Peter B. Kyne - The Pride of Palomar

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THE PRIDE OF PALOMAR

by

PETER B. KYNE

Author of Kindred of the Dust, etc.

Illustrated by H. R. Ballinger and Dean Cornwell

Cosmopolitan Book Corporation
New York

MCMXXII

[Frontispiece: The man--Don Miguel Farrel.]

DEDICATION

FRANK L. MULGREW, ESQ.
THE BOHEMIAN CLUB
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

DEAR FRIEND MUL.--

I have at last finished writing "The Pride of Palomar." It isn't at
all what I wanted it to be; it isn't at all what I planned it to be,
but it does contain something of what you and I both feel, something of
what you wanted me to put into it. Indeed, I shall always wish to
think that it contains just a few faint little echoes of the spirit of
that old California that was fast vanishing when I first disturbed the
quiet of the Mission Dolores with infantile shrieks--when you first
gazed upon the redwood-studded hills of Sonoma County.

You adventured with me in my quest for local color for "The Valley of
the Giants," in Northern California; you performed a similar service in
Southern California last summer and unearthed for me more local color,
more touches of tender sentiment than I could use. Therefore, "The
Pride of Palomar" is peculiarly your book.

On a day a year ago, when the story was still so vague I could scarcely
find words in which to sketch for you an outline of the novel I
purposed writing, you said: "It will be a good story. I'm sold on it
already!" To you the _hacienda_ of a Rancho Palomar will always bring
delightful recollections of the gracious hospitality of Senor Cave
Coutts, sitting at the head of that table hewed in the forties. Little
did Senor Coutts realize that he, the last of the dons in San Diego
County, was to furnish copy for my novel; that his pride of ancestry,
both American and Castilian, his love for his ancestral _hacienda_ at
the Rancho Guajome, and his old-fashioned garden with the great
Bougainvillea in flower, were the ingredients necessary to the
production of what I trust will be a book with a mission.

When we call again at the Moreno _hacienda_ on the Rio San Luis Rey,
Carolina will not be there to metamorphose her home into a restaurant
and serve us _galina con arroz_, _tortillas_ and _frijoles refritos_.
But if she should be, she will not answer, when asked the amount of the
score: "What you will, _senor_." Ah, no, Mul. Scoundrels devoid of
romance will have discovered her, and she will have opened an inn with
a Jap cook and the tariff will be _dos pesos y media_; there will be a
strange waiter and he will scowl at us and expect a large tip. And
Stephen Crane's brother, the genial judge, will have made his fortune
in the mine on the hill, and there will be no more California wine as a
first aid to digestion.

I had intended to paint the picture that will remain longest in your
memory--the dim candle-light in the white-washed chapel at the Indian
Reservation at Pala, during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament--the
young Indian Madonna, with her naked baby lying in her lap, while she
sang:

"Come, Holy Ghost, creator blest,
And in my heart take up thy rest."

But the picture was crowded out in the make-up. There was too much to
write about, and I was always over-set! I saw and felt, with you, and
regarded it as more poignantly pathetic, the tragedy of that little
handful of San Luisanos, herded away in the heart of those barren hills
to make way for the white man. And now the white man is almost gone
and Father Dominic's Angelus, ringing from Mission San Luis Rey, falls
upon the dull ear of a Japanese farmer, usurping that sweet valley,
hallowed by sentiment, by historical association, by the lives and
loves and ashes of the men and women who carved California from the
wilderness.

I have given to this book the labor of love. I know it isn't
literature, Mul, but I have joyed in writing it and it has, at least,
the merit of sincerity. It is an expression of faith and for all its
faults and imperfections, I think you will find, tucked away in it
somewhere, a modicum of merit. I have tried to limn something, however
vague, of the beauty of the land we saw through boyish eyes before the
real estate agent had profaned it.

You were born with a great love, a great reverence for beauty. That
must be because you were born in Sonoma County in the light of God's
smile. Each spring in California the dogwood blossoms are, for you, a
creamier white, the buckeye blossoms more numerous and fragrant, the
hills a trifle greener and the old order, the old places, the old
friends a little dearer.

Wherefore, with much appreciation of your aid in its creation and of
your unfaltering friendship and affection, I dedicate "The Pride of
Palomar" to you.

