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Healthcare Business
Intelligence
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Healthcare Business
Intelligence
A Guide to Empowering
Successful Data Reporting
and Analytics

LAURA B. MADSEN, MS

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108
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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have

used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or
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information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Madsen, Laura B., 1973–

Healthcare business intelligence : a guide to empowering successful
data reporting and analytics / Laura B. Madsen.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-118-21780-1 (hardback); ISBN 978-1-118-28233-5 (ebk);
ISBN 978-1-118-28394-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-28490-2 (ebk)
1. Medical records–Management. 2. Business intelligence. I. Title.
RA976.M24 2012
651.5 04261–dc23 2012012398

Printed in the United States of America

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To Karl and Nolan

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Contents

Foreword xi
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xvii

CHAPTER 1 Business Intelligence 1

What BI Isn’t 2
Do You Need BI? 3
Healthcare Information Environment 4
Data Modeling 9
The Don’ts 10

CHAPTER 2 The Tenets of Healthcare BI 13

The Tenets 15
Data Quality 17
Leadership and Sponsorship 22
Technology and Architecture 26
Providing Value 31
Cultural Implications 35
Seeking Equilibrium 35

CHAPTER 3 Data Quality 39

Data Quality Implications for Healthcare 40

Data Governance 42
Data Profiling 58

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Contents

CHAPTER 4 Leadership and Sponsorship 67

Leading a BI Initiative 68
Why Sponsorship Is Critical 80

CHAPTER 5 Technology and Architecture 101

The “Abilities”: Scalability, Usability,

Repeatability, Flexibility 104
Scalability 106
Usability 110
Repeatability 117
Flexibility 130

CHAPTER 6 Providing Value 135

Creating a BI Team 136

User Adoption 144
The BI User Persona Continuum 149
Six Steps to Providing Value 152

CHAPTER 7 Gauging Your Readiness for BI 175

Stop 181
Proceed with Caution 186
The Go Stage 191

CHAPTER 8 Future Trends in Healthcare BI 195

Web 2.0 and Social Media 197

Mobile Technologies for Healthcare BI 204
Analytics: More Than a Buzzword 206
Creating a Data-Driven Organization 208
Big Data and Why It Matters 211
To the Cloud! 212

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Contents

CHAPTER 9 Putting It All Together 215

Year One 216

Get Some Support 217
Governance Structure 220
Projects with Value 221
Technology and Architecture Gaps 223
Architectural Gaps 229
Cultural Preparedness 230
Marketing the Program 230
Manage the Inaugural Effort 232
Build Supporting Processes and
Infrastructure 234
Train and Deploy 236
Operationalize the BI Function 238
KPIs for Healthcare 239
Departing Thoughts on Healthcare BI 240

APPENDIX A Data Governance Policies and Procedures 243

APPENDIX B Business Intelligence Reporting Tool 253

APPENDIX C Business Intelligence Road Map Template 265

APPENDIX D Business Intelligence Marketing Plan

Template 281

APPENDIX E Status Report Template 285

About the Website 289

About the Author 291

Index 293

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Foreword

A year ago, senior managers at my hospital asked me a simple

question in anticipation of healthcare reform:

Can you create the omnibus platform for coordination, pop-

ulation health, and care management that integrates hetero-
geneous data from large and small affiliated provider orga-
nizations, supplying retrospective and prospective analytics
to improve quality, safety and efficiency?

No problem.
Everyone wants to be an accountable care organization, but
no one knows how to do it.
I believe there are five tactics necessary for success in a
world where reimbursement for quality rather than quantity is
our future:

1. Universal adoption of electronic health records

2. Healthcare information exchange
3. Business intelligence/analytics
4. Universal availability of personal health records to patients/
families
5. Decision support at the point of care

This book is about how to achieve number 3.

Analyzing data requires much more than technology—it re-
quires an understanding of the very nature of the data and its
intended uses. What do I mean?

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Foreword

A few years ago I hired an analyst who looked at one of our

data marts and concluded that the average length of stay in the
operating room was 127 days! They did not know that length
of stay in hospitals is measured in days but in operating rooms
it is in minutes.
Another analyst noted that no inpatients over the age of
65 had ever visited our emergency department. They did not
realize that Medicare creates a bundled payment for all care
delivered in an encounter—there is no separate emergency de-
partment charge.
This book provides all the tools necessary to implement suc-
cessful analytics from an understanding of data quality to getting
the project done via appropriate governance. Tactics discussed
include the right scope of analytics projects to maximize value
while reducing costs and time to deliver useful results. Man-
aging data security, ensuring data integrity, and managing the
impact of analytics on culture are key topics that I’m focused
on every day. This book shares the details from trenches.
I know you’ll find this book to be a helpful reference for
your business intelligence journey. It nicely summarizes all the
lessons I’ve learned over the past decade, so you’ll have the
benefit of best practices without having to repeat our mistakes!

Dr. John Halamka

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Preface

T wenty years ago, I sat in a doctor’s office and received a

diagnosis that would change my life forever. Although I was
fortunate that my diagnosis was chronic but not life-threatening,
it took years of suffering before someone could tell me what
was wrong. Each doctor I went to see requested the same in-
formation, the same replay of history and symptoms, and after
three years of begging for relief the paper copy of my medical
record came to rival Webster’s unabridged dictionary. I didn’t
know or understand then that most of the inefficiencies within
the healthcare system had nothing to do with the capabilities of
the care team—and everything to do with sharing data.
Fast-forward to 2006, when my nearly two-year-old nephew
sat in the emergency room of Children’s Hospital in Minneapo-
lis. He had been sick on and off for about a month, not terribly
unusual for a two-year-old, but his regular doctor was con-
cerned enough to send him and his parents to Children’s. It was
the Tuesday afternoon before Thanksgiving. I had just walked
in the door at home when my sister called me and told me
that a blood test revealed that my nephew had leukemia. In
less than 36 hours, on a holiday week, he received his first
treatment. We sat Thanksgiving morning in the waiting room
staring at a TV screen that looked more like a report. It had the
patient name, location (e.g., prep, recovery) with a green/red
symbol to help identify whether he was passing between them.
I was struck with the level, ease, and sophistication of the data

