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 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 I do not know the bearer from Adam's off ox; all I know about him
is that he has all the outward marks of a gentleman, the courage of
a bear-cat, a sense of humor and a head for which the Présidente of
Sobrante will gladly pay a considerable number of pesos oro. Don't
give up the head, because I like it and we do not need the money—
yet. Take him ashore without anybody knowing it; hide him, clothe
him, feed him—then forget all about him.
Ever thine,
J. S. Webster.
“Kick the boat ahead again, Cafferty,” Billy ordered quietly. He
turned to the late arrival.
“Mr. Man, your credentials are all in apple-pie order. Do you
happen to know this bay is swarming with man-eating sharks?”
The man raised a fine, strong, youthful face and grinned at him.
“Hobson's choice, Mr. Geary,” he replied. “Afloat or ashore, the
sharks are after me. Sir, I am your debtor.” He crawled into the cabin
and stretched out on the settee as John Stuart Webster's voice came
floating across the dark waters. “Hey, Billy!”
“Hey, yourself!”
“Everything well with you, Billy?”
“All is lovely, Jack, and the goose honks high. By the way, that
friend of yours called with his letter of introduction. I took care of
him.”
“Thanks. I suppose you'll call for me in that launch to-morrow
morning?”
“Surest thing you know, Jack. Good-night, old top.”
“Good-night, Billy. See you in the morning.” Don Juan Cafetéra
swung the launch and headed back for the city. At Leber's little dock
Billy stepped ashore, while Don Juan backed out into the dark bay
again in order to avoid inquisitive visitors. Billy hastened to El Buen
Amigo and returned presently with a bundle of clothes; at an agreed
signal Don Juan kicked the launch into the dock again and Billy went
aboard.
 “Hat, shirt, necktie, duck suit, white socks, and shoes,” he
whispered. “Climb into them, stranger.” Once more the launch
backed out in the bay, where Webster's protégé dressed at his
leisure, and Billy handed Don Juan a couple of pesos.
“Remember, John,” he cautioned the bibulous one as they tied up
for the night, “nothing unusual happened to-night.”
“Divil a thing, Misther Geary. Thank you, sor,” the Gaelic wreck
replied blithely and disappeared in the darkness, leaving Billy to
guide the stranger to El Buen Amigo, where he was taken into the
confidence of Mother Jenks and, on Billy's guarantee of the board
bill, furnished with a room and left to his own devices.

John Stuart Webster came down the gangplank into Leber's

launch hard on the heels of the port doctor.
“You young horse-thief,” he cried affectionately. “I believe it's the
custom down this way for men to kiss each other. We'll dispense
with that, but by——” He folded Billy in a paternal embrace, then
held him at arm's length and looked him over.
“Lord, son,” he said, “you're as thin as a snake. I'll have to feed
you up.”
As they sped toward the landing, he looked Billy over once more.
“I have it,” he declared. “You need a change of climate to get rid of
that malaria. Just show me this little old mining claim of yours, Bill,
and then hike for God's country. Three months up there will put you
right again, and by the time you get back, we'll be about ready to
weigh the first cleanup.”
Billy shook his head. “I'd like to mighty well, Jack,” he replied, “but
I just can't.”
“Huh! I suppose you don't think I'm equal to the task of
straightening out this concession of yours and making a hummer out
of it, eh?”
The young fellow looked across at him sheepishly. “Mine?” he
jeered. “Who's talking about a mine. I'm thinking of a girl!”
“Oh!”
“Some girl, Johnny.”
“I hope she's not some parrakeet,” Webster bantered. “Have you
looked up her pedigree?”
“Ah-h-h!” Billy spat over the side in sheer disgust. “This is an
American girl—born here, but white—raised in the U. S. A. I've only
known her three weeks, but—ah!” And Billy kissed his hand into
space.
“Well, I'm glad I find you so happy, boy. I suppose you're going to
let your old Jack-partner give her the once-over and render his
report before you make the fatal leap—eh?”
“Sure! I want you to meet her. I've been telling her all about you,
and she's crazy to meet you.”
“Good news! I had a good friend once—twice—three times—and
lost him every time. Wives get so suspicious of their husband's single
friends, you know, so Ï hope I make a hit with your heart's desire,
Billy. When do you pull off the wedding?”
“Oh,” said Billy, “that's premature, Jack. I haven't asked her. How
could I until I'm able to support her?”
“Look here, son,” Webster replied, “don't you go to work and be
the kind of fool I was. You get married and take a chance. If you do,
you'll have a son sprouting into manhood when you're as old as I. A
man ought to marry young, Bill. Hang the odds. I know what's good
for you.”
