II

A year before Mrs. Porter's dinner a tramp steamer on her way to the

capital of Brazil had steered so close to the shores of Olancho that

her solitary passenger could look into the caverns the waves had

tunnelled in the limestone cliffs along the coast. The solitary

passenger was Robert Clay, and he made a guess that the white palisades

which fringed the base of the mountains along the shore had been forced

up above the level of the sea many years before by some volcanic

action. Olancho, as many people know, is situated on the northeastern

coast of South America, and its shores are washed by the main

equatorial current. From the deck of a passing vessel you can obtain

but little idea of Olancho or of the abundance and tropical beauty

which lies hidden away behind the rampart of mountains on her shore.

You can see only their desolate dark-green front, and the white caves

at their base, into which the waves rush with an echoing roar, and in

and out of which fly continually thousands of frightened bats.

The mining engineer on the rail of the tramp steamer observed this

peculiar formation of the coast with listless interest, until he noted,

when the vessel stood some thirty miles north of the harbor of

Valencia, that the limestone formation had disappeared, and that the

waves now beat against the base of the mountains themselves. There

were five of these mountains which jutted out into the ocean, and they

suggested roughly the five knuckles of a giant hand clenched and lying

flat upon the surface of the water. They extended for seven miles, and

then the caverns in the palisades began again and continued on down the

coast to the great cliffs that guard the harbor of Olancho's capital.

"The waves tunnelled their way easily enough until they ran up against

those five mountains," mused the engineer, "and then they had to fall

back." He walked to the captain's cabin and asked to look at a map of

the coast line. "I believe I won't go to Rio," he said later in the

day; "I think I will drop off here at Valencia."

So he left the tramp steamer at that place and disappeared into the

interior with an ox-cart and a couple of pack-mules, and returned to

write a lengthy letter from the Consul's office to a Mr. Langham in the

United States, knowing he was largely interested in mines and in

mining. "There are five mountains filled with ore," Clay wrote, "which

should be extracted by open-faced workings. I saw great masses of red

hematite lying exposed on the side of the mountain, only waiting a pick

and shovel, and at one place there were five thousand tons in plain

sight. I should call the stuff first-class Bessemer ore, running about

sixty-three per cent metallic iron. The people know it is there, but

have no knowledge of its value, and are too lazy to ever work it

themselves. As to transportation, it would only be necessary to run a

freight railroad twenty miles along the sea-coast to the harbor of

Valencia and dump your ore from your own pier into your own vessels.

It would not, I think, be possible to ship direct from the mines

themselves, even though, as I say, the ore runs right down into the

water, because there is no place at which it would be safe for a large

vessel to touch. I will look into the political side of it and see

what sort of a concession I can get for you. I should think ten per

cent of the output would satisfy them, and they would, of course, admit

machinery and plant free of duty."

Six months after this communication had arrived in New York City, the

Valencia Mining Company was formally incorporated, and a man named Van

Antwerp, with two hundred workmen and a half-dozen assistants, was sent

South to lay out the freight railroad, to erect the dumping-pier, and

to strip the five mountains of their forests and underbrush. It was

not a task for a holiday, but a stern, difficult, and perplexing

problem, and Van Antwerp was not quite the man to solve it. He was

stubborn, self-confident, and indifferent by turns. He did not depend

upon his lieutenants, but jealously guarded his own opinions from the

least question or discussion, and at every step he antagonized the

easy-going people among whom he had come to work. He had no patience

with their habits of procrastination, and he was continually offending

their lazy good-nature and their pride. He treated the rich planters,

who owned the land between the mines and the harbor over which the

freight railroad must run, with as little consideration as he showed

the regiment of soldiers which the Government had farmed out to the

company to serve as laborers in the mines. Six months after Van

Antwerp had taken charge at Valencia, Clay, who had finished the

railroad in Mexico, of which King had spoken, was asked by telegraph to

undertake the work of getting the ore out of the mountains he had

discovered, and shipping it North. He accepted the offer and was given

the title of General Manager and Resident Director, and an enormous

salary, and was also given to understand that the rough work of

preparation had been accomplished, and that the more important service

of picking up the five mountains and putting them in fragments into

tramp steamers would continue under his direction. He had a letter of

recall for Van Antwerp, and a letter of introduction to the Minister of

Mines and Agriculture. Further than that he knew nothing of the work

before him, but he concluded, from the fact that he had been paid the

almost prohibitive sum he had asked for his services, that it must be

important, or that he had reached that place in his career when he

could stop actual work and live easily, as an expert, on the work of

others.

Clay rolled along the coast from Valencia to the mines in a

paddle-wheeled steamer that had served its usefulness on the

Mississippi, and which had been rotting at the levees in New Orleans,

when Van Antwerp had chartered it to carry tools and machinery to the

mines and to serve as a private launch for himself. It was a choice

either of this steamer and landing in a small boat, or riding along the

line of the unfinished railroad on horseback. Either route consumed

six valuable hours, and Clay, who was anxious to see his new field of

action, beat impatiently upon the rail of the rolling tub as it

wallowed in the sea.