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Preface

that Children’s Hospital uses every day to keep their patients

and families healthy and well informed. Today, my nephew is
a thriving seven-year-old.
There’s no doubt that healthcare is deeply personal. The
work that I do assists providers in taking better care of people
like me and you. Sometimes that means a direct impact to pa-
tient care, and sometimes it means that it makes it easier for
them to run the business side of providing care. But every day
I recognize that the value that data provides means more effi-
ciency, better outcomes, and improved transparency. And we
all benefit in the end.
Today, as the arguments for and against universal healthcare
continue, we all recognize that the fundamental structure of
the U.S. healthcare system is broken. I don’t claim that better
use and management of data is the panacea, but I do strongly
believe that it’s as close to a magic bullet as anything else we
have in our arsenal.
There is no better time, as data volumes increase due to reg-
ulatory pressures, to take advantage of all we have learned to
create strong data management programs in every healthcare or-
ganization. The result of this will be a stronger and better health
information exchange; a better understanding of members, pa-
tients, and behaviors; payment transparency; easier transitions
between providers (inpatient to outpatient, or just moving ge-
ographically); improved data on drug-drug interactions; the list
goes on and on.
In the information technology (IT) industry terminology the
term for this type of data management work is business intelli-
gence (BI).
This book was born out of my work in healthcare business
intelligence, more specifically, my work in creating healthcare
BI programs. Almost every organization I have worked with
has asked the same questions and expressed similar concerns.
Business intelligence is a top-10 trend for just about every chief

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Preface

information officer (CIO) in the country. Healthcare as an in-

dustry is behind in adopting BI, yet no other industry needs it
more. The demand for data management expertise in health-
care is increasing at a rapid rate, but the resource pool is
limited, especially if you are looking for someone who has
built BI programs specifically for healthcare. The lack of indus-
try knowledge and experience jeopardizes healthcare organiza-
tions’ chances of success in implementing and adopting BI. As
a result, many programs fail at things that they shouldn’t fail at,
or focus on things that are not important.
This book was written with the business leader in mind.
You will not find in these pages a detailed method for building
out data models (that book has been written well by others).
What you will find is a guidebook for creating a BI program that
will become a sustaining capability and will provide your orga-
nization with significant value. This book differs from the others
written about BI. First, it focuses on healthcare, and second, it
focuses on the business leader interested in BI.
The following chapters are what I consider the tenets of
successful healthcare BI programs. A healthcare BI program
can exist without some or all of these, but it may be on shaky
ground. The challenges with healthcare BI programs are signif-
icant, from the technical to the process. The statistics continue
to be disturbing: more than 70 percent of BI programs fail on
their first attempt. Many factors are associated with failure for BI
programs, but these tenets have been built based on my years
of experience in building healthcare BI programs. I know what
happens to healthcare BI programs without these tenets; they’re
on a fast track to disappointment.
So, how can you avoid becoming just another statistic? Use
this book as your guide, your cookbook if you will, for creating
your program. Why a cookbook? I have been cooking since
I could reach a countertop (that’s a completely different book)
and what I have learned in cooking is that two cooks can follow

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Preface

the same recipe and have the dish turn out quite differently.
That’s okay, as long as they have all the right ingredients and
a step-by-step process for completion. The same must be true
for a healthcare BI program. Your conditions will vary. Your
hospital or health plan is not just like any other organization; in
order for your healthcare BI program to succeed it must (repeat,
must) be created, molded, and formed to your organization. The
things that work for one hospital may not work for the hospital
across the street. That’s okay, as long as we all have the same
ingredients.
This book gives you the ingredients and, where appropriate,
step-by-step process for including key factors. In addition, you
will see throughout the book key points highlighted, mini case
studies that are meant to provide you with an understanding
of what healthcare organizations can achieve when they man-
age their data as an asset, and sections on how to put all the
pieces together.
After reading this book, you will be able to:

 Articulate the best practices of business intelligence and data

warehouses for healthcare
 Assess your organization’s preparedness to adopt BI
 Create a shared corporate lexicon
 Operationalize a BI program
 Build supporting processes and infrastructures to support a
BI program today and in the future
 Present the value proposition and return on investment
(ROI) to executives
 Proactively market the BI program to stakeholders

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Acknowledgments

I t is December 2011 and I am about halfway through the con-

tent for this book. I am pausing here, at this time and place,
to remind myself why I am doing this. I have found it easy in
this process to get wrapped up in the length of the chapters or
the tone of a sentence. I have found that the more lost I get in
these details the less I remember what drives me.
My intention for this book is relatively simple: to start a con-
versation, to ask why the industry is what it is (or isn’t). I do this
because of the laser-like focus and incredibly idealist proposi-
tion that starting this conversation, pushing the envelope, can
drive changes in healthcare. Although I am an idealist, I am
also a realistic, so I recognize that this one book about data and
reporting will likely not change healthcare in any measureable
way. People much smarter than me have been trying to fix the
situation for years and haven’t been successful, but I am proud
to be part of the group that has tried.
In August 2008 I sat down with Tom Niccum, president of
Lancet. We had discussed the possibility of my joining Lancet.
During this conversation we first discussed the idea of a book.
In 2008 the idea of a healthcare BI book was questionable.
Healthcare had not adopted BI, and although the elections were
looming, none of us knew the degree to which the administra-
tion would impact healthcare BI. In other words, in 2008 we
didn’t have an audience. Fast-forward three years later and our
healthcare practice was booming. Healthcare had leap-frogged

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Acknowledgments

ahead in its BI adoption and in a matter of months, a book on

healthcare BI seemed like the next right thing to do.
A big thanks to Tom for starting the conversation and re-
visiting it until the timing was right. I owe a debt of gratitude
to Nancy Dowling, my editor-on-the-side, who kept the quality
of my work high. Diane Fiderlein, dear friend and colleague,
whose thoroughness and knowledge guided the book from
good to great. So many others at Lancet participated in their
own time (and some company time) to help make this book a
reality. Big thanks go to Paul Sorenson for adding intellectual
vigor, and Michael Reid and Neil Schafer for great conversa-
tions about architecture and the resultant graphics. I also have
to thank all the founders of Lancet for their support and faith:
Chris Holtan, Jaime Plante, Rick Thorp, and particularly Randy
Mattran, who continues to always expect the absolute best from
me; damn that’s frustrating! I would be remiss if I didn’t men-
tion the Lancet DesignHaus, a team of wildly talented artists
who have dedicated themselves to the cause of visualizing data.
In their free time they designed all the graphics for this book;
Jennifer Maanhardt, Chris Peters, and Mike Erickson—thanks for
making my notes and bad sketches look great.
I owe a debt of gratitude to the organizations that agreed to
include their case studies in this book. These organizations, and
the work that they do in healthcare BI, have continued to inspire
not only me but all of our peers too. It’s incredibly exciting to
be in this industry, and I have these pioneering organizations
to thank.
Finally, I have to acknowledge my family. My parents and
grandmother, who constantly encouraged me in my incessant
need for information and understanding, even at age five. My
siblings, whose struggles and experiences with healthcare are
detailed in these pages, and most of all, my husband and son.
There are no words to thank them for the support that they
provide and the patience that they exhibit after my endless

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Acknowledgments

hours on the road learning the ins and outs of my industry

and then the hours locked in my office writing this book. My
appreciation is diminished only by my love for you both.
No matter whose name appears as the “author” it takes a
team of people to get a book to its finished state. I am humbled
and incredibly fortunate to be able to work with all of you, so
I thank you.