Faithfully,

PETER B. KYNE.

SAN FRANCISCO

JUNE 9, 1921.

_Acknowledgment is made of the indebtedness of the author for much of
the material used in this book to Mr. Montaville Flowers, author of
"The Japanese Conquest of American Opinion."_

P. B. K.

THE ILLUSTRATIONS

LOI
The Man--Don Miguel Farrel . . . . _Frontispiece_

Here amidst the golden romance of the old mission,
the girl suddenly understood Don Mike

The Girl--Kay Parker
ELOI

THE PRIDE of PALOMAR

I

For the first time in sixty years, Pablo Artelan, the majordomo of the
Rancho Palomar, was troubled of soul at the approach of winter. Old
Don Miguel Farrel had observed signs of mental travail in Pablo for a
month past, and was at a loss to account for them. He knew Pablo
possessed one extra pair of overalls, brand-new, two pairs of boots
which young Don Miguel had bequeathed him when the Great White Father
at Washington had summoned the boy to the war in April of 1917, three
chambray shirts in an excellent state of repair, half of a fat steer
jerked, a full bag of Bayo beans, and a string of red chilli-peppers
pendant from the rafters of an adobe shack which Pablo and his wife,
Carolina, occupied rent free. Certainly (thought old Don Miguel) life
could hold no problems for one of Pablo's race thus pleasantly situated.

Coming upon Pablo this morning, as the latter sat in his favorite seat
under the catalpa tree just outside the wall of the ancient adobe
compound, where he could command a view of the white wagon-road winding
down the valley of the San Gregorio, Don Miguel decided to question his
ancient retainer.

"My good Pablo," he queried, "what has come over thee of late? Thou
art of a mien as sorrowful as that of a sick steer. Can it be that thy
stomach refuses longer to digest thy food? Come; permit me to examine
thy teeth. Yes, by my soul; therein lies the secret. Thou hast a
toothache and decline to complain, thinking that, by thy silence, I
shall be saved a dentist's bill." But Pablo shook his head in
negation. "Come!" roared old Don Miguel. "Open thy mouth!"

Pablo rose creakily and opened a mouth in which not a tooth was
missing. Old Don Miguel made a most minute examination, but failed to
discover the slightest evidence of deterioration.

"Blood of the devil!" he cried, disgusted beyond measure. "Out with
thy secret! It has annoyed me for a month."

"The ache is not in my teeth, Don Miguel. It is here." And Pablo laid
a swarthy hand upon his torso. "There is a sadness in my heart, Don
Miguel. Two years has Don Mike been with the soldiers. Is it not time
that he returned to us?"

Don Miguel's aristocratic old face softened.

"So that is what disturbs thee, my Pablo?"

Pablo nodded miserably, seated himself, and resumed his task of
fashioning the hondo of a new rawhide riata.

"It is a very dry year," he complained. "Never before have I seen
December arrive ere the grass in the San Gregorio was green with the
October rains. Everything is burned; the streams and the springs have
dried up, and for a month I have listened to hear the quail call on the
hillside yonder. But I listen in vain. The quail have moved to
another range."

"Well, what of it, Pablo?"

"How our beloved Don Mike enjoyed the quail-shooting in the fall!
Should he return now to the Palomar, there will be no quail to shoot."
He wagged his gray head sorrowfully. "Don Mike will think that, with
the years, laziness and ingratitude have descended upon old Pablo.
Truly, Satan afflicts me." And he cursed with great depth of
feeling--in English.

"Yes, poor boy," old Don Miguel agreed; "he will miss more than the
quail-shooting when he returns--if he should return. They sent him to
Siberia to fight the Bolsheviki."

"What sort of country is this where Don Mike slays our enemy?" Pablo
queried.

"It is always winter there, Pablo. It is inhabited by a wild race of
men with much whiskers."

"Ah, our poor Don Mike! And he a child of the sun!"

"He but does his duty," old Don Miguel replied proudly. "He adds to
the fame of an illustrious family, noted throughout the centuries for
the gallantry of its warriors."

"A small comfort, Don Miguel, if our Don Mike comes not again to those
that love him."

"Pray for him," the old Don suggested piously.

Fell a silence. Then,

"Don Miguel, yonder comes one over the trail from El Toro."