He spent the first three days after his arrival at the mines in the

mountains, climbing them on foot and skirting their base on horseback,

and sleeping where night overtook him. Van Antwerp did not accompany

him on his tour of inspection through the mines, but delegated that

duty to an engineer named MacWilliams, and to Weimer, the United States

Consul at Valencia, who had served the company in many ways and who was

in its closest confidence.

For three days the men toiled heavily over fallen trunks and trees,

slippery with the moss of centuries, or slid backward on the rolling

stones in the waterways, or clung to their ponies' backs to dodge the

hanging creepers. At times for hours together they walked in single

file, bent nearly double, and seeing nothing before them but the

shining backs and shoulders of the negroes who hacked out the way for

them to go. And again they would come suddenly upon a precipice, and

drink in the soft cool breath of the ocean, and look down thousands of

feet upon the impenetrable green under which they had been crawling,

out to where it met the sparkling surface of the Caribbean Sea. It was

three days of unceasing activity while the sun shone, and of anxious

questionings around the camp-fire when the darkness fell, and when

there were no sounds on the mountain-side but that of falling water in

a distant ravine or the calls of the night-birds.

On the morning of the fourth day Clay and his attendants returned to

camp and rode to where the men had just begun to blast away the sloping

surface of the mountain.

As Clay passed between the zinc sheds and palm huts of the

soldier-workmen, they came running out to meet him, and one, who seemed

to be a leader, touched his bridle, and with his straw sombrero in his

hand begged for a word with el Senor the Director.

The news of Clay's return had reached the opening, and the throb of the

dummy-engines and the roar of the blasting ceased as the

assistant-engineers came down the valley to greet the new manager.

They found him seated on his horse gazing ahead of him, and listening

to the story of the soldier, whose fingers, as he spoke, trembled in

the air, with all the grace and passion of his Southern nature, while

back of him his companions stood humbly, in a silent chorus, with

eager, supplicating eyes. Clay answered the man's speech curtly, with

a few short words, in the Spanish patois in which he had been

addressed, and then turned and smiled grimly upon the expectant group

of engineers. He kept them waiting for some short space, while he

looked them over carefully, as though he had never seen them before.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "I'm glad to have you here all together. I

am only sorry you didn't come in time to hear what this fellow has had

to say. I don't as a rule listen that long to complaints, but he told

me what I have seen for myself and what has been told me by others. I

have been here three days now, and I assure you, gentlemen, that my

easiest course would be to pack up my things and go home on the next

steamer. I was sent down here to take charge of a mine in active

operation, and I find--what? I find that in six months you have done

almost nothing, and that the little you have condescended to do has

been done so badly that it will have to be done over again; that you

have not only wasted a half year of time--and I can't tell how much

money--but that you have succeeded in antagonizing all the people on

whose good-will we are absolutely dependent; you have allowed your

machinery to rust in the rain, and your workmen to rot with sickness.

You have not only done nothing, but you haven't a blue print to show me

what you meant to do. I have never in my life come across laziness and

mismanagement and incompetency upon such a magnificent and reckless

scale. You have not built the pier, you have not opened the freight

road, you have not taken out an ounce of ore. You know more of

Valencia than you know of these mines; you know it from the Alameda to

the Canal. You can tell me what night the band plays in the Plaza, but

you can't give me the elevation of one of these hills. You have spent

your days on the pavements in front of cafés, and your nights in

dance-halls, and you have been drawing salaries every month. I've more

respect for these half-breeds that you've allowed to starve in this

fever-bed than I have for you. You have treated them worse than they'd

treat a dog, and if any of them die, it's on your heads. You have put

them in a fever-camp which you have not even taken the trouble to

drain. Your commissariat is rotten, and you have let them drink all

the rum they wanted. There is not one of you--"

The group of silent men broke, and one of them stepped forward and

shook his forefinger at Clay.

"No man can talk to me like that," he said, warningly, "and think I'll

work under him. I resign here and now."

"You what--" cried Clay, "you resign?"

He whirled his horse round with a dig of his spur and faced them.

"How dare you talk of resigning? I'll pack the whole lot of you back

to New York on the first steamer, if I want to, and I'll give you such

characters that you'll be glad to get a job carrying a transit. You're

in no position to talk of resigning yet--not one of you. Yes," he

added, interrupting himself, "one of you is MacWilliams, the man who

had charge of the railroad. It's no fault of his that the road's not

working. I understand that he couldn't get the right of way from the

people who owned the land, but I have seen what he has done, and his

plans, and I apologize to him--to MacWilliams. As for the rest of you,

I'll give you a month's trial. It will be a month before the next

steamer could get here anyway, and I'll give you that long to redeem

yourselves. At the end of that time we will have another talk, but you

are here now only on your good behavior and on my sufferance.

