"What's that?" he cried sharply. "He told you Don Mike had been
killed?"

"Yes--poor fellow! Pablo said Don Mike's father had had a telegram
from the War Department."

Farrel's first impulse was to curse the War Department--in Spanish, so
she would not understand. His second was to laugh, and his third to
burst into tears. How his father had suffered! Then he remembered
that to-night, he, the said Don Mike, was to have the proud privilege
of returning from Valhalla, of bringing the light of joy back to the
faded eyes of old Don Miguel, and in the swift contemplation of the
drama and the comedy impending, he stood staring at her rather
stupidly. Pablo would doubtless believe he was a ghost returned to
haunt old scenes; the majordomo would make the sign of the cross and
start running, never pausing till he would reach the Mission of the
Mother of Sorrows, there to pour forth his unbelievable tale to Father
Dominic. Whereupon Father Dominic would spring into his prehistoric
automobile and come up to investigate. Great jumped-up Jehoshaphat!
What a climax to two years of soldiering!

"Wha--what--why--do you mean to tell me poor old Mike Farrel has lost
the number of his mess?" he blurted. "Great snakes! That news breaks
me all up in business."

"You knew him well, then?"

"'Knew him?' Why, I ate with him, slept with turn, rode with him, went
to school with him. Know him? I should tell a man! We even soldiered