The Pride of PalomarKyne, Peter B. (Peter Bernard)
General
The Pride of Palomar
Kyne, Peter B. (Peter Bernard)
Asian Americans -- Fiction; California -- Fiction; Ranch life -- Fiction; Western stories
Whether Allesandro heard the warning or whether he had decided that
affairs had assumed a dangerous pass, matters not. He rose a trifle in
his saddle, leaned far out on Panchito's withers and delivered himself
of a tribal yell. It was a cry meant for Panchito, and evidently
Panchito understood, for he responded with the only answer a gallant
race-horse has for such occasions. A hundred feet from the wire King
Agrippa's wide-flung nostrils were at Panchito's saddle girth; under
the stimulus of a rain of blows he closed the gap again, only to drop
back and finish with daylight showing between his head and Panchito's
flowing tail.
Father Dominic stood gazing down the track. He was trembling
violently. Brother Anthony turned lack-luster eyes toward Farrel.
"You win, Brother Anthony," Don Mike said quietly.
"How good is God," murmured Brother Anthony. "He has granted me a joy
altogether beyond my deserts. And the joy is sufficient. The money
will buy a few shingles for our roof." He slumped down in his seat and
wiped away great tears.
Pablo waited not for congratulations or exultations, but scrambled down
through the grand-stand to the railing, climbed over it and dropped
down into the track, along which he jogged until he met Allesandro
galloping slowly back with Panchito. "Little treasure of the world,"
he cried to the boy, "I am happy that I do not have to cut your
throat," and he lifted Allesandro out of the saddle and pressed him to
his heart. That was the faint strain of Catalonian blood in Pablo.
Up in the grand-stand Carolina, in her great excitement, forgot that
she was Farrel's cook. When he was a baby she had nursed him and she
loved him for that. So she waddled down to him with beaming eyes--and
he patted her cheek.
"Father Dominic," Don Mike called to the old friar, "your Mission
Restoration Fund has been increased ten thousand dollars."
"So?" the gentle old man echoed. "Behold, Miguel, the goodness of God.
He willed that Panchito should save for you from the heathen one little
portion of our dear land; He was pleased to answer my prayers of fifty
years that I be permitted to live until I had restored the Mission of
our Mother of Sorrows." He closed his eyes. "So many long years the
priest," he murmured, "so many long years! And I am base enough to be
happy in worldly pleasures. I am still a little old devil."
Don Mike turned to the stunned book-makers. "For some reason best
known to yourselves," he addressed them in English, bowing graciously,
"you two gentlemen have seen fit to do business with me through this
excellent representative of the civil authority of Tia Juana. We will
dispense with his services, if you have no objection. Here, my good
fellow," he added, and handed the policeman a ten-dollar bill.
"You're not a Mexican. You're an American," the book-maker Joe cried
accusingly, "although you bragged like a Mexican."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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