Good-morning."

As Clay had boasted, he was not the man to throw up his position

because he found the part he had to play was not that of leading man,

but rather one of general utility, and although it had been several

years since it had been part of his duties to oversee the setting up of

machinery, and the policing of a mining camp, he threw himself as

earnestly into the work before him as though to show his subordinates

that it did not matter who did the work, so long as it was done. The

men at first were sulky, resentful, and suspicious, but they could not

long resist the fact that Clay was doing the work of five men and five

different kinds of work, not only without grumbling, but apparently

with the keenest pleasure.

He conciliated the rich coffee planters who owned the land which he

wanted for the freight road by calls of the most formal state and

dinners of much less formality, for he saw that the iron mine had its

social as well as its political side. And with this fact in mind, he

opened the railroad with great ceremony, and much music and feasting,

and the first piece of ore taken out of the mine was presented to the

wife of the Minister of the Interior in a cluster of diamonds, which

made the wives of the other members of the Cabinet regret that their

husbands had not chosen that portfolio. Six months followed of hard,

unremitting work, during which time the great pier grew out into the

bay from MacWilliams' railroad, and the face of the first mountain was

scarred and torn of its green, and left in mangled nakedness, while the

ringing of hammers and picks, and the racking blasts of dynamite, and

the warning whistles of the dummy-engines drove away the accumulated

silence of centuries.

It had been a long uphill fight, and Clay had enjoyed it mightily. Two

unexpected events had contributed to help it. One was the arrival in

Valencia of young Teddy Langham, who came ostensibly to learn the

profession of which Clay was so conspicuous an example, and in reality

to watch over his father's interests. He was put at Clay's elbow, and

Clay made him learn in spite of himself, for he ruled him and

MacWilliams of both of whom he was very fond, as though, so they

complained, they were the laziest and the most rebellious members of

his entire staff. The second event of importance was the announcement

made one day by young Langham that his father's physician had ordered

rest in a mild climate, and that he and his daughters were coming in a

month to spend the winter in Valencia, and to see how the son and heir

had developed as a man of business.

The idea of Mr. Langham's coming to visit Olancho to inspect his new

possessions was not a surprise to Clay. It had occurred to him as

possible before, especially after the son had come to join them there.

The place was interesting and beautiful enough in itself to justify a

visit, and it was only a ten days' voyage from New York. But he had

never considered the chance of Miss Langham's coming, and when that was

now not only possible but a certainty, he dreamed of little else. He

lived as earnestly and toiled as indefatigably as before, but the place

was utterly transformed for him. He saw it now as she would see it

when she came, even while at the same time his own eyes retained their

point of view. It was as though he had lengthened the focus of a

glass, and looked beyond at what was beautiful and picturesque, instead

of what was near at hand and practicable. He found himself smiling

with anticipation of her pleasure in the orchids hanging from the dead

trees, high above the opening of the mine, and in the parrots hurling

themselves like gayly colored missiles among the vines; and he

considered the harbor at night with its colored lamps floating on the

black water as a scene set for her eyes. He planned the dinners that

he would give in her honor on the balcony of the great restaurant in

the Plaza on those nights when the band played, and the senoritas

circled in long lines between admiring rows of officers and caballeros.

And he imagined how, when the ore-boats had been filled and his work

had slackened, he would be free to ride with her along the rough

mountain roads, between magnificent pillars of royal palms, or to

venture forth in excursions down the bay, to explore the caves and to

lunch on board the rolling paddle-wheel steamer, which he would have re

painted and gilded for her coming. He pictured himself acting as her

guide over the great mines, answering her simple questions about the

strange machinery, and the crew of workmen, and the local government by

which he ruled two thousand men. It was not on account of any personal

pride in the mines that he wanted her to see them, it was not because

he had discovered and planned and opened them that he wished to show

them to her, but as a curious spectacle that he hoped would give her a

moment's interest.

But his keenest pleasure was when young Langham suggested that they

should build a house for his people on the edge of the hill that jutted

out over the harbor and the great ore pier. If this were done, Langham

urged, it would be possible for him to see much more of his family than

he would be able to do were they installed in the city, five miles away.

"We can still live in the office at this end of the railroad," the boy

said, "and then we shall have them within call at night when we get

back from work; but if they are in Valencia, it will take the greater

part of the evening going there and all of the night getting back, for

I can't pass that club under three hours. It will keep us out of

temptation."

"Yes, exactly," said Clay, with a guilty smile, "it will keep us out of

temptation."