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Healthcare Business
Intelligence
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CHAPTER 1
Business Intelligence
An Introduction

W hen I tell people what I do for a living they respond one

of two ways. First, “Business intelligence, isn’t that an oxy-
moron?” Oh, first time I have heard that! So funny. The second
response is: “What?” Complete with a blank stare on their face.
I almost always qualify it with something like “You know,
reporting and analytics.” That usually seals the deal. It’s not
completely accurate but in these instances I am okay with
good enough.
Many definitions of business intelligence (BI) exist; the most
well-known is “The right information to the right person at the
right time in the right way.” This is my least favorite because
it implies a factor of luck. Perhaps the oldest was written by
H. P. Luhn in 1958: “The objective of the system is to sup-
ply suitable information to support specific activities carried out
by individuals, groups, departments, divisions, or even larger
units. . . . To that end, the system concerns itself with the ad-
mission of acquisition of new information, its dissemination,
storage, retrieval, and transmittal to the action points it serves.”
The one I use most often is: BI is the integration of data from
disparate source systems to optimize business usage and under-
standing through a user-friendly interface.

1
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
Presto! and the bandoleros were back in their old positions, their
carbines sweeping the crowd. The imminent danger of stampede
was dissipated. The discipline of dread again prevailed.
Handing the carbine back to Perez, Jacinto Quesada started after the
girl. She had fled without aim, without purpose, he thought, like a
frightened doe that cares not where she flees so long as she flees
from the huntsmen. Her panicky flight would do little good,
however; a sort of trap was the stalled train, not a refuge and
sanctuary.
The girl was just about to open the door of one of the third-class
coaches and fling herself therein when, all at once, she cast back a
look, first at her tall blond mustached husband, then at Quesada.
Strangely, her glances seemed to have become preposterously
mixed. It was a look of dread and loathing she threw back toward
her husband; and a look of entreaty and beseeching she sent toward
the pursuing bandolero!
With his long mountaineer's legs, Jacinto Quesada sprinted to the
train. Hardly had the door of the third-class carriage closed behind
the golden-haired girl than he was at that door. Open he flung it and
in he burst.
"Felicidad! Felicidad, querida mia, my darling! It is I, Jacinto—Jacinto
Quesada! You have naught to fear from me. And if you had told me
that he, the Frenchman, was your husband, I would not have robbed
him. Porvida! everything taken already shall be given him back. And
as for you, dear Felicidad—"
She had backed herself against the door opposite. Now she came
forward swiftly, her face paling and flushing, her lip a-quiver. It was
not as though she were glad with sudden recognition: it was as
though she were terribly agitated by some deadly fear. She said, in a
dry expressionless tone:
"I heard your name mentioned by some passenger as we were
bundled from the train, Jacinto, and ah! how grateful to God I was
when I first saw you, almost half an hour ago, standing among those
ruffianly ladrones! I remembered the time you saved me from my
father's quirta—and I needed you so much more, now!
"All this long, long afternoon I prayed that something would happen
—anything, anything! God of my soul! how I prayed! But even after I
discovered you and realized that, for our childhood's sake, you would
protect me, it took all my courage and strength to flee from the
crowd and conceal myself here, where I could speak to you and not
be spied upon or suspected by that evil, that terrible man!"
Almost in a whisper were her words spoken, but they crashed upon
Jacinto Quesada's brain like exploding, detonating shells. He reeled
back, overwhelmed, staggered, knocked all to pieces. He gasped:
"Por los Clavos de Cristo! what is all this?"
"Ah, Maria purissima! He does not understand! But all, I shall tell
him!"—and swiftly, precipitantly, the girl went on:
"This Frenchman. He calls himself Jacques Ferou. He was the only
one that was kind to me and even until two hours ago, I thought I
loved him. We were to be married in Madrid to-night—but now—"
"Then he is not already your husband! Carajo! I thought—"
"No; we but eloped this morning. And now, I would not continue on
with him; I would turn back! I am afraid—afraid!"
"But tell me all from the beginning. Your words turn my brain to a
stew!"
 CHAPTER VII
Jacinto Quesada had known Felicidad's father, Don Jaime de
Torreblanca y Moncada; he had lived in the great, cold, dingy house
near Granada; he had tasted the secluded, lonely life of Felicidad.
Therefore, she had but to say a few sketchy rapid sentences and he
comprehended the beginning of everything.
"Of late years, my father has become gradually poorer, Jacinto," she
said.
Quesada nodded his head understandingly. Don Jaime had never
refused his physician's services to the poverty-stricken and
wretched; and the poverty-stricken and wretched were always
becoming sick; and the poverty-stricken and wretched seldom paid.
Small wonder that Don Jaime's fortunes had fallen into decay!
"My father had no money put by to keep him in his old age; but he
always said he would sell those old beloved books of his when he
became incapacitated, by age, for a physician's arduous toils, or
when bitter necessity pressed him hard. You must know, Jacinto,
that father's ancient, yellow-leafed books are worth much, much
money."
She went on to explain. Learned men, famous men—some of them
scholarly descendants of noble families, others erudite plebeians
with the right to affix a dozen initials after their names—were always
coming to Don Jaime's house from the University of Salamanca and
the Museo Provincial of Seville to examine those books and to write
historical treatises and critiques from them. And it was not unusual
to find one of these bookworms, these bibliophiles, these hombres
del todo aficionado á los libros, making eager hints to purchase such
of the precious dingy tomes as they considered within their means.
Some of the books had been possessed by Don Jaime's family for
hundreds of years; others he had come by through his godfather
who was a famous Spanish historian and very rich; and still others
he had himself discovered when doctoring ruined hidalgo families
and the monks of poverty-gutted monasteries; and he had taken
these finds in place of monetary fees. Naturally enough, therefore,
he hated to part with any of this great treasure in books.
Fearing an old age of stony poverty, however, Don Jaime at last
made up his mind to put the books on sale. The money he might
receive from marketing the books he planned to invest in Argentine
bonds. Three months gone, he wrote to two great houses that deal
in rare and valuable books; the one in London, the other in Paris.
Posthaste, two months since, came to the house outside Granada,
the buyer for the London firm. In far-away cold London, they had
heard of Don Jaime's collection, for there was not another collection
of its like outside of Spain. For two weeks the London book-buyer
lived in the casa with Don Jaime and Felicidad, cataloguing and
pricing the books. Some of the old quaint authors he rejected as of
little worth, but others he called "glorious Golcondas" and offered
Don Jaime such a sum for them that he was amazed, astounded. He
