The Pride of Palomar Part 38

He was near to tears now; fearful that he might be caught in a moment of weakness, he fled to the barn and helped Pablo hitch a team of draft horses to an old spring wagon. Pablo's customary taciturnity and primitive stoicism had again descended upon him like a protecting garment; his madness had pa.s.sed and he moved around the team briskly and efficiently. Parker climbed to the seat beside him as Pablo gathered up the reins and started out of the farmyard at a fast trot.

Ten minutes later they paused at the mouth of the draw down which Farrel had been riding when fired upon. Pablo turned the team, tied them to an oak tree and started up the draw at a swift dog trot, with Parker at his heels.

Jammed rather tightly in a narrow little dry water-course that ran through the center of the draw they found the body of Don Mike. He was lying face downward; Parker saw that flies already rosetted a wound thick with blood clots on top of his head.

"Poor, poor boy," Parker cried agonizedly.

Pablo straddled the little watercourse, got a grip around his master's body and lifted it out to Parker, who received it and laid the limp form out on the gra.s.s. While he stood looking down at Don Mike's white, relaxed face, Pablo knelt, made the sign of the cross and commenced to pray for the peaceful repose of his roaster's soul. It was a long prayer; Parker, waiting patiently for him to finish, did not know that Pablo recited the litany for the dying.

"Come, Pablo, my good fellow, you've prayed enough," he suggested presently. "Help me carry Don Miguel down to the wagon--_Pablo, he's alive_!"

"Hah!" Pablo's exclamation was a sort of surprised bleat. "_Madre de Cristo_! Look to me, Don Miguel. Ah, little dam' fool, you make believe to die, no?" he charged hysterically.

Don Mike's black eyes opened slightly and his slack lower jaw tightened in a ghastly little grimace. The transported Pablo seized him and shook him furiously, meanwhile deluging Don Mike with a stream of affectionate profanity that fell from his lips like a benediction.

"Listen," Don Mike murmured presently. "Pablo's new litany."

"Rascal! Little, wicked heretic! Blood of the devil! Speak, Don Miguel."

"Shut up! Took your--time--getting me--out--confounded ditch--d.a.m.ned--lazy--beggar--"

Pablo leaped to his feet, his dusky face radiant.

"You hear!" he yelled. "Senor Parker, you hear those boy give to me h.e.l.l like old times, no?"

"You ran--you _colorado maduro_ good-for-nothing--left me stuck in--ditch--let bushwhacker--get away--fix you for this, Pablo."

Pablo's eyes popped in ecstasy. He grinned like a gargoyle. "You hear those boy, _senor_?" he reiterated happily. "I tell you those boy he like ol' Pablo. The night he come back he rub my head; yesterday he poke the rib of me with the thumb--now pretty soon he say sometheeng, I bet you."

"Shut up, I tell you." Don Mike's voice, though very faint, was petulant. "You're a total idiot. Find my horse--get rifle--trail that man--who shot me--get him--d.a.m.n your prayers--get him--"

"Ah, Don Miguel," Pablo a.s.sured him in Spanish, in tones that were prideful beyond measure, "that unfortunate fellow has been shaking hands with the devil for the last forty-five minutes."

Don Mike opened his eyes widely. He was rapidly regaining his full consciousness. "Your work, Pablo?"

"Mine--with the help of G.o.d, as your ill.u.s.trious grandfather, the first Don Miguel, would have said. But you are pleased to doubt me so I shall show you the carca.s.s of the animal. I roped him and dragged him for two miles behind the black mare."

Don Mike smiled and closed his eyes. "I will go home," he said presently, and Pablo and Parker lifted him between them and carried him down to the waiting wagon. Half an hour later he was stretched on his bed at the hacienda, while Carolina washed his head with a solution of warm water and lysol. John Parker, rejoiced beyond measure, stood beside him and watched this operation with an alert and sympathetic eye.

"That doesn't look like a bullet wound," he declared, after an examination of the rent in Don Mike's scalp. "Resembles the wound made by what reporters always refer to as 'some blunt instrument.' The scalp is split but the flesh around the wound is swollen as from a blow. You have a nice lump on your head, Farrel."