So they cleared away the underbrush, and put a double force of men to

work on what was to be the most beautiful and comfortable bungalow on

the edge of the harbor. It had blue and green and white tiles on the

floors, and walls of bamboo, and a red roof of curved tiles to let in

the air, and dragons' heads for water-spouts, and verandas as broad as

the house itself. There was an open court in the middle hung with

balconies looking down upon a splashing fountain, and to decorate this

patio, they levied upon people for miles around for tropical plants and

colored mats and awnings. They cut down the trees that hid the view of

the long harbor leading from the sea into Valencia, and planted a

rampart of other trees to hide the iron-ore pier, and they sodded the

raw spots where the men had been building, until the place was as

completely transformed as though a fairy had waved her wand above it.

It was to be a great surprise, and they were all--Clay, MacWilliams,

and Langham--as keenly interested in it as though each were preparing

it for his honeymoon. They would be walking together in Valencia when

one would say, "We ought to have that for the house," and without

question they would march into the shop together and order whatever

they fancied to be sent out to the house of the president of the mines

on the hill. They stocked it with wine and linens, and hired a volante

and six horses, and fitted out the driver with a new pair of boots that

reached above his knees, and a silver jacket and a sombrero that was so

heavy with braid that it flashed like a halo about his head in the

sunlight, and he was ordered not to wear it until the ladies came,

under penalty of arrest. It delighted Clay to find that it was only

the beautiful things and the fine things of his daily routine that

suggested her to him, as though she could not be associated in his mind

with anything less worthy, and he kept saying to himself, "She will

like this view from the end of the terrace," and "This will be her

favorite walk," or "She will swing her hammock here," and "I know she

will not fancy the rug that Weimer chose."

While this fairy palace was growing the three men lived as roughly as

before in the wooden hut at the terminus of the freight road, three

hundred yards below the house, and hidden from it by an impenetrable

rampart of brush and Spanish bayonet. There was a rough road leading

from it to the city, five miles away, which they had extended still

farther up the hill to the Palms, which was the name Langham had

selected for his father's house. And when it was finally finished,

they continued to live under the corrugated zinc roof of their office

building, and locking up the Palms, left it in charge of a gardener and

a watchman until the coming of its rightful owners.

It had been a viciously hot, close day, and even now the air came in

sickening waves, like a blast from the engine-room of a steamer, and

the heat lightning played round the mountains over the harbor and

showed the empty wharves, and the black outlines of the steamers, and

the white front of the Custom-House, and the long half-circle of

twinkling lamps along the quay. MacWilliams and Langham sat panting on

the lower steps of the office-porch considering whether they were too

lazy to clean themselves and be rowed over to the city, where, as it

was Sunday night, was promised much entertainment. They had been for

the last hour trying to make up their minds as to this, and appealing

to Clay to stop work and decide for them. But he sat inside at a table

figuring and writing under the green shade of a student's lamp and made

no answer. The walls of Clay's office were of unplaned boards,

bristling with splinters, and hung with blue prints and outline maps of

the mine. A gaudily colored portrait of Madame la Presidenta, the

noble and beautiful woman whom Alvarez, the President of Olancho, had

lately married in Spain, was pinned to the wall above the table. This

table, with its green oil-cloth top, and the lamp, about which winged

insects beat noisily, and an earthen water-jar--from which the water

dripped as regularly as the ticking of a clock--were the only articles

of furniture in the office. On a shelf at one side of the door lay the

men's machetes, a belt of cartridges, and a revolver in a holster.

Clay rose from the table and stood in the light of the open door,

stretching himself gingerly, for his joints were sore and stiff with

fording streams and climbing the surfaces of rocks. The red ore and

yellow mud of the mines were plastered over his boots and

riding-breeches, where he had stood knee-deep in the water, and his

shirt stuck to him like a wet bathing-suit, showing his ribs when he

breathed and the curves of his broad chest. A ring of burning paper

and hot ashes fell from his cigarette to his breast and burnt a hole

through the cotton shirt, and he let it lie there and watched it burn

with a grim smile.

"I wanted to see," he explained, catching the look of listless

curiosity in MacWilliams's eye, "whether there was anything hotter than

my blood. It's racing around like boiling water in a pot."

"Listen," said Langham, holding up his hand. "There goes the call for

prayers in the convent, and now it's too late to go to town. I am

glad, rather. I'm too tired to keep awake, and besides, they don't

know how to amuse themselves in a civilized way--at least not in my

way. I wish I could just drop in at home about now; don't you,

MacWilliams? Just about this time up in God's country all the people

are at the theatre, or they've just finished dinner and are sitting

around sipping cool green mint, trickling through little lumps of ice.

What I'd like--" he stopped and shut one eye and gazed, with his head

on one side, at the unimaginative MacWilliams--"what I'd like to do

now," he continued, thoughtfully, "would be to sit in the front row at

a comic opera, ON THE AISLE. The prima donna must be very, very

beautiful, and sing most of her songs at me, and there must be three

comedians, all good, and a chorus entirely composed of girls. I never

could see why they have men in the chorus, anyway. No one ever looks

at them. Now that's where I'd like to be. What would you like,

MacWilliams?"