At the hotel, while Webster shaved and arrayed himself in an
immaculate white duck suit, with a broad black silk belt, buck shoes,
and a Panama hat. Billy sent a note to Dolores, apprising her that
John Stuart Webster had arrived—and would she be good enough to
receive them?
 Miss Ruey would be that gracious. She was waiting for them in the
veranda just off the patio, outwardly calm, but inwardly a foment of
conflicting emotions. As they approached she affected not to see
them and turning, glanced in the opposite direction; nor did she
move her head until Billy's voice, speaking at her elbow, said:
“Well, Dolores, here's my old Jack-partner waiting to be
introduced. Jack, permit me to present Miss Dolores Ruey.”
She turned her face and rose graciously, marking with secret
triumph the light of recognition that; leaped to his eyes, hovered
there the hundredth part of a second and departed, leaving those
keen, quizzical blue orbs appraising her in the most natural manner
imaginable. Webster bowed. .
“It is a great happiness to meet you, Miss Ruey,” he said gravely.
Dolores gave him her hand. “You have doubtless forgotten, Mr.
Webster, but I think we have met before.”
“Indeed!” John Stuart Webster murmured interestedly. “So stupid
of me not to remember. Where did we meet?”
“He has a profound sense of humour,” she soliloquized. “He's
going to force me into the open. Oh, dear, I'm helpless.” Aloud she
said: “On the train in Death Valley last month, Mr. Webster. You
came aboard with whiskers.”
Webster shook his head slowly, as if mystified. “I fear you're
mistaken, Miss Ruey. I cannot recall the meeting, and if I ever wore
whiskers, no human being would ever be able to recognize me
without them. Besides, I wasn't on the train in Death Valley last
month. I was in Denver—so you must have met some other Mr.
Webster.”
She flushed furiously. “I didn't think I could be mistaken,” she
answered a trifle coldly.
“It is my misfortune that you were,” he replied graciously.
“Certainly, had we met at that time, I should not have failed to
recognize you now. Somehow, Miss Ruey, I never have any luck.”
 She was completely outgeneralled, and having the good sense to
realize it, submitted gracefully. “He's perfectly horrible,” she told
herself, “but at least he can lie like a gentleman—and I always did
like that kind of man.”
So they chatted on the veranda until luncheon was announced
and Dolores left them to go to her room.
“Well?” Billy queried the moment she was out of earshot. “What
do you think, Johnny?”
“I think,” said John Stuart Webster slowly, “that you're a good
picker, Bill. She's my ideal of a fine young woman, and my advice to
you is to marry her. I'll grub-stake you. Bill, this stiff collar is choking
me; I wish you'd wait here while I go to my room and rustle up a
soft one.”
In the privacy of his room John Stuart Webster sat down on his
bed and held his head in his hands, for he had just received a blow
in the solar plexus and was still groggy; there was an ache in his
head, and the quizzical light had faded from his eyes. Presently,
however, he pulled himself together and approaching the mirror
looked long at his weather-beaten countenance.
“Too old,” he murmured, “too old to be dreaming dreams.”
He changed to a soft collar, and when he descended to the patio
to join Billy once more he was, to all outward appearances, his usual
unperturbed self, for his was one of those rare natures that can
derive a certain comfort from the misery of self-sacrifice—and in that
five minutes alone in his room John Stuart Webster had wrestled
with the tragedy of his life and won.
He had resolved to give Billy the right of way on the highway to
happiness.
 CHAPTER XV

L
ATE in the afternoon of the day of his arrival in Buenaventura,
in the cool recess of the deep veranda flanking the western
side of the patio of the Hotel Mateo, John Stuart Webster sat in
a wicker chair, cigar in mouth, elbows on knees, hands clasping a
light Malacca stick, with the end of which he jabbed meditatively at a
crack in the recently sprinkled tiled floor, as if punctuating each
bitter thought that chased its predecessor through his somewhat
numbed brain.
In Mr. Webster's own whimsical phraseology, his clock had been
fixed, on the instant he recognized in the object of his youthful
partner's adoration the same winsome woman he had enthroned in
his own secret castle of love. From that precise second Billy's
preserve was as safe from encroachment by his friend as would be a
bale of Confederate currency in an armour-steel vault on the three-
thousand-foot level of a water-filled mine. Unfortunately for Webster,
however, while he knew himself fairly well, he was not aware of this
at the time. Viewed in the light of calmer reflection, Mr. Webster was
quite certain he had made a star-spangled monkey of himself.
He sought solace now in the fact that there had been mitigating
circumstances. Throughout the entire journey from the steamer to
the hotel, Billy had not once mentioned in its entirety the name of
his adored one. In any Spanish-American country the name Dolores
is not so uncommon as to excite suspicion; and Webster who had
seen the mercurial William in and out of many a desperate love affair
in the latter's brittle teens and early twenties, attached so little
importance to this latest outbreak of the old disease that it did not
occur to him to cross-examine Billy, after eliciting the information
that the young man had not lost his heart to a local belle.
