"If you'd only sell him to me, Don Mike," she pleaded. "I'll give you a ruinous price for him."
"He is not for sale, Miss Kay."
"But you were going to give him away to your late battery commander!"
He held up his right hand with the red scar on the back of it, but made no further reply.
"Why will you not sell him to me?" she pleaded. "I want him so."
"I love him," he answered at that, "and I could only part with him—for love. Some day, I may give him to somebody worth while, but for the present I think I shall be selfish and continue to own him. He's a big, powerful animal, and if he can carry weight in a long race, he's fast enough to make me some money."
"Let me ride him in the try-out," she pleaded. "I weigh just a hundred and twenty."
"Very well. To-morrow I'll hitch up a work-team, and disk the heart out of our old race-track— Oh, yes; we have such a thing"—in reply to her lifted brows. "My grandfather Mike induced my great-grandfather Noriaga to build it way back in the 'Forties. The Indians and vaqueros used to run scrub races in those days—in fact, it was their main pastime."
"Where is this old race-track?"
"Down in the valley. A fringe of oaks hides it. It's grass-grown and it hasn't been used in twenty-five years, except when the Indians in this part of the country foregather in the valley occasionally and pull off some scrub races."