had not expected to receive so much money for the whole aggregate
and total of his collection.
"Three weeks ago, after paying my father a fortune in bank notes,"
continued the girl, "the English book-buyer, Senor Havelock Moore-
Ingraham, went away, and with him, borne by a caravan of ten
mules, went the cream and richness of my father's library.
"Then came to our house this Jacques Ferou. He said he had been
sent by the Paris house to whom my father had written. My father
told him that he was too late to bid, that all the books of value had
been sold.
"At that Jacques Ferou became very downcast; he said that his firm
would be much put out when they learned he had allowed the
English company to bag the hares while he played the laggard. And
he begged very earnestly for permission to look through the books,
which had not been purchased, in the hope that the English agent
had overlooked a few volumes of value, volumes that he might buy
in order to save his face."
Don Jaime gave him permission so to do. For almost a month he
lived in the great dusky lonely house. When he was not in the library
poring over the yellowed tomes, he wandered through the house,
seeking sight of Felicidad. When she had her daily "hour of balcony",
he would leave the casa and stand watching her from across the
road, "playing the bear" in a very serious and devoted manner.
"I had never had a novio before," explained Felicidad, "and his eyes
were so kind and sympathetic! It was very lonely in the great house
with just my father and the old whining Pedro and the old childish
Teresa. And he treated me with such consideration and reverence!
"We used to meet often in the long dusky corridors, he kissing my
hands and telling me how beautiful I was, and I liking it, yet feeling
fear of him and all a-tremble, besides, lest my father discover us.
And at dinner time and all through the evenings, there he would be
again, talking with my father about 'rogue novels' and the
chroniclers of the conquistadores, and ever looking at me with the
burning eyes of love.
"Two days ago, my father spoke very harshly to me, threatening me
with a beating—he beats me even yet, you know. Old Pedro had told
him that I had a novio—that was why he was angered at me. But he
did not as yet suspect that my lover was Jacques Ferou.
"Jacques was to leave our house for Paris in another week. I could
not resign myself to the old loneliness in that empty gloomy house;
and I would not suffer even one more time the indignity of a beating
at my father's hands. So two days ago I consented to run off with
Jacques Ferou and become his wife.
"At four o'clock this morning, when it was still dark, I left my bed,
dressed, put a few things together, and went out on my balcony.
Jacques was waiting for me. He threw up a rope and I tied it to the
iron railing and let myself down into his arms.
"Down the road a high-powered automobile awaited us. In it we
raced precipitantly away, for as you very well know, we had the
outraged pride of my terrible father to fear. Before seven o'clock in
the morning, we had fled almost as far as Jaen. Then something
went wrong with the automobile and it would go no farther;
whereupon, Jacques sent a labrador into Jaen, who soon came back
escorting a diligence pulled by four horses. In the diligence we set
off for Castro which is on the railroad to Madrid. It was two hours
before noon when we reached Castro, and the train came at noon."
They were on the Seville-to-Madrid that afternoon, when suddenly
Felicidad thought:
"Has Jacques forgotten that he came to my father's house to
purchase books—has he forgotten his matter-of-fact business in his
overmastering love for me? He has neither paid my father for those
books he selected, nor taken those books he selected away with
him.
"I questioned Jacques. He laughed. He told me not to worry about
his business affairs. But I continued to worry; I felt already a wife's
interest and pride in my future husband's career; and I was much
afraid that his employers in Paris would be angered by his careless
handling of the whole transaction.
"When Jacques saw that I was still put out about him, he laughed
again, this time heartily and long. Then suddenly he stopped
laughing and, looking hard into my eyes, said in a cold, challenging
voice:
"'Suppose I should tell you, ma chérie, that I am not in the employ
of a Paris book house; that my business is not at all that of a
purchaser of rare books; and that I care for rare books not a snap of
the fingers!'"
Felicidad was thunderstruck and a little stunned. He saw the shocked
expression on her face and thereat commenced, with a cruel
malicious delight, to tell her other things.
He had been to the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile; he had
been to Egypt, Italy, England, and Sweden. He had been to Spain
more than a dozen times before. He had had many adventures. But,
strangely, these adventures were all adventures in crime. He had
robbed cathedrals in France and Spain of their valuable paintings
and jewels and even of their statuary. He had robbed museums and
private collections of the New World.
He seemed to swell with pride, to grow with importance as he bared
his real self thus to her. With snobbish care, he explained to her how
far superior to ordinary criminals he was; he defined himself as one
of a limited and ultra-clever aristocracy of thieves. It was as though
he were showing a noble and praiseworthy side of himself hitherto
unrevealed; it was as though he had wooed a peasant girl, while
disguised in a most humble attire, and now lifted his vagabond's
ragged cap to reveal a prince's crown. He said he was a member of
the "White Wolves", an organization of French criminals who stole
mostly from churches. He said he was a member of many other
exclusive criminal fraternities.
When from the lips of Felicidad, Jacinto Quesada heard this last, he
ejaculated:
"Carajo! So that was why, before we searched him, he made such
queer signs to me—he was using thieves' signs, the signals of those
criminal brotherhoods to which he belongs. He thought I, as another
thief, might have some knowledge of that language of signs and
that, out of a thief's respect for a thief, I might exempt him from the
ordeal of the search!"
"Of what do you speak now—what signs?" asked Felicidad,
bewildered.
Jacinto Quesada explained. Then he said, "Proceed with your story,
dear Felicidad."
Continuing, therefore, Felicidad told how Jacques Ferou, intent on
showing how consummately clever he was at all criminal business,
and not averse to filling his young wife with awe and fear of him, led
up at last to the business that had brought him to Spain and to the
house of Don Jaime de Torreblanca y Moncada.
Once upon a time, he had indeed worked for the Paris book house
whose card he had used to introduce himself to the haughty hidalgo.
He had been hired by a very rich and very crazy bibliophile to get
feloniously, as it was beyond even the bibliomaniac's purse, a certain
precious book in the possession of the Paris firm; and the better to
steal the ancient volume, he had hired himself as a clerk to them for
three months.
Through another clerk still in their employ—a hunchbacked fellow
whom he had picked out, with a criminal's sure instinct, as a
weakling inclined to dishonesty and crime of a sort—he had secured
Don Jaime's letter offering the books for sale, before any one but his
ally and friend, the hunchback, had a chance to see it.
Now, he knew a little about rare books; so he practiced talking about
books like a bibliophile and buyer; and very shortly, he started for
Spain. But he traveled slowly for a certain reason.