MacWilliams was a type with which Clay was intimately familiar, but to

the college-bred Langham he was a revelation and a joy. He came from

some little town in the West, and had learned what he knew of

engineering at the transit's mouth, after he had first served his

apprenticeship by cutting sage-brush and driving stakes. His life had

been spent in Mexico and Central America, and he spoke of the home he

had not seen in ten years with the aggressive loyalty of the confirmed

wanderer, and he was known to prefer and to import canned corn and

canned tomatoes in preference to eating the wonderful fruits of the

country, because the former came from the States and tasted to him of

home. He had crowded into his young life experiences that would have

shattered the nerves of any other man with a more sensitive conscience

and a less happy sense of humor; but these same experiences had only

served to make him shrewd and self-confident and at his ease when the

occasion or difficulty came.

He pulled meditatively on his pipe and considered Langham's question

deeply, while Clay and the younger boy sat with their arms upon their

knees and waited for his decision in thoughtful silence.

"I'd like to go to the theatre, too," said MacWilliams, with an air as

though to show that he also was possessed of artistic tastes. "I'd

like to see a comical chap I saw once in '80--oh, long ago--before I

joined the P. Q. & M. He WAS funny. His name was Owens; that was his

name, John E. Owens--"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, MacWilliams," protested Langham, in dismay;

"he's been dead for five years."

"Has he?" said MacWilliams, thoughtfully. "Well--" he concluded,

unabashed, "I can't help that, he's the one I'd like to see best."

"You can have another wish, Mac, you know," urged Langham, "can't he,

Clay?"

Clay nodded gravely, and MacWilliams frowned again in thought. "No," he

said after an effort, "Owens, John E. Owens; that's the one I want to

see."

"Well, now I want another wish, too," said Langham. "I move we can

each have two wishes. I wish--"

"Wait until I've had mine," said Clay. "You've had one turn. I want to

be in a place I know in Vienna. It's not hot like this, but cool and

fresh. It's an open, out-of-door concert-garden, with hundreds of

colored lights and trees, and there's always a breeze coming through.

And Eduard Strauss, the son, you know, leads the orchestra there, and

they play nothing but waltzes, and he stands in front of them, and

begins by raising himself on his toes, and then he lifts his shoulders

gently--and then sinks back again and raises his baton as though he

were drawing the music out after it, and the whole place seems to rock

and move. It's like being picked up and carried on the deck of a yacht

over great waves; and all around you are the beautiful Viennese women

and those tall Austrian officers in their long, blue coats and flat

hats and silver swords. And there are cool drinks--" continued Clay,

with his eyes fixed on the coming storm--"all sorts of cool drinks--in

high, thin glasses, full of ice, all the ice you want--"

"Oh, drop it, will you?" cried Langham, with a shrug of his damp

shoulders. "I can't stand it. I'm parching."

"Wait a minute," interrupted MacWilliams, leaning forward and looking

into the night. "Some one's coming." There was a sound down the road

of hoofs and the rattle of the land-crabs as they scrambled off into

the bushes, and two men on horseback came suddenly out of the darkness

and drew rein in the light from the open door. The first was General

Mendoza, the leader of the Opposition in the Senate, and the other, his

orderly. The General dropped his Panama hat to his knee and bowed in

the saddle three times.

"Good-evening, your Excellency," said Clay, rising. "Tell that peon to

get my coat, will you?" he added, turning to Langham. Langham clapped

his hands, and the clanging of a guitar ceased, and their servant and

cook came out from the back of the hut and held the General's horse

while he dismounted. "Wait until I get you a chair," said Clay.

"You'll find those steps rather bad for white duck."

"I am fortunate in finding you at home," said the officer, smiling, and

showing his white teeth. "The telephone is not working. I tried at

the club, but I could not call you."

"It's the storm, I suppose," Clay answered, as he struggled into his

jacket. "Let me offer you something to drink." He entered the house,

and returned with several bottles on a tray and a bundle of cigars.

The Spanish-American poured himself out a glass of water, mixing it

with Jamaica rum, and said, smiling again, "It is a saying of your

countrymen that when a man first comes to Olancho he puts a little rum

into his water, and that when he is here some time he puts a little

water in his rum."

"Yes," laughed Clay. "I'm afraid that's true."

There was a pause while the men sipped at their glasses, and looked at

the horses and the orderly. The clanging of the guitar began again

from the kitchen. "You have a very beautiful view here of the harbor,

yes," said Mendoza. He seemed to enjoy the pause after his ride, and

to be in no haste to begin on the object of his errand. MacWilliams

and Langham eyed each other covertly, and Clay examined the end of his

cigar, and they all waited.

"And how are the mines progressing, eh?" asked the officer, genially.

"You find much good iron in them, they tell me."