The knowledge that Billy's inamorata was an American girl served
to clear what threatened to be a dark atmosphere, and so Webster
promptly had dismissed the subject.
Any psychologist will tell one that it is quite possible for a person
to dream, in the short space of a split second, of events which, if
really consummated, would involve the passage of days, weeks,
months, or even years! Now, Jack Webster was an extra fast thinker,
asleep or awake, and in his mind's eye, as he sat there in the patio,
he had a dreadful vision of himself with a delicate spray of lilies of
the valley in the lapel of his dress coat, as he supported the malarial
Billy to the altar, there to receive the promise of Dolores to love,
honour, and obey until death them did part. As the said Billy's
dearest friend and business associate—as the only logical single man
available—the job was Webster's without a struggle. Diablo! Why did
people persist in referring to such runners-up in the matrimonial
handicap as best men, when at the very least calculation the groom
was the winner?
That wedding party was the very least of the future events Mr.
Webster's hectic imagination conjured up. In the course of time (he
reflected), a baby would doubtless arrive to bless the Geary
household. Godfather? John Stuart Webster, of course. And when
the fruit of that happy union should be old enough to “ride horsey,”
who but the family friend would be required to get down on all fours
and accommodate the unconscious tyrant? Boy or girl, it would make
no difference; whichever way the cat jumped, he would be known as
Uncle Jack; Billy would drag him up to the house once or twice a
week, and he would go for the sake of the baby; then they would
make him stay all night, and Mrs. Billy would sigh and try to smile
when she detected cigarette ashes on the chiffonier in the spare
bedroom—infallible sign that there was a bachelor about. Besides,
happily married women have a mania for marrying off their
husband's bachelor friends, and Mrs. Billy might scout up a wife for
him—a wife he didn't want—and——No, he would not be the family
friend. Nobody should ever Uncle Jack him if he could help it, and
the only way to avoid the honour would be to eschew the job of best
man, to resolve, in the very beginning of things, to beware of
entangling friendships. Thus, as in a glass darkly, John Stuart
Webster, in one illuminating moment, saw his future, together with
his sole avenue of escape.
All too forcibly Webster realized that Billy's bally-hooing must have
created a favourable impression in Dolores's mind prior to the arrival
of the victim; hence it seemed reasonable to presume that when she
discovered in Billy Geary's Jack Webster her own soiled, ragged,
bewhiskered, belligerent, battered knight, Sir John Stuart Webster of
Death Valley, California, U. S. A., extreme measures would have to
be taken instantly to save the said Webster from being spattered
with a dear old friendship in the future—and a dear old friendship
with Dolores Ruey was something he did not want, had never
figured on, and shuddered at accepting. All things considered, it had
appeared wise to him to challenge, politely but firmly, her suggestion
that they had met.
Of course, Webster had not really thought all this at the time; he
had felt it and acted entirely upon instinct. A little private cogitation,
however, had served to straighten out his thinking apparatus and-
convince him that he had acted hastily—wherefore he would (a still,
small voice whispered) repent at leisure. Dolores had not pressed
the question (he was grateful to her for that), and for as long as five
minutes he had congratulated himself on his success in “putting it
over” on her. Then he had caught her scrutinizing the knuckles of his
right hand; following her glance, he had seen that the crests of two
knuckles were slightly bluish and tender, as new skin has a habit of
showing on tanned knuckles. With a sinking heart he had recalled
how painfully and deeply he had lacerated those knuckles less than
a month before on the strong white teeth of a fat male masher, and
while the last ugly shred of evidence had dropped off a week before,
nevertheless to the critical and discerning eye there was still faint
testimony of that fateful joust—just sufficient to convict!
He had glanced at her swiftly; she had caught the glance and
replied to it with the faintest possible gleam of mischievous
challenge in her glorious brown orbs; whereupon John Stuart
Webster had immediately done what every honest male biped has
been doing since Adam told his first lie to Eve—blushed, and had
drawn a little taunting smile for his pains.
As Solomon once remarked, the wicked flee when no man
pursueth; and that smile had scarcely faded before John Stuart
Webster had unanimously resolved upon the course he should have
pursued in the first place. He would investigate Billy's mining
concession immediately; provided it should prove worth while, he
would finance it and put the property on a paying basis; after which
he would see to it that the very best doctors in the city of
Buenaventura should inform Billy, unofficially and in the strictest
confidence, that if he desired to preserve the life of Senor Juan
Webstaire, he should forthwith pack that rapidly disintegrating
person off to a more salubrious climate.