When he told her this last, Felicidad asked him:
"But for what reason did you travel slowly?"
Jacques Ferou looked at Felicidad in a pity that, perhaps, amounted
to a contempt.
"Why, you silly baby!" laughed he. "After all I have said, don't you
know why it was I traveled all the way from Paris to your father's
house in Andalusia?"
"No!"
At that, laughing the louder, he opened the top of his vest and put
his hand down beneath his shirt and undershirt. Presently, from
under his armpit, he drew out a small, mahogany-colored leather
purse and let Felicidad look into it. Within was a roll of bills, tightly
wound and compressed so that they took up but little space.
Felicidad gasped with fright and horror when she saw the color of
the top bank note. It was a bank note on the Bank of Spain for five
thousand pesetas! Her father, the terrible Don Jaime, had been paid
by the English book-buyer in five-thousand peseta bills!
But Jacques Ferou was saying:
"You know, your father mentioned offering the books to the English
firm when he wrote that letter to Paris. Therefore, I delayed my
journey to Spain so that I should not reach your father's house until
the English book-buyer had paid over the money for the purchased
books and had left with his purchases. Ma chérie, I came to Spain,
not for books, but for this. This is the money paid to your father for
his books!" And he held up the small mahogany-colored leather
purse that had been Felicidad's father's.
Sometime since, when with cruel, malicious delight he had started to
tell her of his criminal operations, Felicidad had drawn away from
him in horror. Now she started up, crying out in supreme contempt:
"So you stole all the money that was to keep my father in his old
age! Oh, you—you disgusting thief!"
He saw then that he had been too open, too bold, too braggard. He
tried to quiet and soothe her with caressing hands, with kisses. But
her lips had become cold as ice, and they shrank away from his in
profound loathing.
They were alone in the regulation separated continental coach. She
tried to tear herself from his arms and to throw herself from the
moving train. Death was all she thought of at first. By allowing
herself to be cajoled into running off with a creature who had no
more decency than to rob the father of his all, while he stole from
him also his only daughter, she had disgraced the high name of
Torreblanca y Moncada. What a blow this would be at the pride of
the eagle-haughty Don Jaime! He had never forgiven her mother for
her desertion. Of a surety, never would he forgive Felicidad!
But even as Felicidad despaired and thought of death, there had
come to her the protector of her childhood days, Jacinto Quesada.
And to him she now appealed, saying with the ferocity of
desperation:
"The leather purse is still strapped under his armpit next his skin! Go
quickly and take it from him! You should have found it in the search;
then I would not have had to do as I have since done. That purse
contains the happiness of my father's old age. Tear it from that
yellow-livered Frenchman and return it in some way to Don Jaime!"
With nervous eager hands she sought to hurry Jacinto Quesada from
the carriage. But he did not think to resist her, so glad was he to
turn from talk to action. Then, as he dashed impetuously away, she
said in a half-whisper, her voice breaking with sobs:
"If God has intended that I should live on as the wife of a criminal, I
will suffer my fate in silence and patience, knowing that I, in my
waywardness, am alone to blame. But my father shall not be robbed
of his buena ventura—he shall not end his days in want and misery.
Seguramente, no! Dios de mialma, no!
"I have dishonored Don Jaime—and Don Jaime most certainly will kill
me if ever he sets eyes on me again—but no lo quiera Dios! that I
should suffer this obscene crime against him to be committed! There
is blood and pride in me yet—I am yet a Torreblanca y Moncada!"
Half-way to the muster of people, Jacinto Quesada halted to throw
back to her a heartening look and to call:
"Despacio! Softly!—gently! And watch, my Felicidad, how easy it is
to rob the robber!"
 CHAPTER VIII
High overhead a bustard sailed on slow, lazy pinions, but below,
across the flat, tawny Manchegan plain, not a gust of desert dust
whirled, not a buck-rabbit bounded, not a cow or bullock lumbered.
Hot and large, empty and silent was the slow-crawling afternoon.
Jacinto Quesada faced the herded people. He had been gone five
minutes; now, in visible trepidation, they awaited the upshot of his
return. Their eyes adhered stickily to his; they were utterly without
voice. Suddenly, he called, "Bring up and search the Frenchman
again!"
Dios hombre! but the thing was swiftly done. The Frenchman's
protests went for nothing; he was mauled about, roughed and
ruffed, fine-combed and intimately worked over. Jacinto Quesada
himself was lead-hound in the second search. He it was who drew
forth the small, mahogany-colored leather purse from its nook of
concealment in the fellow's armpit.
Looking black as thunder, Jacques Ferou retreated once again into
the background of people. There situated, he gave vent freely to his
exasperation and fury, muttering savagely: "Name of a name of a
name of a name of a dog!" Also, many other choice French curses.
But the more he cursed, the more acrimonious and virulent he
became. His face went livid with stirred-up bile; his slate-colored
eyes snapped in bitter resentment; he bared his long white teeth in
a passionate carnivorous snarl of envenomed hate.
But hate for whom? At first his hate was directed against no one in
particular. Because he had lost the purse, life had suddenly changed
to a more somber color and bitterly he detested the whole world!
Then he turned his eyes upon Jacinto Quesada, thinking, for obvious
reasons, to concentrate his spleen upon him. Jacinto Quesada
caught the Frenchman's burning look and smiled contemptuously.
That contemptuous smile should have infuriated the Frenchman all
the more; but strangely, it did not! Somehow the Frenchman sensed
that Jacinto Quesada was not the prime mover in his downfall; and,
his hate still at a loss for a target to direct itself against, he took his
eyes altogether off the youthful bandolero.
Then Sacre Bleu! who was that he glimpsed out of the ends of his
irises? Was it not Felicidad, his promised wife? She had made an
inconspicuous, an almost clandestine exit, from the third-class coach
wherein she had hid herself; and now she was furtively seeking to
rejoin the muster of people. Watching her, the Frenchman saw
plainly that she it was who had betrayed him to the bandoleros. And
his whole malignant rancid soul bunched and crouched in his eyes,
and threw toward her a look searing and scalding, a look of vitriolic
vindictiveness.
Ever since Felicidad had pushed him with impetuosity and
precipitation from the third-class coach, telling him to go quickly and
tear from the Frenchman the purse, Jacinto Quesada had been
dominated by the will of the girl, doing swiftly and with utter
obedience that which she had bade him do. He had worked in a
white vacuum of action, without prejudice or plan of his own,
without forethought. Never did he doubt but that once the
mahogany-hued purse was taken from the Frenchman the whole
wrong would automatically right itself. And now—what should he do
with the purse? It would be some time before he could plan ways
and means to return it safely to Don Jaime.
Of a sudden, then, to make matters more perplexing, Jacinto
discovered the Frenchman looking at Felicidad in that ugly and
ominous way. At that, he ceased worrying about the mahogany-
colored purse; he shoved it into an inside pocket of his sheepskin