Don Miguel gazed across the valley to the crest of the hills. There,
against the sky-line, a solitary horseman showed. Pablo cupped his
hands over his eyes and gazed long and steadily.

"It is Tony Moreno," he said, while the man was still a mile distant.
"I know that scuffling cripple of a horse he rides."

Don Miguel seated himself On the bench beside Pablo and awaited the
arrival of the horseman. As he drew nearer, the Don saw that Pablo was
right.

"Now, what news does that vagabond bear?" he muttered. "Assuredly he
brings a telegram; otherwise the devil himself could not induce that
lazy wastrel to ride twenty miles."

"Of a truth you are right, Don Miguel. Tony Moreno is the only man in
El Toro who is forever out of a job, and the agent of the telegraph
company calls upon him always to deliver messages of importance."

With the Don, he awaited, with vague apprehension, the arrival of Tony
Moreno. As the latter pulled his sweating horse up before them, they
rose and gazed upon him questioningly. Tony Moreno, on his part,
doffed his shabby sombrero with his right hand and murmured courteously,

"_Buenas tardes_, Don Miguel."

Pablo he ignored. With his left hand, he caught a yellow envelope as
it fell from under the hat.

"Good-afternoon, Moreno." Don Miguel returned his salutation with a
gravity he felt incumbent upon one of his station to assume when
addressing a social inferior. "You bring me a telegram?" He spoke in
English, for the sole purpose of indicating to the messenger that the
gulf between them could not be spanned by the bridge of their mother
tongue. He suspected Tony Moreno very strongly of having stolen a
yearling from him many years ago.

Tony Moreno remembered his manners, and dismounted before handing Don
Miguel the telegram.

"The delivery charges?" Don Miguel queried courteously.

"Nothing, Don Miguel." Moreno's voice was strangely subdued. "It is a
pleasure to serve you, _senor_."

"You are very kind." And Don Miguel thrust the telegram, unopened,
into his pocket. "However," he continued, "it will please me, Moreno,
if you accept this slight token of my appreciation." And he handed the
messenger a five-dollar bill. The don was a proud man, and disliked
being under obligation to the Tony Morenos of this world. Tony
protested, but the don stood his ground, silently insistent, and, in
the end, the other pouched the bill, and rode away. Don Miguel seated
himself once more beside his retainer and drew forth the telegram.

"It must be evil news," he murmured, with the shade of a tremor in his
musical voice; "otherwise, that fellow could not have felt so much pity
for me that it moved him to decline a gratuity."

"Read, Don Miguel!" Pablo croaked. "Read!"

Don Miguel read. Then he carefully folded the telegram and replaced it
in the envelope; as deliberately, he returned the envelope to his
pocket. Suddenly his hands gripped the bench, and he trembled
violently.

"Don Mike is dead?" old Pablo queried softly. He possessed all the
acute intuition of a primitive people.

Don Miguel did not reply; so presently Pablo turned his head and gazed
up into the master's face. Then he knew--his fingers trembled slightly
as he returned to work on the hondo, and, for a long time, no sound
broke the silence save the song of an oriole in the catalpa tree.

Suddenly, the sound for which old Pablo had waited so long burst forth
from the sage-clad hillside. It was a cock quail calling, and, to the
majordomo, it seemed to say: "Don Mike! Come home! Don Mike! Come
home!"

"Ah, little truant, who has told you that you are safe?" Pablo cried in
agony. "For Don Mike shall not come home--no, no--never any more!"

His Indian stoicism broke at last; he clasped his hands and fell to his
knees beside the bench, sobbing aloud.

Don Miguel regarded him not, and when Pablo's babbling became
incoherent, the aged master of Palomar controlled his twitching hands
sufficiently to roll and light a cigarette. Then he reread the
telegram.

Yes; it was true. It was from Washington, and signed by the
adjutant-general; it informed Don Miguel Jose Farrel, with regret, that
his son, First Sergeant Miguel Jose Maria Federico Noriaga Farrel,
Number 765,438, had been killed in action in Siberia on the fourth
instant.

"At least," the old don murmured, "he died like a gentleman. Had he
returned to the Rancho Palomar, he could not have continued to live
like one. Oh, my son, my son!"