Having made his decision, John Stuart Webster immediately took
heart of hope and decided to lead trumps. He leaned over and
slapped Billy Geary's knee affectionately.
“Well, Bill, you saffron-coloured old wreck, how long do you
suppose it will take for you to pick up enough strength and courage
to do some active mining? You're looking like food shot from guns.”
“Billy needs a vacation and a change of climate,” Dolores declared
with that motherly conviction all womankind feels toward a sick man.
“So I do, Dolores,” Billy replied. “And I'm going to take it. Up there
in the hills back of San Miguel de Padua, the ubiquitous mosquito is
not, the climate is almost temperate—and 'tis there that I would be.”
“You can't start too soon to please me, Billy,” Webster declared.
“I'm anxious to get that property on a paying basis, so I can get out
of the country.”
“Why, Johnny,” the amazed Billy declared, “I thought you would
stay and help run the mine.”
“Indeed! Well, why do you suppose I spent so much time teaching
you how to run a mine, you young idiot, if not against just such a
time as this? You found this concession and tied it up; I'll finance it
and help you get everything started; but after that, I'm through, and
you can manage it on salary and name the salary yourself. You have
a greater interest in this country than I, William; and so with your
kind permission we'll hike up to that concession tomorrow and give it
the double-O; then, if I can O. K. the property, we'll cable for the
machinery I ordered just before I left Denver, and get busy. We
ought to have our first clean-up within ninety days. What kind of
labour have you in this country? Anything worth while? If not, we'll
have to import some white men that can do things.”
“Gosh, but you're in a hurry,” Billy murmured. He had been long
enough in Sobrante to have acquired a touch of the manana spirit of
the lowlands, and he disliked exceedingly the thought of having his
courtship interrupted on a minute's notice.
“You know me, son. I'm a hustler on the job,” Webster reminded
him brutally; “so the sooner you start, the sooner you can get back
and accumulate more malaria. What accommodations have you up
there?”
“None, Jack.”
“Then you had better get some, Billy. I think you told me we have
to take horses at San Miguel de Padua to ride in to the mine.” Billy
nodded. “Then you had better buy a tent and bedding for both of
us, ship the stuff up to San Miguel de Padua, go up with it and
engage horses, a good cook, and a couple of reliable mozos. When
you have everything ready, telegraph me and I'll come up.”
“Why can't you come up with me?” Billy demanded.
“I have to see a man, and write some letters and send a
cablegram and wait for an answer. I may have to loaf around here
for two or three days. By the way, what did you do for that friend I
sent to letter of introduction?”
“Exactly what you told me to do, Johnny”
“Where is he now?”
“At El Buen Amigo—the same place where I'm living.”
“All right. We'll not discuss business any more, because we have
finished with the business in hand—at least I have, Billy. When you
get back to your hostelry, you might tell my friend I shall expect him
over to dine with me this evening, if he can manage it.”
For an hour they discussed various subjects; then Billy, declaring
the siesta was almost over and the shops reopening as a
consequence, announced his intention of doing his shopping, said
good-bye to Dolores and Webster, and lugubriously departed on the
business in hand.
“Why are you in such a hurry, Mr. Webster?” Dolores demanded.
“You haven't been in Buenaventura six hours until you've managed
to make me perfectly miserable.”
“I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to.”
“Didn't you know Billy Geary is my personal property?”
“No, but I suspected he might be. Bill's generous that way. He
never hesitates to give himself to a charming woman.”
“This was a case of mutual self-defense. Billy hasn't any standing
socially, you know. I believe he has been seen shooting craps—isn't
that what you call it?—with gentlemen of more or less colour; then
he appeared in public with me, minus a chaperon—”
“Fooey!”
“Likewise fiddlesticks! I should have had the entrée to the society
of my father's old friends but for that; when old Mrs. General
Maldonado lectured me (the dear, aristocratic soul conceived it to be
her duty) on the impropriety of appearing on the Male-con with Billy
and my guardian, who happens to be Billy's landlady, I tried to
explain our American brand of democracy, but failed. So I haven't
been invited anywhere since, and life would have been very dull
without Billy. He has been a dear—and you have taken him away.”
Webster laughed. “Well, be patient, Miss Ruey, and I'll give him
back to you with considerably more money than he will require for
your joint comfort. Billy in financial distress is a joy forever, but Billy
in a top hat and a frock coat on the sunny side of Easy Street will be
absolutely irresistible.”
 “He's a darling. Ever since my arrival he has dedicated his life to
keeping me amused.” She rose. “Despite your wickedness, Mr.
Webster, I am going to be good to you. Billy and I always have five
o'clock tea here in the veranda. Would you care to come to my tea-
party?”
“Nothing could give me greater pleasure,” he assured her.
She nodded brightly to him. “I'm going to run up to my room and
put some powder on my nose,” she explained.