zamarra and straightway forgot it. The question of its disposal was
an insignificant matter; a greater question bothered him. What
should he do with the girl?
As one wrestler closes with another, Jacinto Quesada closed with
that great question. The while he gripped and folded it in the
doughy coils of his brains, however, he did not stand quiet and
pensive. Enough time already had been lost. Loudly Quesada
shouted orders.
One of his supernumeraries, Pio Estrada, dipped down into the dry
gutter of the Arroyo Seco for the horses. The others, Rafael Perez
and Ignacio Garcia, fell to prodding the herded passengers with their
carbines back upon the train. Instantly the whole panorama took on
a brisker look. At haphazard, into any of the coaches which
presented themselves, plunged those boarding the train, not caring
in what style they rode, or what comfort, so long as they soon
speeded away.
Pio Estrada reappeared, leading by their bridles three hairy
Manchegan ponies. Another galvanic command from Quesada and,
from the work of bundling the passengers aboard the train, hurriedly
the other two salteadores detached themselves. They bustled about
their ponies, roping upon them the weighty sacks of mail and
conglomerate loot, looking to their curved bits and cinch-straps. With
dispatch, everything was being prepared for a nimble get-away.
The last of the waylaid passengers were crowding back into the
train, the engine driver and his stoker were high in their cab once
more and busily engaged in getting up steam. It needed only the
word of Quesada, and the Manchegan ponies would be mounted,
the train released on its way, and the hold-up of the Seville-to-
Madrid consummated.
Still dodging the great question of the disposal of the girl, sparring
for time, Jacinto Quesada stole a look toward where he last had
seen Felicidad. He started and scowled. She and the Frenchman
were together. They were among those few not yet distributed
through the various coaches.
As the laggards milled and pushed along the line of opening and
closing doors, along the line of compartments crowded and jammed,
the Frenchman, Jacques Ferou, had sidled near her. He had caught
her by the arm. Now, his tall athletic body bent forward sharply, his
calculating eyes narrowed to mere blazing slits, the nostrils of his
high predatory nose twitching and working, his whole ashy face
working and grimacing like a horrible mask of rubber, he was
whispering into her ear!
There was no mistaking the active threat in the man's attitude; there
was no mistaking the real and terrible fear in the girl's cowering
pose. She made to put up her hands as if to ward off blows; she
trembled like a tag of paper hung in the wind; and suddenly the cry
that had chilled in her throat at his first touch, burst up through the
walls of her lungs, and shrilled out in a terrified wail.
Jacinto Quesada leaped, as though lashed, toward the two. The
lumpy problem was smashed, by that cry, into smithereens. The
great question demanded action. There was but one kind of action
to do.
Rafael Perez bulked up before him.
"Give the word, maestro," said he, "and we shall signal the engineer
to start the train."
"The word is given, then!"
Rafael Perez made a semaphore of his arms. Another salteador
farther up the track repeated and relayed the signal. The locomotive
whistle shrilled shortly once, then the bell clanged and clanged with
warning insistence.
As Quesada flung past Rafael Perez, he threw out the words:
"Tell Garcia and Estrada to mount and make ready to start away, the
moment I give the command. You wait to hold my pony for me. As
was the plan, my pony goes unburdened by any of the sacks of
stuff; but, though it was also the plan, I will not linger behind to
cover the get-away. I have a new worry to trouble me. You lagartos
will have to look to your own safety. Should we get separated, you
know the pass in the mountains where we have planned to meet.
Am I understood?"
"Si, maestro!"
With the emission of the waste steam through the chimney, the
engine of the Seville-to-Madrid commenced puffing slowly; the cars
began shuddering and groaning as though about to start. Jacques
Ferou held open the door of a second-class coach for Felicidad. But
it was already packed full of men and she hesitated to enter.
"Come, hurry!" roughly ordered the Frenchman. "The train in
another minute will start. You do not wish to be left behind, do
you?"
"But this is not our coach! The coach we rode in thus far is up
forward." Almost it seemed as if the girl were sparring for time.
"Enter, it is no importa, señora dona!" said, with kindness, one of the
men within—a man in a yellow bullfighter's costume, one of the
picadores of Morales' cuadrilla.
"Yes, enter, please," spoke up another in a green costume, the great
Morales himself. "You are most welcome here, I assure you!" And he
reached down, seeking to help her climb aboard.
"Quick, or the train will start without you!" cried another, the blue-
eyed American. Then in English, for suddenly the train had
commenced to bang back and forth, and he had become beside
himself with excitement:
"Make haste, girl! The accursed slow freight is about to move. Gad!
here it goes."
Just as the train puffed rapidly and, with a roar and a tremendous
yank started off, he crowded between the knees of the cuadrilla of
bullfighters, pushed aside Morales, and leaped through the door.
Staggering from the precipitant leap, he made toward the girl,
intending to lift and fling her into the moving train.
A man came between them.
"What do you do here?" cried this man sharply. "Back, into the
coach!"
The American recognized Jacinto Quesada. He tried to fling past
him. A huge long-barreled revolver showed in the bandolero's hand.
"Back, you, into your coach!" cried Quesada once again. "And you,
you dog of a Frenchman! Quick! enter! or I will shoot you through
the fat of your breeches!"
Swiftly the Frenchman went. He dashed after the moving coach,
caught up with it and flung himself headlong in upon the floor. Then
he pulled himself to his feet again, went over to the open door, and
banged it shut.
The American did not budge.
"But the girl!" he shouted. He drove at the bandolero. Quesada
dodged his fist. He reversed the revolver in his hand and swiftly
crashed it butt-first down upon the American's forehead.
The American reeled back, stunned, falling. Quesada looked down
the length of train moving up toward him; he saw another open-
doored coach rattling near. Suddenly stooping, he tackled at the legs
of the American, lifted him bodily into the air, and flung him back
upon the floor of the open, moving coach. The American never knew
how he boarded that train no more than he would had he been a
soulless sack of barley!
All over sweat and panting deeply, Jacinto Quesada turned to
Felicidad.
"Come; I must take you with me," he said to her, "to my mother in
Minas de la Sierra. We will send back the purse to your father. We
will tell him the true story of events. Depend upon it, my Felicidad,
he will forgive you, he will relent. Until he does that, however, my
mother will take care of you, and I will be your guardian angel,
besides." He could not prevent a smile. And he added, "A sinful and
thieving sort of guardian angel, but one strong to protect you, you
may be sure of that! Come! Up on my horse!"
He swung her up upon his Manchegan pony. Before her, he
mounted. He dug his heels in the pony's sleek mouse-colored barrel.
They started away.
"Hold tight with your little hands, my Felicidad!" he remarked. "It will
be fast riding for quite awhile."
"Ah, thankfully I go with you, Jacinto!" she said, after a little, despite