He rose blindly and groped his way along the wall until he came to the
inset gate leading into the patio; like a stricken animal retreating to
its lair, he sought the privacy of his old-fashioned garden, where none
might intrude upon his grief.

II

First Sergeant Michael Joseph Farrel entered the orderly-room and saluted
his captain, who sat, with his chair tilted back, staring mournfully at
the opposite wall.

"I have to report, sir, that I have personally delivered the battery
records, correctly sorted, labeled, and securely crated, to the
demobilization office. The typewriter, field-desk, and stationery have
been turned in, and here are the receipts."

The captain tucked the receipts in his blouse pocket.

"Well, Sergeant, I dare say that marks the completion of your duties--all
but the last formation." He glanced at his wrist-watch. "Fall in the
battery and call the roll. By that time, I will have organized my
farewell speech to the men. Hope I can deliver it without making a fool
of myself."

"Very well, sir."

The first sergeant stepped out of the orderly-room and blew three long
blasts on his whistle--his signal to the battery to "fall in." The men
came out of the demobilization-shacks with alacrity and formed within a
minute; without command, they "dressed" to the right and straightened the
line. Farrel stepped to the right of it, glanced down the long row of
silent, eager men, and commanded,

"Front!"

Nearly two hundred heads described a quarter circle.

Farrel stepped lithely down the long front to the geometrical center of
the formation, made a right-face, walked six paces, executed an
about-face, and announced complainingly:

"Well, I've barked at you for eighteen months--and finally you made it
snappy. On the last day of your service, you manage to fall in within
the time-limit and dress the line perfectly. I congratulate you." Covert
grins greeted his ironical sally. He continued: "I'm going to say
good-by to those of you who think there are worse tops in the service
than I. To those who did not take kindly to my methods, I have no
apologies to offer. I gave everybody a square deal, and for the
information of some half-dozen Hot-spurs who have vowed to give me the
beating of my life the day we should be demobilized, I take pleasure in
announcing that I will be the first man to be discharged, that there is a
nice clear space between these two demobilization-shacks and the ground
is not too hard, that there will be no guards to interfere, and if any
man with the right to call himself 'Mister' desires to air his grievance,
he can make his engagement now, and I shall be at his service at the hour
stipulated. Does anybody make me an offer?" He stood there, balanced
nicely on the balls of his feet, cool, alert, glancing interestedly up
and down the battery front. "What?" he bantered, "nobody bids? Well,
I'm glad of that. I part friends with everybody. Call rolls!"

The section-chiefs called the rolls of their sections and reported them
present. Farrel stepped to the door of the orderly-room.

"The men are waiting for the captain," he reported.

"Sergeant Farrel," that bedeviled individual replied frantically, "I
can't do it. You'll have to do it for me."

"Yes, sir; I understand."

Farrel returned to the battery, brought them to attention, and said:

"The skipper wants to say good-by, men, but he isn't up to the job. He's
afraid to tackle it; so he has asked me to wish you light duty, heavy
pay, and double rations in civil life. He has asked me to say to you
that he loves you all and will not soon forget such soldiers as you have
proved yourselves to be."

"Three for the Skipper! Give him three and a tiger!" somebody pleaded,
and the cheers were given with a hearty generosity which even the most
disgruntled organization can develop on the day of demobilization.

The skipper came to the door of the orderly-room.

"Good-by, good luck, and God bless you, lads!" he shouted, and nod with
the discharges under his arm, while the battery "counted off," and, in
command of Farrel (the lieutenants had already been demobilized), marched
to the pay-tables. As they emerged from the paymaster's shack, they
scattered singly, in little groups, back to the demobilization-shacks.
Presently, bearing straw suitcases, "tin" helmets, and gas-masks (these
latter articles presented to them by a paternal government as souvenirs
of their service), they drifted out through the Presidio gate, where the
world swallowed them.

Although he had been the first man in the battery to receive his
discharge, Farrel was the last man to leave the Presidio. He waited
until the captain, having distributed the discharges, came out of the
pay-office and repaired again to his deserted orderly-room; whereupon the
former first sergeant followed him.