“But you'll return before five o'clock?” Webster was amazed to
hear himself plead.
“You do not deserve such consideration, but I'll come back in
about twenty minutes,” she answered and left him in the spot where
we find him at the opening of this chapter, in pensive mood, jabbing
his Malacca stick into a crack in the tiled floor.
Presently Webster shuddered. “Good heavens,” he soliloquized,
“what a jackass-play I made when I declined to admit we had met
before. What harm could I have accomplished by admitting it? I
must be getting old, because I'm getting cowardly. I'm afraid of
myself! When I met that girl last month, it was in a region that God
forgot—and I was a human caterpillar, which a caterpillar is a hairy,
lowly, unlovely thing that crawls until it is metamorphosed into a
butterfly and flies. Following out the simile, I am now a human
butterfly, not recognizable as the caterpillar to one woman out of ten
million; yet she pegs me out at first. Gad, but she's a remarkable
girl! And now I'm in for it. I've aroused her curiosity; and being a
woman, she will not rest until she has fathomed the reason back of
my extraordinary conduct. I think I'm going to be smeared with
confusion. A spineless man like you, Johnny Webster, stands as
much show in a battle of wits with that woman as a one-legged
white man at a coon cakewalk. I'm afraid of her, and I'm afraid of
myself. I'm glad I'm going up to the mine. I'll go as quickly as I can,
and stay as long as I can.”
As Webster viewed the situation, his decision to see as little as
possible of Dolores during his brief stay in Sobrante was a wise one.
The less he saw of her (he told himself), the better for his peace of
mind, for he was forty years old, and he had never loved before. For
him this fever that burned in his blood, this delicious agony that
throbbed in his heart—and all on the very ghost of provocation—
were so many danger-signals, heralds of that grand passion which,
coming to a man of forty, generally lasts him the remainder of his
natural existence.
“This certainly beats the Dutch!” he murmured, and beyond the
peradventure of a doubt, it did. He reflected that all of his life the
impulses of his generous nature had been his undoing. In an excess
of paternalism he had advised Billy to marry the girl and not permit
himself to develop into a homeless, childless, loveless man such as
Exhibit A, there present; following his natural inclination to play any
game,' red or black, he had urged Billy to marry the girl immediately
and had generously offered a liberal subsidy to make the marriage
possible, for he disliked any interference in his plans to make those
he loved happy. And now——
Webster was forced to admit he was afraid of himself. His was the
rapidly disappearing code of the old unfettered West, that a man
shall never betray his friend in thought, word, or deed. To John
Stuart Webster any crime against friendship was the most heinous in
all the calendar of human frailty; even to dream of slipping into
Billy's shoes now would be monstrous; yet Webster knew he could
not afford a test of strength between his ancient friendship for Billy
and his masculine desire for a perfect mate. Remained then but one
course:
“I must run like a road-runner,” was the way Webster expressed it.
 CHAPTER XVI

D
OLORES had been gone an hour before Webster roused from
his bitter introspection sufficiently to glance at his watch.
“Hum-m-m!” he grunted disapprovingly.
“Oh, I've been here fully half an hour,” Dolores's voice assured
him. He turned guiltily and found her leaning against the jamb in a
doorway behind him and farther down the veranda. She was gazing
at him with that calm, impersonal yet vitally interested glance that
had so captivated him the first time he saw her.
“Well, then”—bluntly—“why didn't you say so?”
“The surest way to get oneself disliked is to intrude on the moods
of one's friends. Moreover, I wanted to study you in repose. Are you
quite finished talking to yourself and fighting imaginary enemies? If
so, you might talk to me for a change; I'll even disagree with you on
any subject, if opposition will make you any happier.”
He rose and indicated the chair. “Please sit down, Miss Ruey. You
are altogether disconcerting—too confoundedly smart. I fear I'm
going to be afraid of you until I know you better.”
She shrugged adorably and took the proffered chair. “That's the
Latin in her—that shrug,” Webster thought. “I wonder what other
mixtures go to make up that perfect whole.”
Aloud he said: “So you wanted to study me in repose? Why waste
your time? I am never in repose.”
“Feminine curiosity, Mr. Webster. Billy has talked so much of you
that I wanted to see if you measured up to the specifications.”
“I don't mind your looking at me, Miss Ruey, but I get fidgety
when you look through me.” He was glad he said that, because it
made her laugh—more immoderately, Webster thought, than the
circumstances demanded. Nevertheless he had an insane desire to
make her laugh like that again, to watch her mobile features run the
gamut from sweet, nunlike repose to mirthful riot.
“I can't help it—really,” she protested. “You're so transparent.”
