"I hope that delightful Don
Mike collects every penny."
"Very poor business, I zink," Mr. Okada opined, thoughtfully.
"At any rate," Parker observed, "our host isn't letting the grass grow
under his feet. I wonder if he'll attach Loustalot's automobile. It's
new, and worth about eight thousand dollars. Well, we shall see what
we shall see."
"I zink I take little walk. 'Scuse me, please," said Okada, and bowed
to Parker and his wife. He gave both the impression that he had been
an unwilling witness to an unhappy and distressing incident and wished
to efface himself from the scene. Mrs. Parker excused him with a brief
and somewhat wintry smile, and the little Oriental started strolling
down the palm-lined avenue. No sooner had the gate closed behind them,
however, than he hastened back to Loustalot's car, and at the end of
ten minutes of furious labor had succeeded in exchanging the deflated
tire for one of the inflated spare tires at the rear of the car. This
matter attended to, he strolled over to the ranch blacksmith shop and
searched through it until he found that which he sought--a long, heavy
pair of bolt-clippers such as stockmen use for dehorning young cattle.
Armed with this tool, he slipped quietly round to the rear of Pablo's
"calaboose," and went to work noiselessly on the small iron-grilled
window of the settlement-room.
The bars were an inch in diameter and too thick to be cut with the
bolt-clippers, but Okada did not despair.
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