The Grandee's Ring

Summary

Sun-bleached mesquite and a ribbon of river form the crucible where Shirley Saunders, horseflesh and hubris incarnate, gallops past every paternal prohibition and straight into the dust-cloud of a borderlands myth. Bandits—half folklore, half rifle smoke—spirit her across the Rio Grande, but the kidnapping is only prologue: Carlos DeLaBarra, last bloom of a decaying Castilian hidalgo line, erupts from the chaparral like a matador of destiny, blade glinting brighter than morality. Rescue flickers into courtship, and the frontier’s ardor trails them east to ivy-draped Watson College, where baseball seams replace pistol shells and ivy walls echo with the thwack of bats rather than bandoliers. Four seasons cycle; Shirley’s affection splits like light through stained glass, refracting onto Carlos—now pitcher-prince of the diamond—and Jack Foster, his foil, roommate, rival. The final innings of a championship tilt become a secular Last Judgment: bases loaded with longing, scoreboard tallying unspoken promises, a single dream-sequence dissolving the love triangle into crystalline certainty.

Synopsis

David Saunders and his daughter Shirley in company with Prof. Sinclair of Watson College are staying at the Saunders' ranch on the Mexican border. Shirley, despite a warning to keep away from the Rio Grande, insists on riding in that direction and is captured by some marauding Mexican bandits. She is rescued in thrilling manner by Carlos DeLaBarra, scion of an old Castilian family and a strange attachment springs up between them. Later Shirley and her father return to the east and through the kindness of Saunders, Carlos is entered in Watson College, where he and his roommate, Jack Foster, proceed to make reputations on the baseball field. Four years have passed and both Jack and Carlos are deeply in love with Shirley, who in turn is in love with them. Finally after a series of exciting incidents in which a championship baseball game plays an important part, Shirley is brought to the realization of true love and is won by Carlos through the medium of a dream in which she finds the true character of both boys.