Mr. Webster reflected that doubtless she was right. Men in his fix
generally were pitifully obvious. Nevertheless he was nettled. “Oh,
I'm not so sure of that. I was just accusing myself of being a
bonehead, and bone is opaque.”
“Perhaps I have an X-ray eye,” she replied demurely. “However,
just to show you how easy you are to read, I'll not look at your silly
head. Just let me have your hand, and I'll tell you all about yourself.”
“Is there any charge?”
“Yes, a nominal one. However, I guarantee a truthful reading; if,
when I am through, you are not wholly satisfied, you do not have to
pay the price. Is that a satisfactory arrangement?”
“Right as a fox,” he declared, and held out his great calloused
hand. He thrilled as she took it in both of hers, so soft and beautiful,
and flattened it out, palm upward, on her knee. “A fine, large, useful
hand,” she commented musingly. “The callouses indicate recent hard
manual toil with a pick land shovel; despite your recent efforts with
soap and brush and pumice-stone, there still remain evidences of
some foreign matter ingrained in those callous spots. While, of
course, I cannot be certain of my diagnosis without a magnifying
glass, I venture the conjecture that it is a mineral substance, and
your hands are so tanned one can readily see you have been
working in the sun—in a very hot sun, as a matter of fact. Inasmuch
as the hottest sun I ever felt was in Death Valley, as I crossed it on
the train last month, your hand tells me you have been there.
“The general structure of the hand indicates that you are of a
peace-loving disposition, but are far from being a peace-at-any-price
advocate.” She flipped his hand over suddenly. “Ah, the knuckles
confirm that last statement. They tell me you will fight on
provocation; while your fingers are still stiff and thick from your
recent severe labours, nevertheless they indicate an artistic nature,
from which I deduce that upon the occasion when you were in
conflict last your opponent received a most artistic thrashing.”
Webster twitched nervously. “Skip the coarse side of my nature,”
he pleaded, “and tell me something nice about myself.”
“I am coming to that. This line indicates that you are very brave,
gentle, and courteous. You are quick and firm in your decisions, but
not always right, because your actions are governed by your heart
instead of your head. Once you have made a decision, you are
reckless of the consequences. Your lifeline tells me you are close to
fifty-three years of age——”
“Seeress, you're shooting high and to the right,” he interrupted,
for he did not relish that jab about his age. “I'll have you know I was
forty years old last month, and that I can still do a hundred yards in
twelve seconds flat—in my working clothes.”
“Well, don't feel peeved about it, Mr. Webster. I am not infallible;
the best you can hope for from me is a high percentage of hits, even
if I did shoot high and to the right that time. In point of worldly
experience you're a hundred and six years old but I lopped off fifty
per cent, to be on the safe side. To continue: You are of an
extremely chivalrous nature—particularly toward young ladies
travelling without chaperons; you are kind, affectionate, generous to
a fault, something of a spendthrift. You will always be a millionaire
or a pauper, never anything between—at least for any great length
of time.”
“You've been talking to that callow Bill Geary.” Mr. Webster's face
was so red he was sensible of a distinct feeling of relief that she kept
her face bent over his hand.
“I haven't. He's been talking to me. One may safely depend upon
you to do the unexpected. Your matrimonial line is unbroken,
proving you have never married, although right here the line is
somewhat dim and frayed.” She looked up at him suddenly. “You
haven't been in love, have you?” she queried with childlike
insouciance. “In love—and disappointed?”
He nodded, for he could not trust himself to speak.
 “How sad!” she cooed sympathetically. “Did she marry another, or
did she die?”
“She—she—yes, she died.”
“Cauliflower-tongue, in all probability, carried her off, poor thing!
However, to your fortune: You are naturally truthful and would not
make a deliberate misstatement of fact unless you had a very potent
reason for it. You are sensitive to ridicule; it irks you to be teased,
particularly by a woman, although you would boil in oil rather than
admit it. You never ask impertinent questions, and you dislike those
who do; you are not inquisitive; you never question other people's
motives unless they appear to have a distinct bearing on your
happiness or prosperity; you resent it when anybody questions your
motives, and anybody who knows your nature will not question
them. However, you have a strong sense of sportsmanship, and
when fairly defeated, whether in a battle of fists or a battle of wits,
you never hold a grudge, which is one of the very nicest
characteristics a man can have——”
“Or a woman,” he suggested feebly.
“Quite right. Few woman have a sense of sportsmanship.”
“You have.”
“How do you know?”
“The witness declines to answer, on the ground that he might
incriminate himself; also I object to the question because it is
irrelevant, immaterial, and not cross-examination.”
“Accepted. You stand a very good chance of becoming a
millionaire in Sobrante, but you must beware of a dark man who has
crossed your path——”
“Which one?” Webster queried mirthfully. “All coons look alike to
me—Greasers also.”
