bald-faced cows clinging to the Santa Barbara hillsides, and I want to meet some fellow on the train who speaks the language of my tribe."
"Farrel, you're all Irish. You're romantic and poetical, and you feel the call of kind to kind. That's distinctly a Celtic trait."
"_Quién sabe_?