I wonder what Farrel's next move will be?"
"I heard him announce that he was going to get ready for the _fiesta_,"
Kay replied.
For two weeks he was busy harrowing, disking and rolling the old
race-track; he repainted the weather-beaten poles and reshingled the
judge's stand; he repaired the fence and installed an Australian
starting-gate, dug a pit for the barbecue and brought forth, repaired
and set up under the oaks close to the race-tracks, thirty long wooden
tables at which, in an elder and more romantic day, the entire
countryside, as guests of the Farrels and Noriagas, had gathered to
feast. Farrel worked hard and saw but little of his guests, except at
meal-times; he retired somewhat early each night and, insofar as his
guests could note, he presented a most commendable example of a young
man whose sole interest in life lay in his work.
"When do you plan to give your _fiesta_, Miguel?" Kay inquired one
evening as they sat, according to custom, on the veranda.
"In about a month," he replied. "I've got to fatten my steers and
harden them on a special diet before we barbecue them. Don Nicolas
Sandoval will have charge of the feast, and if I furnished him with
thin, tough range steers, he'd charge me with modernism and disown me.
Old Bill Conway never would forget it. He'd nag me to my grave."
"When do we give Panchito his try-out, Don Mike?"
"The track is ready for it now, Kay, and Pablo tells me Panchito's
half-brother is now a most dutiful member of society and can get there
in a hurry when he's sent for.
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