“Mere patter of our profession, Mr. Webster,” she admitted, “tossed
in to build up the mystery element and simulate wisdom. Fortune
awaited you in the United States, but you put it behind you, at the
call of friendship, for a fortune in Sobrante. Now you have
reconsidered that foolish action and at this moment you are
contemplating sending a cablegram to a fat old man who waddles
when he walks, recalling your decision not to accept a certain
proposition of a business nature. However, you are too late. The fat
old man with the waddle has made other arrangements, and if you
want to make money, you'll remain in Sobrante. I think that is all,
Mr. Webster.” He was gazing at her with an expression composed of
equal parts of awe, amazement, consternation, adoration, and blank
stupidity.
“Well,” she queried innocently, “to quote Billy's colloquial style: did
I put it over?”
“You did very well for an amateur, but I'm a doubting Thomas. I
have to poke my finger into the wound, so to speak, before I'll
believe. About this fat old man who waddles when he walks: a really
topnotch palmist could tell me his name.”
“Well, I'm only an amateur, but still I think I might, to quote Billy
again, make a stab at it. A little while ago you said I had a strong
sense of sportsmanship. Do you care to bet me about ten dollars I
cannot give you the fat party's initials—all three of them?”
He gazed at her owlishly. She was the most perfectly amazing girl
he had ever met; he was certain she would win the ten dollars from
him, but then it was worth ten dollars to know for a certainty
whether she was perfect or possessed of a slight flaw; so he silently
drew forth a wallet that would have choked a cow and skinned off a
ten-dollar gold certificate of the United States of America.
“I'm game,” he mumbled. “To quote Billy again: 'Put up or shut
up.'”
“The fat gentleman's initials are E. P. J.”
“By the twelve apostles, Peter, Simon——”
“Don't blaspheme, Mr. Webster.”
He stood up and shook himself. “When you order the tea,” he said
very distinctly, “please have mine cold. I need a bracer after that.
Take the ten. You've won it.”
 “Thanks ever so much,” she answered in a matter-of-fact tone and
tucked the bill inside of her shirtwaist. “I am a very poor woman and
—'Every little bit added to what you've got makes just a little bit
more,'” she carolled, swaying her lithe, beautiful body and snapping
her fingers like a cabaret dancer.
He could have groaned with the futility of his overwhelming desire
for her; it even occurred to him what a shame it was to waste a
marvel like her on a callow young pup like Billy, who had fought so
many deadly skirmishes with Dan Cupid that a post-impressionistic
painting of the Geary heart must resemble a pincushion. Then he
remembered that this was an ungenerous, a traitorous thought, and
that he had not paid the lady her fee.
“Well, what's the tariff?” he asked.
“You really feel that I have earned a professional's fee?”
“Beyond a doubt.”
She stood a moment gazing thoughtfully down at the tip of her
little toe, struggling to be quite cool and collected in the knowledge
that she was about to do a daring, almost a brazen thing—
wondering with a queer, panicky little fluttering of her heart if he
would think any the less of her for it.
“Well—I—that is——”
“The cauliflower ear is not unknown among pugilists in our own
dear native land, but the cauliflower tongue appears to blossom
exclusively in Sobrante,” he suggested wickedly.
She bit her lips to repress a smile. “Since you have taken Billy
away from me this evening, I shall make you take Billy's place this
evening. After dinner you shall hire an open victoria with two little
white horses and drive me around the Malecon. There is a band
concert to-night.”
“If it's the last act of my wicked life!” he promised fervently.
Strange to relate, in that ecstatic moment no thought of Billy Geary
marred the perfect serenity of what promised to be the most
perfectly serene night in history.
 CHAPTER XVII

T
HEY were seated at the tiny tea table when the sound of feet
crunching the little shell-paved path through the patio caused
Webster and Dolores to turn their heads simultaneously.
Coming toward them was an individual who wore upon a head of
flaming red a disreputable, conical-crowned straw sombrero; a soiled
cotton camisa with the tails flowing free of his equally soiled khaki
trousers, and sandals of the kind known as alpargates—made from
the tough fibre of a plant of the cactus family and worn only by the
very lowliest peons—completed his singular attire.
“Hello!” Webster murmured whimsically. “Look who's here!”
“One of Billy's friends and another reason why he has no social
standing,” Dolores whispered. “I believe he's going to speak to us.”
Such evidently appeared to be the man's intention. He came to
the edge of the veranda, swept his ruin of a hat from his red head
and bowed with Castilian expansiveness.
“Yer pardon, Miss, for appearin' before you.” She smiled her
forgiveness to what Webster how perceived to be an alcoholic wreck.
