The Pride of Palomar

by Peter B. Kyne

There was no further argument. The sheepherders' effects were soon transferred to the backs of three burros and, driving the little animals ahead of them, the Basques moved out. Farrel and Don Nicolás followed them to the boundaries of the ranch and shooed them out through a break in the fence.

"Regarding that stranger who camped last night in the valley, Don Miguel. Would it not be well to look into his case?"

Don Mike nodded. "We will ride up the valley, Pablo, as if we seek cattle; if we find this fellow we will ask him to explain."

"That is well," the old Indian agreed, and dropped back to his respectful position in his master's rear. As they topped the ridge that formed the northern buttress of the San Gregorio, Pablo rode to the left and started down the hill through a draw covered with a thick growth of laurel, purple lilac, a few madone trees and an occasional oak. He knew that a big, five-point buck had its habitat here and it was Pablo's desire to jump this buck out and thus afford his master a glimpse of the trophy that awaited him later in the year.

From the valley below a rifle cracked. Pablo slid out of his saddle with the ease of a youth and lay flat on the ground beside the trail. But no bullet whined up the draw or struck near him, wherefore he knew that he was not the object of an attack; yet there was wild pounding of his heart when the rifle spoke again and again.

The thud of hoofs smote his ear sharply, so close was he to the ground. Slowly Pablo raised his head. Over the hog's back which separated the draw in which Pablo lay concealed from the draw down which Don Miguel had ridden, the gray horse came galloping—riderless—and Pablo saw the stock of the rifle projecting from the scabbard. The runaway plunged into the draw some fifteen yards in front of Pablo, found a cow-trail leading down it and disappeared into the valley.

Pablo's heart swelled with agony. "It has happened!" he murmured. "Ah, Mother of God! It has happened!"

Two more shots in rapid succession sounded from the valley. "He makes certain of his kill," thought Pablo. After a while he addressed the off front foot of the black mare. "I will do likewise."

He started crawling on his belly up out of the draw to the crest of the hog's back. He had an impression, amounting almost to a certainty, that the assassin in the valley had not seen him riding down the draw, otherwise he would not have opened fire on Don Miguel. He would have bided his time and chosen an occasion when there would be no witnesses.

For an hour he waited, watching, grieving, weeping a little. From the draw where Don Miguel lay no sound came forth. Pablo tried hard to erase from his mind a vision of what he would find when, his primal duty of vengeance, swift and complete, accomplished, he should go down into that draw. His tear-dimmed, bloodshot eyes searched the valley—ah, what was that? A cow, a deer or a man? Surely something had moved in the brush at the edge of the river wash.