"I hesitate to obtrude, sir," he announced, as he entered the room, "but
whether the captain likes it or not, he'll have to say good-by to me. I
have attended to everything I can think of, sir; so, unless the captain
has some further use for me, I shall be jogging along."

"Farrel," the captain declared, "if I had ever had a doubt as to why I
made you top cutter of B battery, that last remark of yours would have
dissipated it. Please do not be in a hurry. Sit down and mourn with me
for a little while."

"Well, I'll sit down with you, sir, but I'll be hanged if I'll be
mournful. I'm too happy in the knowledge that I'm going home."

"Where is your home, sergeant?"

"In San Marcos County, in the southern part of the state. After two
years of Siberia and four days of this San Francisco fog, I'm fed up on
low temperatures, and, by the holy poker, I want to go home. It isn't
much of a home--just a quaint, old, crumbling adobe ruin, but it's home,
and it's mine. Yes, sir; I'm going home and sleep in the bed my
great-greatgrandfather was born in."

"If I had a bed that old, I'd fumigate it," the captain declared. Like
all regular army officers, he was a very devil of a fellow for
sanitation. "Do you worship your ancestors, Farrel?"

"Well, come to think of it, I have rather a reverence for 'the ashes of
my fathers and the temples of my gods.'"

"So have the Chinese. Among Americans, however, I thought all that sort
of thing was confined to the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers."

"If I had an ancestor who had been a Pilgrim Father," Farrel declared,
"I'd locate his grave and build a garbage-incinerator on it."

"What's your grouch against the Pilgrim Fathers?"

"They let their religion get on top of them, and they took all the joy
out of life. My Catalonian ancestors, on the other hand, while taking
their religion seriously, never permitted it to interfere with a
_fiesta_. They were what might be called 'regular fellows.'"

"Your Catalonian ancestors? Why, I thought you were black Irish, Farrel?"

"The first of my line that I know anything about was a lieutenant in the
force that marched overland from Mexico to California under command of
Don Gaspar de Portola. Don Gaspar was accompanied by Fray Junipero
Serra. They carried a sword and a cross respectively, and arrived in San
Diego on July first, 1769. So, you see, I'm a real Californian."

"You mean Spanish-Californian."

"Well, hardly in the sense that most people use that term, sir. We have
never intermarried with Mexican or Indian, and until my grandfather
Farrel arrived at the ranch and refused to go away until my grandmother
Noriaga went with him, we were pure-bred Spanish blonds. My grandmother
had red hair, brown eyes, and a skin as white as an old bleached-linen
napkin. Grandfather Farrel is the fellow to whom I am indebted for my
saddle-colored complexion."

"Siberia has bleached you considerably. I should say you're an ordinary
brunet now."

Farrel removed his overseas cap and ran long fingers through his hair.

"If I had a strain of Indian in me, sir," he explained, "my hair would be
straight, thick, coarse, and blue-black. You will observe that it is
wavy, a medium crop, of average fineness, and jet black."

The captain laughed at his frankness.

"Very well, Farrel; I'll admit you're clean-strain white. But tell me:
How much of you is Latin and how much Farrel?"

It was Farrel's turn to chuckle now.

"Seriously, I cannot answer that question. My grandmother, as I have
stated, was pure-bred Castilian or Catalonian, for I suppose they mixed.
The original Michael Joseph Farrel (I am the third of the name) was
Tipperary Irish, and could trace his ancestry back to the fairies--to
hear him tell it. But one can never be quite certain how much Spanish
there is in an Irishman from the west, so I have always started with the
premise that the result of that marriage--my father--was three-fifths
Latin. Father married a Galvez, who was half Scotch; so I suppose I'm an
American."

"I should like to see you on your native heath, Farrel. Does your dad
still wear a conical-crowned sombrero, bell-shaped trousers, bolero
jacket, and all that sort of thing?"

"No, sir. The original Mike insisted upon wearing regular trousers and
hats. He had all of the prejudices of his race, and regarded folks who
did things differently from him as inferior people. He was a lieutenant
on a British sloop-of-war that was wrecked on the coast of San Marcos
County in the early 'Forties. All hands were drowned, with the exception
of my grandfather, who was a very contrary man. He swam ashore and
strolled up to the hacienda of the Rancho Palomar, 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 _manana_ spirit will settle
over me again, like mildew on old boots."

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