"Aches terribly," Don Mike murmured. "I had dismounted to tighten my cinch; going down hill the saddle had slid up on my horse's withers. I was tucking in the latigo. When I woke up I was lying on my face, wedged tightly in that little dry ditch; I was ill and dazed and too weak to pull myself out; I was lying with my head down hill and I suppose I lost consciousness again, after awhile. Pablo!"

"_Si, senor_."

"You caught the man who shot me. What did you do with him?"

"Oh, those fellow plenty good and dead, Don Miguel."

"He dragged the body home at the end of his rope," Parker explained.

"He thought you had been done for and he must have gone war mad. I covered the body of the j.a.p with straw from that stack out by the barn."

"j.a.p, eh?" Don Mike smiled. Then, after a long silence. "I suppose, Mr. Parker, you understand now--"

"Yes, yes, Farrel. Please do not rub it in."

"Okada wants the San Gregorio rather badly, doesn't he? Couldn't wait.

The enactment of that anti-alien land bill that will come up in the legislature next year--do Mrs. Parker and your daughter know about this attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate me?"

"No."

"They must not know. Plant that j.a.p somewhere and do it quickly.

Confound you, Pablo, you should have known better than to drag your kill home, like an old she-cat bringing in a gopher. As for my head--well, I was thrown from my horse and struck on a sharp rock. The ladies would be frightened and worried if they thought somebody was gunning for me. When Bill Conway shows up with your spark plugs I'd be obliged, Mr. Parker, if you'd run me in to El Toro. I'll have to have my head tailored a trifle, I think."

With a weak wave of his hand he dismissed everybody, so Parker and Pablo adjourned to the stables to talk over the events of the morning.

Standing patiently at the corral gate they found the gray horse, waiting to be unsaddled--a favor which Pablo proceeded at once to extend.

"_Mira_!" he called suddenly and directed Pa.r.s.er's attention to the pommel of Don Mike's fancy saddle, The rawhide covering on the shank of the pommel had been torn and scored and the steel beneath lay exposed.

"You see?" Pablo queried. "You understan', _senor_?"

"No, I must confess I do not, Pablo."

"Don Miguel is standing beside thees horse. He makes tighter the saddle; he is tying those latigo and he have the head bent leetle hit while he pull those latigo through the ring. Bang! Those j.a.p shoot at Don Miguel. He miss, but the bullet she hit thees pommel, she go flat against the steel, she bounce off and hit Don Miguel on top the head.

The force for keel heem is use' up when the bullet hit thees pommel, but still those bullet got plenty force for knock Don Miguel seelly, no?"

"Spent ball, eh? I think you're right, Pablo."

Pablo relapsed into one of his infrequent Gringo solecisms. "You bet you my life you know eet," he said.

John Parker took a hundred dollar bill from his pocket. "Pablo," he said with genuine feeling, "you're a splendid fellow. I know you don't like me, but perhaps that is because you do not know me very well. Don Miguel knows I had nothing to do with this attempt to kill him, and if Don Miguel bears me no ill-will, I'm sure you should not. I wish you would accept this hundred dollar bill, Pablo?"

Pablo eyed the bill askance. "What for?" he demanded.

"For the way you handled that murdering j.a.p. Pablo, that was a bully job of work. Please accept this bill. If I didn't like you I would not offer it to you."

"Well, I guess Carolina mebbeso she can use eet. But first I ask Don Miguel if eet is all right for me take eet." He departed for the house to return presently with an antic.i.p.atory smile on his dusky countenance. "Don Miguel say to me, _senor_: 'Pablo, any people she's stay my house he's do what she please.' _Gracias_, Senor Parker." And he pouched the bill. "_Mille gracias, senor_."

"Pray, do not mention it, Pablo."

"All right," Pablo agreed. "Eef you don't like eet, well, I don' tell somebody!"

CHAPTER XXV

Bill Conway driving up the San Gregorio in his prehistoric automobile, overtook Kay and her mother walking home from the Mission, and drove them the remainder of the distance back to the hacienda. Arrived here, old Conway resurrected the stolen spark plugs and returned them to Parker's chauffeur, after which he invited himself to luncheon.

Apparently his raid of the night previous rested lightly on his conscience, and Parker's failure to quarrel with him lifted him immediately out of any fogs of apprehension that may have clouded his sunny soul.