probability of foreclosure eventually, he knew they would not consider
the loan. Don Mike was bitterly aware of the fact that the history of
his family bad been one of waste, extravagance, carelessness and
inefficiency. In order to place the ranch on a paying basis and take
up John Parker's mortgage, therefore, he would have to have a new loan
of not less than half a million dollars, and at six per cent., the
lowest rate of interest he could hope to obtain, his annual interest
charge would be thirty thousand dollars. Naturally he would be
expected to repay the loan gradually--say at the rate of fifty thousand
dollars a year. By running ten thousand head of cattle on the Palomar
he knew he could meet his payments of interest and principal without
lessening his working capital, but he could not do it by attempting to
raise scrub beef cattle. He would gradually produce a herd of
pure-bred Herefords, but in the meantime he would have to buy
"feeders," grow them out on the Palomar range and sell them at a
profit. During the present high price of beef cattle, he dared not
gamble on borrowed capital, else with a slump in prices he might be
destroyed. It would be a year or two, at least, before he might accept
that risk; indeed, the knowledge of this condition had induced him to
lease the San Gregorio for one year to the Basque sheep man, André
Loustalot. If, in the interim, he should succeed in saving the ranch,
he knew that a rest of one year would enable the range to recover from
the damage inflicted upon it by the sheep.

In his desolation there came to him presently a wave of the strong
religious faith that was his sole unencumbered heritage. Once again he
was a trustful little boy. He slid out of the great bed of his
ancestors and knelt on the old rag mat beside it; he poured out an
appeal for help from One who, he had been told--who, he truly
believed--marked the sparrow's fall. Don Mike was far from being the