"Yes, we are doing very well," Clay assented; "it was difficult at

first, but now that things are in working order, we are getting out

about ten thousand tons a month. We hope to increase that soon to

twenty thousand when the new openings are developed and our shipping

facilities are in better shape."

"So much!" exclaimed the General, pleasantly.

"Of which the Government of my country is to get its share of ten per

cent--one thousand tons! It is munificent!" He laughed and shook his

head slyly at Clay, who smiled in dissent.

"But you see, sir," said Clay, "you cannot blame us. The mines have

always been there, before this Government came in, before the Spaniards

were here, before there was any Government at all, but there was not

the capital to open them up, I suppose, or--and it needed a certain

energy to begin the attack. Your people let the chance go, and, as it

turned out, I think they were very wise in doing so. They get ten per

cent of the output. That's ten per cent on nothing, for the mines

really didn't exist, as far as you were concerned, until we came, did

they? They were just so much waste land, and they would have remained

so. And look at the price we paid down before we cut a tree. Three

millions of dollars; that's a good deal of money. It will be some time

before we realize anything on that investment."

Mendoza shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "I will be frank

with you," he said, with the air of one to whom dissimulation is

difficult. "I come here to-night on an unpleasant errand, but it is

with me a matter of duty, and I am a soldier, to whom duty is the

foremost ever. I have come to tell you, Mr. Clay, that we, the

Opposition, are not satisfied with the manner in which the Government

has disposed of these great iron deposits. When I say not satisfied,

my dear friend, I speak most moderately. I should say that we are

surprised and indignant, and we are determined the wrong it has done

our country shall be righted. I have the honor to have been chosen to

speak for our party on this most important question, and on next

Tuesday, sir," the General stood up and bowed, as though he were before

a great assembly, "I will rise in the Senate and move a vote of want of

confidence in the Government for the manner in which it has given away

the richest possessions in the storehouse of my country, giving it not

only to aliens, but for a pittance, for a share which is not a share,

but a bribe, to blind the eyes of the people. It has been a shameful

bargain, and I cannot say who is to blame; I accuse no one. But I

suspect, and I will demand an investigation; I will demand that the

value not of one-tenth, but of one-half of all the iron that your

company takes out of Olancho shall be paid into the treasury of the

State. And I come to you to-night, as the Resident Director, to inform

you beforehand of my intention. I do not wish to take you unprepared.

I do not blame your people; they are business men, they know how to

make good bargains, they get what they best can. That is the rule of

trade, but they have gone too far, and I advise you to communicate with

your people in New York and learn what they are prepared to offer

now--now that they have to deal with men who do not consider their own

interests but the interests of their country."

Mendoza made a sweeping bow and seated himself, frowning dramatically,

with folded arms. His voice still hung in the air, for he had spoken

as earnestly as though he imagined himself already standing in the hall

of the Senate championing the cause of the people.

MacWilliams looked up at Clay from where he sat on the steps below him,

but Clay did not notice him, and there was no sound, except the quick

sputtering of the nicotine in Langham's pipe, at which he pulled

quickly, and which was the only outward sign the boy gave of his

interest. Clay shifted one muddy boot over the other and leaned back

with his hands stuck in his belt.

"Why didn't you speak of this sooner?" he asked.

"Ah, yes, that is fair," said the General, quickly. "I know that it is

late, and I regret it, and I see that we cause you inconvenience; but

how could I speak sooner when I was ignorant of what was going on? I

have been away with my troops. I am a soldier first, a politician

after. During the last year I have been engaged in guarding the

frontier. No news comes to a General in the field moving from camp to

camp and always in the saddle; but I may venture to hope, sir, that

news has come to you of me?"

Clay pressed his lips together and bowed his head.

"We have heard of your victories, General, yes," he said; "and on your

return you say you found things had not been going to your liking?"

"That is it," assented the other, eagerly. "I find that indignation

reigns on every side. I find my friends complaining of the railroad

which you run across their land. I find that fifteen hundred soldiers

are turned into laborers, with picks and spades, working by the side of

negroes and your Irish; they have not been paid their wages, and they

have been fed worse than though they were on the march; sickness and--"

Clay moved impatiently and dropped his boot heavily on the porch.

"That was true at first," he interrupted, "but it is not so now. I

should be glad, General, to take you over the men's quarters at any

time. As for their not having been paid, they were never paid by their

own Government before they came to us and for the same reason, because

the petty officers kept back the money, just as they have always done.

But the men are paid now. However, this is not of the most importance.

Who is it that complains of the terms of our concession?"

"Every one!" exclaimed Mendoza, throwing out his arms, "and they ask,

moreover, this: they ask why, if this mine is so rich, why was not the

stock offered here to us in this country? Why was it not put on the

market, that any one might buy? We have rich men in Olancho, why

should not they benefit first of all others by the wealth of their own

lands? But no! we are not asked to buy. All the stock is taken in New

York, no one benefits but the State, and it receives only ten per cent.