He was about to dismiss the fellow with scant ceremony, when
Dolores, with that rich sense of almost masculine humour—a
humour that was distinctly American—said sweetly:
“Mr. Webster, shake hands with Don Juan Cafetéro, bon vivant and
man about town. Don Juan, permit me to present Mr. Webster, from
somewhere in the United States. Mr. Webster is a mining partner of
our mutual friend Mr. William Geary.”
A long, sad descent into the Pit had, however, imbued Don Juan
with a sense of his degradation; he was in the presence of a
superior, and he acknowledged the introduction with a respectful
inclination of his head.
“'Tis you I've called to see, Misther Webster, sor,” he explained.
 “Very well, old-timer. In what way can I be of service to you?”
“'Tis the other way around, sor, if ye plaze, an' for that same
there's no charrge, seein' ye're the partner, av that fine, kind
gintleman, Misther Geary Sure 'tis he that's the free-handed lad wit'
his money whin he has it, God bless him, an' may the heavens be his
bed, although be the same token I can see wit' the half av an eye
that 'tis yerself thinks nothin' av a dollar, or five, for that matther.
However, sor, that's neither here nor there. Did ye, whilst in New
Orleans, have d'alings wit' a short, shtout spiggoty wit' a puckered
scar undher his right eye?”
John Stuart Webster suddenly sat up straight and gazed upon the
lost son of Erin with grave interest. “Yes,” he replied, “I seem to
recall such a man.”
“Only another proof of my ability as a palmist,” Dolores struck in.
“Remember, Mr. Webster, I warned you to beware of a dark man that
had crossed your path.”
“An' well he may, Miss—well he may,” Don Juan agreed gloomily.
“'Tis none av me business, sor, but would ye mind tellin' me just
what ye did to that spiggoty?”
“Why, to begin, last Sunday morning I interrupted this pucker-
eyed fellow and a pop-eyed friend of his while engaged in an
attempt to assassinate a white, inoffensive stranger. The following
day, at the gangplank of the steamer, we met again; he poked his
nose into my business, so I squeezed his nose until he cried; right
before everybody I did it, Don Juan, and to add insult to injury, I
plucked a few hairs from his rat's moustache—one hair per each
pluck.”
“I'd a notion ye did somethin' to him, sor. Now, thin, listen to me:
I'm not much to look at, but I'm white. I'm an attashay, as ye might
say, av Ignatz Leber—him that do have the import an' export house
at the ind av the Calle San Rosario, forninst the bay. Also he do have
charrge av the cable office, an' whin I'm sober enough, I deliver
cable-grains for Leber. Now, thin, ye'll recall we had a bit av a
shower to-day at noon?”
 Dolores and Webster nodded. Don Juan, after glancing cautiously
around, lowered his voice and continued: “I was deliverin' a
cablegram for Leber, an' me course took me past the palace gate—
which, be the same token, has sinthry-boxes both inside an' out,
wan on each side av the gate. The sinthry was not visible as I came
along, an' what wit' the shower comin' as suddint as that, an' me
wit' a wardrobe that's not so extinsive I can afford to get it wet, I
shtepped into wan av the outside sintry-boxes till the rain should be
over, an' what wit' a dhrink av aguardiente I'd took to brace me for
the thrip, an' the mimory av auld times, I fell asleep.
“Dear knows how long I sat there napping; all I know is that I was
awakened by the sound av three men talkin' at the gate, an' divil a
worrd did they say but what I heard. They were talkin' in Spanish,
but I undhershtood thim well enough. 'He's at the Hotel Mateo,' says
wan voice, 'an' his name is Webster—Jawn Webster. He's an
American, an' a big, savage-lookin' lad at that, so take, me advice
an' be careful. Do ye two keep an eye on him wherever he goes, an'
if he should shtep out at night an' wandher t'rough a dark shtreet,
do ye two see to it that he's put where he'll not interfere again in
Don Felipe's affairs. No damn' gringo'—beggin' yer pardon, Miss
—'can intherfere in the wurrk av the Intilligince Bureau at a time like
this, in addition to insultin' our honoured chief, wit'out the necessity
av bein' measured for a coffin.' 'Si, mi general.' says another lad, an
'To be sure, mi general,' says a thirrd; an' wit' that the gineral, bad
cess to him, wint back to the palace an' the other two walked on up
the calle an' away from the sinthry-box.”
“Did you come out and follow them?” Webster demanded briskly.
“Faith, I did. Wan av them is Francisco Arredondo, a young cavalry
lootinint, an' the other wan is Captain José Benevides, him that do
be the best pistol-shot an' swordsman in the spiggoty army. 'Twas
him that kilt auld Gineral Gonzales in a djuel a month ago.”
“What kind of looking man is this Benevides, my friend?”
“A tall, thin young man, wit' a dude's moustache an' a diamond
ring on his right hand. He do be whiter nor most. Have a care would
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