the unevenness and hardship of their fast pace. "Jacques Ferou
whispered to me that he would show me, once we got to Madrid,
how the Apaches, the depraved criminals of Paris, treat those
women who to them are unfaithful!"
 CHAPTER IX
After lumbering slowly across the rickety Arroyo Seco bridge, the
Seville-to-Madrid swung eastward on its gleaming rails and pursued,
across the desert uplands, a course parallel to that of the
bandoleros. From the coach windows on one side, the passengers
could see Rafael Perez, Ignacio Garcia, and Pio Estrada fleeing
across the parched and tawny flat on their plunder-laden, loping
Manchegan ponies. They were speeding for the distant gray and
purple mountains.
A jump behind these worthies and rapidly overtaking them were
Jacinto Quesada and the golden-haired girl. Distinctly the
passengers could make out Felicidad and her kidnaper. And the sight
was as a red muleta to a Miura bull.
A young bride stolen from her husband! A young girl abducted by
highwaymen! That was she behind the last of the retreating
bandoleros—see the flying green skirt, see the glint of her golden
hair in the sun! They were taking her off with them, carrying her
away into the savage mountains! Had there been no men among all
those creatures in trousers scattered throughout the train—no men
to rise in their masculinity and to sacrifice their lives if need be, but
at all hazards to prevent this abominable crime?
Women screamed, and women prayed. Hideous visions rose before
their eyes; visions of the bandoleros in some craggy retreat shaking
dice for possession of the girl! One of the black-clad nuns fainted
outright.
On its gleaming rails, the Seville-to-Madrid swerved once again. With
distance, the fleeing horsemen grew small, smaller. They were little
as bounding rabbits; then they were little as low-skimming birds.
And then at last they lost themselves in the ocean of ilex and thorny
acacia, the dun immensity of sand.
The Seville-to-Madrid had been under way for a full twenty minutes
and was nearing the steel cantilever bridge over the river Zancura,
when a man, lurching heavily and looking very sick, picked his steps
slowly and cautiously along the footboard on the right side of the
train—that footboard used by the train guards in going from
compartment to compartment of the many-coached continental-style
caravan, collecting tickets and locking the doors between stops. The
man clung to door knobs, window jambs and window sills. And
gradually he worked forward along half the length of the train.
At last he had progressed to a second-class coach that resounded
with the voices of indignant and outraged men, that quivered and
rang with bass and baritone curses in both Spanish and French.
When he had closed in upon this coach, the man on the footboard
smiled triumphantly, yanked open the door, and flung himself within.
For a space, it was not as though he had entered a crowded coach;
it was as though he had flung himself into a surf of rolling breakers.
Masses of words struck him with the velocity and flying weight of
charging masses of water. He spread his feet, braced his shoulders
and chest to the impacting masses of words, and waited.
The pounding tumulting seas crashed over him; he held his footing;
they receded, drew back, ebbed away. Then, before the great
zipizape of words could recommence, he held up his hands for
silence. Silence was given him. He said:
"I am a Norte Americano, a Yanqui. In my country if a girl were
kidnaped by bandits, quite well I know what we Yanquis would do.
But this is Spain, not the United States. What are you Spaniards
going to do?"
"What can we do, Senor Americano?" asked one of the cuadrilla of
bullfighters, a banderillero by his dress. "We ask you that—what can
we do?"
"Do not think it an everyday thing," spoke up the matador, Morales,
"for blossoming girls to be stolen by Spanish highwaymen and
carried off into the mountains. One reads about such happenings in
the bizarre and romantic novels of the elder Dumas; but one does
not think to see such things occur in real life.
"You would search far in our country's history for a parallel to this
outrageous crime! José Maria. Diego Corrientes, Agua-Dulce and
Visco el Borje left our women severely alone. They were simple-
souled men of the people, risen against oppression. Even as would
any humble and pious and hardworking labrador, so these
bandoleros en grande feared God and public opinion. Right well they
knew they could continue to exist as outlaws only by reason of the
favor of Spanish public opinion, not to speak of the favor of God.
And they set the fashion for future Spanish outlaws. They made the
conventions by which all bandoleros are supposed to conduct
themselves to-day. The bandoleros, just before this man Quesada,
honored those conventions. El Vivillo and Pernales committed no
crimes against Spanish women.
"Senor Americano, you may have noticed that we Spaniards accord
our bandoleros a certain respect. Because they have been altogether
masculine, varonil, and yet treated our womenkind with the utmost
reverence, the bandoleros have wrung from us this esteem which
amounts sometimes even to love.
"And even this Jacinto Quesada to-day! He treated me with great
consideration, chatting pleasantly about his love of bullfighting and
other very human things. And he struck me as being a bandolero of
the splendid good old sort—the José Maria, the Visco el Borje sort!
Why, he even asked after the health of my wife, Marta, and my two
little ones! But now! To find out that he is a renegade, a damnable
turncoat from the old bandolero code, an inhuman wretch, a
despicable rapist—Porvida!"
Morales' boyishly rounded face flamed with anger and with a great
deal more of shame.
"In my country," said the American, "should a man abduct a girl, a
posse would be organized at once, the criminal pursued, brought to
bay, and made to pay with his life for the crime. The posse would be
composed of every rich man, poor man, beggar man and thief in the
community, and it would never rest until its work was completely
done and the girl brought safely back to her promised husband."
Three of the bullfighters spoke up at once.
"A posse? We have never heard of that!"
"Well, I come from the western part of the United States, and if you
ever had lived there for even a short time, you could not be so
blissfully ignorant. When I say a posse I mean a posse comitatus,
which is a lawyer's term for the citizens who may be summoned to
assist an officer in enforcing the law. My father was a pioneer in the
State of California; he made his start in Inyo County mines and his
millions in Bakersfield oil wells; and many's the story he has told me
of quickly formed posses and their rapid, sure work. We would be
forming a posse of a sort, if we all agreed to go after this Jacinto
Quesada and bring back the girl."
One of the two yellow-costumed picadores was on his feet, his
swarthy face ruddy with agitation and strong emotion.
"Then, in the name of Spanish womanhood, let us do that!" he cried.
"I, Coruncho Lopez, the most superb picador in Spain, volunteer to
be one of the posse!"
"And I, Alfonso Robledo, a banderillero as great as any!"
"And I—"
Suddenly, those about to volunteer became tongue-tied; the whole
cuadrilla of bullfighters looked sheepish and confused. The youthful
matador, Manuel Morales, had stepped before them, on his face a
cold and contemptuous scowl.
"You are the peones of my cuadrilla," he said brutally, "and I am
your maestro. You will do exactly that which I order you to do and
nothing else! But, perhaps, you have forgotten the strict laws of
discipline of our profession?"