It is monstrous!"

"I see," said Clay, gravely. "That had not occurred to me before.

They feel they have been slighted. I see." He paused for a moment as

if in serious consideration. "Well," he added, "that might be

arranged."

He turned and jerked his head toward the open door. "If you boys mean

to go to town to-night, you'd better be moving," he said. The two men

rose together and bowed silently to their guest.

"I should like if Mr. Langham would remain a moment with us," said

Mendoza, politely. "I understand that it is his father who controls

the stock of the company. If we discuss any arrangement it might be

well if he were here."

Clay was sitting with his chin on his breast, and he did not look up,

nor did the young man turn to him for any prompting. "I'm not down

here as my father's son," he said, "I am an employee of Mr. Clay's. He

represents the company. Good-night, sir."

"You think, then," said Clay, "that if your friends were given an

opportunity to subscribe to the stock they would feel less resentful

toward us? They would think it was fairer to all?"

"I know it," said Mendoza; "why should the stock go out of the country

when those living here are able to buy it?"

"Exactly," said Clay, "of course. Can you tell me this, General? Are

the gentlemen who want to buy stock in the mine the same men who are in

the Senate? The men who are objecting to the terms of our concession?"

"With a few exceptions they are the same men."

Clay looked out over the harbor at the lights of the town, and the

General twirled his hat around his knee and gazed with appreciation at

the stars above him.

"Because if they are," Clay continued, "and they succeed in getting our

share cut down from ninety per cent to fifty per cent, they must see

that the stock would be worth just forty per cent less than it is now."

"That is true," assented the other. "I have thought of that, and if

the Senators in Opposition were given a chance to subscribe, I am sure

they would see that it is better wisdom to drop their objections to the

concession, and as stockholders allow you to keep ninety per cent of

the output. And, again," continued Mendoza, "it is really better for

the country that the money should go to its people than that it should

be stored up in the vaults of the treasury, when there is always the

danger that the President will seize it; or, if not this one, the next

one."

"I should think--that is--it seems to me," said Clay with careful

consideration, "that your Excellency might be able to render us great

help in this matter yourself. We need a friend among the Opposition.

In fact--I see where you could assist us in many ways, where your

services would be strictly in the line of your public duty and yet

benefit us very much. Of course I cannot speak authoritatively without

first consulting Mr. Langham; but I should think he would allow you

personally to purchase as large a block of the stock as you could wish,

either to keep yourself or to resell and distribute among those of your

friends in Opposition where it would do the most good."

Clay looked over inquiringly to where Mendoza sat in the light of the

open door, and the General smiled faintly, and emitted a pleased little

sigh of relief. "Indeed," continued Clay, "I should think Mr. Langham

might even save you the formality of purchasing the stock outright by

sending you its money equivalent. I beg your pardon," he asked,

interrupting himself, "does your orderly understand English?"

"He does not," the General assured him, eagerly, dragging his chair a

little closer.

"Suppose now that Mr. Langham were to put fifty or let us say sixty

thousand dollars to your account in the Valencia Bank, do you think

this vote of want of confidence in the Government on the question of

our concession would still be moved?"

"I am sure it would not," exclaimed the leader of the Opposition,

nodding his head violently.

"Sixty thousand dollars," repeated Clay, slowly, "for yourself; and do

you think, General, that were you paid that sum you would be able to

call off your friends, or would they make a demand for stock also?"

"Have no anxiety at all, they do just what I say," returned Mendoza, in

an eager whisper. "If I say 'It is all right, I am satisfied with what

the Government has done in my absence,' it is enough. And I will say

it, I give you the word of a soldier, I will say it. I will not move a

vote of want of confidence on Tuesday. You need go no farther than

myself. I am glad that I am powerful enough to serve you, and if you

doubt me"--he struck his heart and bowed with a deprecatory smile--"you

need not pay in the money in exchange for the stock all at the same

time. You can pay ten thousand this year, and next year ten thousand

more and so on, and so feel confident that I shall have the interests

of the mine always in my heart. Who knows what may not happen in a

year? I may be able to serve you even more. Who knows how long the

present Government will last? But I give you my word of honor, no

matter whether I be in Opposition or at the head of the Government, if

I receive every six months the retaining fee of which you speak, I will

be your representative. And my friends can do nothing. I despise

them. _I_ am the Opposition. You have done well, my dear sir, to

consider me alone."

Clay turned in his chair and looked back of him through the office to

the room beyond.

"Boys," he called, "you can come out now."

He rose and pushed his chair away and beckoned to the orderly who sat

in the saddle holding the General's horse. Langham and MacWilliams

came out and stood in the open door, and Mendoza rose and looked at

Clay.

