"I love you, California. You're the greatest state of all--"
"Oh dear! You native sons are all alike. Congenital advertisers, every one."
"Well, isn't it beautiful? Isn't it wonderful?" He was serious now.
"One-half of your state is worthless mountain country--"
"He-country--and beautiful!" he interrupted.
"Ever see the Mojave in the late afternoon from the top of the Tejon Pass?" he challenged. "The wild, barbaric beauty of it? And with water it would be a garden-spot."
"But the bare brown hills in summer-time--and the ghost-rivers of the South! I do not think they are beautiful."
"They grow on one," he assured her earnestly. "You wait and see. I wish you could ride over the hills back of Sespe with me this afternoon, and see the San Gregorio valley in her new spring gown. Ah, how my heart yearns for the San Gregorio!"
To her amazement, she detected a mistiness in his eyes, and her generous heart warmed to him.
"How profoundly happy you are!" she commented.
"'Happy'? I should tell a man! I'm as happy as a cock valley-quail with a large family and no coyotes in sight. Wow! This steak is good."
She permitted him to eat in silence for several minutes, and when he had disposed of the steak, she asked,
"We have a ranch there also," she volunteered. "Father acquired it recently."
"I do not know the man's name, but the ranch is one of those old Mexican grants. It has a Spanish name. I'll try to remember it." She knitted her delicate brows. "It's Pal-something or other."
"Is it the Palomares grant?" he suggested.
"I think it is. I know the former owner is dead, and my father acquired the ranch by foreclosure of mortgage on the estate."
"Then it's the Palomares grant. My father wrote in his last letter that old man Gonzales had died and that a suit to foreclose the mortgage had been entered against the estate. The eastern edge of that grant laps over the lower end of the San Gregorio. Is your father a banker?"
"He controls the First National Bank of El Toro."
"That settles the identity of the ranch. Gonzales was mortgaged to the First National." He smiled a trifle foolishly. "You gave me a bad ten seconds," he explained. "I thought you meant my father's ranch at first."
"Horrible!" She favored him with a delightful little grimace of sympathy. "Just think of coming home and finding yourself homeless!"