Shamefaced and abject, the whole cuadrilla replied at once, "Forgive
us, maestro. We await your orders."
Morales seemed to feel better after that. With the easy magnificence
of a matador and maestro, he turned to the American.
"Senor Americano," he said, "I have become a successful and
renowned espada only after years of hard work and vigilant heed to
the duties of my profession. And now that I am the great Morales, I
am as much a slave to my fame as any of my peones is the slave to
me. In his offices in Seville sits my manager, the Senor Don Arturo
Guerra, signing contract after contract; and these contracts I must
fulfill, or lose much money and much prestige with the presidentes
of bull rings and with the aficionados. Therefore, I must be discreet,
circumspect, and full of forethought.
"Senor Americano, these peones have no franchise to speak for
themselves. They are but my thoughtless, irresponsible children. If I
did not rule them with a hand of iron, they would be off on a
thousand wild escapades in a month! But one of them, just now,
said a very splendid thing. 'In the name of Spanish womanhood,' he
said, 'let us form of ourselves a posse!'
"Carajo! I am discreet, circumspect, and full of forethought as the
great Morales should be, but my heart tells me those words are
good words! My heart leaps with eagerness to be pursuing the
despicable Jacinto Quesada in the name of Spanish womanhood!
"What are contracts! What is money! What is prestige, fame! Senor
Americano, join out with me, and we will chase this scoundrel up
and down the peninsula until we have bayed him down and brought
back the girl! If you wish it, I will command my whole cuadrilla to
come with us; but it is my own wish, that we two go alone and
unencumbered. This same Jacinto Quesada who stole the girl called
me one of the three bravest men in Spain. And he named himself as
the second most brave man, and you as the third! Let us go then,
we two brave men together! Two such as we are equal to a posse of
a dozen common men!"
The blue-eyed American looked a little uncomfortable; he did not
quite know how to take the matador's flamboyant words. But he
answered, heartily enough:
"Sure I'll join out with you! My name is Carson—John Fremont
Carson—and here's my hand on it! But better take the whole
cuadrilla along with us. We two may be as wonderful as you say we
are, but just the same, numbers count, and every man can do his
little bit to get back the girl. And now—"
"In this posse I am included, too, of course!"
It was the Frenchman, Jacques Ferou. He, the one to all outward
appearances most injured and aggrieved by Jacinto Quesada's
outrageous conduct, had played little part in the proceedings up to
this moment. But now, his tone was very peremptory and harsh, and
he looked as if he meant business.
"Of course!"
"Por los Clavos de Cristo! we can't leave you out!"
The American produced a pencil and notebook.
"And now," he said, "to arrange the details. There will be horses
needed, and provisions and guides and—"
"It will be mules in the mountains," said one bullfighter.
"Manchegan ponies are cheap," said another.
"We will need Mausers and revolvers, too," said a third. "We cannot
conduct a man-hunt without weapons."
"But how will we finance the expedition?" asked the practical
Frenchman. "Myself, I have not a franc, what you call a peseta. And
I have no means of replenishing my rifled pockets!"
"Ah, then, it is for me to finance the expedition!" cried the matador,
Morales. "I will telegraph to Seville when we get off at the next stop,
and so much money will be sent me by Don Arturo, my manager,
that you will be surprised, astounded! It is just that I should do this
—I and my bullfighters make up the bulk of this troop; I am the
most rich of you all."
"I don't know about that," said the American dryly. "Please allow me
to go halves with you."
"Ah, I had forgotten; you Americans are all as rich as Monte Cristo.
You and I will share the expense, then. We get off at the next stop
and make our start after this Jacinto Quesada, do we not?"
 CHAPTER X
The two were Spaniards. They wore the uniform of the Guardia Civil,
and they rode hairy, vigorous little police ponies. They had been in
the saddle since daybreak, persistently pushing southward. The cobs
were dog-weary but as steady-paced as machines of clockwork; the
men were hunched of shoulder, heavy-headed, their faces coated
with a gray-brown powder of dust.
They drew rein atop a naked hummock in the immensity of sand and
ilex and thorny acacia. At the hip of the younger and taller of the
two was slung a pair of binoculars. The one, and then the other,
trained these glasses upon the rolling, everlasting veldt and swept
the horizon round, their scrutiny long, patient, and searching.
All the long morning and the longer, more dreary afternoon, they
had seen upon the endless despoblado only half-wild cattle and half-
wild asses, and an occasional high-soaring falcon or an ugly, three-
foot-long eyed-lizard. And this time was not the first time they had
paused to peer through the binoculars; they had paused often, and
then continued on without remark. Now, however, as he put back
the glasses in their leather sheath, the younger policeman rather
bitterly said:
"There is no one abroad upon La Mancha. Not even a solitary
salteador de camino hiding out from us of the Guardia Civil."
"Yet I tell you, Miguel—most surely are they out there somewhere!"
returned his compañero; vehemently dissenting. "How could they
have attained, so soon, to the Sierra Morena ahead—I ask you that!"
Touching their ponies with their barbed heels, they enterprised once
more upon the long traverse. There was a terrible sun that day, a
sun African in the ferocity of its passion. The sun glare tortured their
eyes. It caused their lacquered three-cornered police hats, made of
shiny patent leather, to reflect and flash like the mirrors of a
heliograph. The men sweated until they were as dry as cinders and
could sweat no more.
In the more subdued glare of the late afternoon, the two came at
length to the brown rolling foothills toward which they had been
making throughout the whole hideous day. The foothills billowed
away, in undulations rising even higher and higher, until finally they
became part of a distant and purple alpland of massive and lofty
peaks—the exalted spires and crags of the Sierra Morena.
As their jaded ponies took doggedly the initial rise, the younger and
taller of the two policemen—he called Miguel—drew from his breast
a yellow paper on which was mimeographed a copy of a typewritten
telegram. He commenced to read aloud.

The great Manuel Morales—his full cuadrilla—an American, the

Senor Don John Fremont Carson, and a Frenchman, name
unknown. It is especially important that you discover news of
the American, Carson; he is a millionaire and of high social
position in his own country. Both the American Ambassador and
the Bank of Spain desire to ascertain his whereabouts, his
reason for carrying such a large sum of money upon his person,
and his purpose in setting off into the wilderness. The Bank of
Spain is also much interested in the well-being of Manuel
Morales, for he also withdrew a large account by telegraph
before disappearing from sight.
The nine men left the Seville-to-Madrid at Alcazar de San Juan,
four days ago, secured horses and enough provisions to last
them a week and, traveling together, rode southward towards
the Sierra Morena. They were well-armed, having bought
carbines and automatic pistols from the Jewish cacique of
Alcazar, Dicenta. They told no one their errand. They took no
guides.
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