"You can go now," Clay said to him, quietly. "And you can rise in the

Senate on Tuesday and move your vote of want of confidence and object

to our concession, and when you have resumed your seat the Secretary of

Mines will rise in his turn and tell the Senate how you stole out here

in the night and tried to blackmail me, and begged me to bribe you to

be silent, and that you offered to throw over your friends and to take

all that we would give you and keep it yourself. That will make you

popular with your friends, and will show the Government just what sort

of a leader it has working against it."

Clay took a step forward and shook his finger in the officer's face.

"Try to break that concession; try it. It was made by one Government

to a body of honest, decent business men, with a Government of their

own back of them, and if you interfere with our conceded rights to work

those mines, I'll have a man-of-war down here with white paint on her

hull, and she'll blow you and your little republic back up there into

the mountains. Now you can go."

Mendoza had straightened with surprise when Clay first began to speak,

and had then bent forward slightly as though he meant to interrupt him.

His eyebrows were lowered in a straight line, and his lips moved

quickly.

"You poor--" he began, contemptuously. "Bah," he exclaimed, "you're a

fool; I should have sent a servant to talk with you. You are a

child--but you are an insolent child," he cried, suddenly, his anger

breaking out, "and I shall punish you. You dare to call me names! You

shall fight me, you shall fight me to-morrow. You have insulted an

officer, and you shall meet me at once, to-morrow."

"If I meet you to-morrow," Clay replied, "I will thrash you for your

impertinence. The only reason I don't do it now is because you are on

my doorstep. You had better not meet me tomorrow, or at any other

time. And I have no leisure to fight duels with anybody."

"You are a coward," returned the other, quietly, "and I tell you so

before my servant."

Clay gave a short laugh and turned to MacWilliams in the doorway.

"Hand me my gun, MacWilliams," he said, "it's on the shelf to the

right."

MacWilliams stood still and shook his head. "Oh, let him alone," he

said. "You've got him where you want him."

"Give me the gun, I tell you," repeated Clay. "I'm not going to hurt

him, I'm only going to show him how I can shoot."

MacWilliams moved grudgingly across the porch and brought back the

revolver and handed it to Clay. "Look out now," he said, "it's loaded."

At Clay's words the General had retreated hastily to his horse's head

and had begun unbuckling the strap of his holster, and the orderly

reached back into the boot for his carbine. Clay told him in Spanish

to throw up his hands, and the man, with a frightened look at his

officer, did as the revolver suggested. Then Clay motioned with his

empty hand for the other to desist. "Don't do that," he said, "I'm not

going to hurt you; I'm only going to frighten you a little."

He turned and looked at the student lamp inside, where it stood on the

table in full view. Then he raised his revolver. He did not

apparently hold it away from him by the butt, as other men do, but let

it lie in the palm of his hand, into which it seemed to fit like the

hand of a friend. His first shot broke the top of the glass chimney,

the second shattered the green globe around it, the third put out the

light, and the next drove the lamp crashing to the floor. There was a

wild yell of terror from the back of the house, and the noise of a

guitar falling down a flight of steps. "I have probably killed a very

good cook," said Clay, "as I should as certainly kill you, if I were to

meet you. Langham," he continued, "go tell that cook to come back."

The General sprang into his saddle, and the altitude it gave him seemed

to bring back some of the jauntiness he had lost.

"That was very pretty," he said; "you have been a cowboy, so they tell

me. It is quite evident by your manners. No matter, if we do not meet

to-morrow it will be because I have more serious work to do. Two

months from to-day there will be a new Government in Olancho and a new

President, and the mines will have a new director. I have tried to be

your friend, Mr. Clay. See how you like me for an enemy. Goodnight,

gentlemen."

"Good-night," said MacWilliams, unmoved. "Please ask your man to close

the gate after you."

When the sound of the hoofs had died away the men still stood in an

uncomfortable silence, with Clay twirling the revolver around his

middle finger. "I'm sorry I had to make a gallery play of that sort,"

he said. "But it was the only way to make that sort of man understand."

Langham sighed and shook his head ruefully.

"Well," he said, "I thought all the trouble was over, but it looks to

me as though it had just begun. So far as I can see they're going to

give the governor a run for his money yet."

Clay turned to MacWilliams.

"How many of Mendoza's soldiers have we in the mines, Mac?" he asked.

"About fifteen hundred," MacWilliams answered. "But you ought to hear

the way they talk of him."

"They do, eh?" said Clay, with a smile of satisfaction. "That's good.

'Six hundred slaves who hate their masters.' What do they say about me?"

"Oh, they think you're all right. They know you got them their pay and

all that. They'd do a lot for you."

"Would they fight for me?" asked Clay.

MacWilliams looked up and laughed uneasily. "I don't know," he said.

"Why, old man? What do you mean to do?"

"Oh, I don't know," Clay answered. "I was just wondering whether I

should like to be President of Olancho."