BLAZE 
 DERRINGER 
 
 EUGENE- P-LYLE- JR.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER
 
 Chestnut-brown eyes, still beautifully heavy from sleep, opened 
 widely on them. Frontispiece 
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER
 
 Blaze Derringer 
 
 By EUGENE P. LYLE, JR. 
 
 Author of "The Missourian," " The Lone Star," etc. 
 
 A. L. BURT COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
 
 ALL SIGHTS RECEIVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
 
 mro roREiGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 
 
 COPYRIGHT, IQIO, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 PUBLISHED JUNE, IglO 
 
 COUNTRY JUJJE PK-ES8, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER
 
 THE PROLOGUE 
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER, that youth of 
 the red hair and freckled eyelids whose 
 baby name was Eddie, left college at 
 the instigation of the Faculty. His education 
 began soon afterward. 
 
 On the eve of departure Eddie tendered a 
 farewell Carnival of Crime to his three chums, 
 not caring now how often his landlady irrevo- 
 cably resolved, shrilly, from the foot of the stairs, 
 that he must find other rooms. Naught, in con- 
 sequence, bridled the joy of the spread. After 
 nuts, raisins, ice cream, lady-fingers, and song, 
 and during cigars and bottled beer, they closed 
 the piano and settled down to freeze-outs until 
 breakfast. Then young Derringer cashed a 
 final sight draft on his father, purchased twenty 
 pounds in tins of a pungent smoking mixture 
 unknown to Texas, and a reserve half-gross of 
 wonderful collars doubling over to the wish- 
 
 s
 
 4 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 bone, known nowhere beyond the frontier of 
 Collegedom. Having thus transacted all affairs 
 of moment, he gave his books away, packed a 
 leather trunk and silver-mounted suit case, bade 
 his following good-bye from the platform of the 
 buffet car, and blithely started home several 
 thousand miles or so to talk it over with his 
 father. 
 
 The collegian who fell heir to the "Trig" of 
 the departed valued that battered volume most 
 for a legend purloined from Abraham Lincoln 
 and inscribed on the fly-leaf: 
 
 Blaze Derringer, 
 
 His hand, his pen, 
 He will be good, 
 
 But God knows when. 
 
 The legatee showed it over the campus, and 
 there were smiles in the day of mourning. Prexy 
 happened along, and Prexy saw it, and twinkling- 
 eyed old Prexy made queer noises into his beard. 
 Who now would abet the oversupply of Univer- 
 sity gaiety? Prexy wished that Faculties were 
 not so sensitive.
 
 THE PROLOGUE 5 
 
 During this while Blaze Derringer had very 
 nearly crossed the nation from north to south. 
 The soft Gulf breeze filtered through the 
 screened window of the car and caressed the 
 red locks on his freckled brow. They had 
 stopped for water at a familiar siding. And 
 outside there blended busy noises even more 
 familiar, the scurrying of hoofs, shouts, staccato 
 profanity and the whir of a lariat. That last 
 brought a pair of mild, innocent blue eyes to 
 the level of the window. Eddie was home. He 
 sat up straight. The hitching post and roof tree 
 lay off a dozen miles yet, but the hoof-beaten 
 prairie out here here, also, was home. 
 
 A herd of the long-horned was being rounded 
 up and driven through a pen and up a chute into 
 box cars. The local colour of the scene was 
 saffron. The atmosphere was dust. On the 
 off landscape lurked, quiescent, a chain-tired 
 automobile of enormous horse-power. And yet 
 the sluggish, potent, modern thing of luxury 
 was also of the atmosphere, also of the landscape, 
 acclimated, digested, assimilated, as integral a 
 part of Texas as the dustiest cow- pony there.
 
 6 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 On the top board of the pen stood a lone, wire- 
 fibred man in linen duster and slouch hat; a 
 man of shaggy, reddish-gray brows and mus- 
 tache, whose eye was the quiet eye of the master. 
 
 When Blaze Derringer in the Pullman saw 
 the rugged man on the cattle pen, he thrust his 
 cherry-wood pipe between his teeth, caught up 
 his silver-mounted suit case, gave the porter some 
 dollar bills, and swung himself off into the saf- 
 fron powder of Texas. 
 
 The rugged man noted the slim and trim 
 young figure approaching, first because it was 
 not acclimated, not digested, not assimilated, 
 and lastly because he recognized his own prog- 
 eny. The expression under the shaggy brows 
 was whimsically contemplative. He had tackled 
 problems more appalling than creased trousers 
 and toothpick shoes. The cowboys on swirling 
 ponies grinned, and watched expectantly to see 
 how the old man would take it. 
 
 "Well, Eddie?" 
 
 Eddie looked up and smiled, a smile charming 
 and ingenuous. 
 
 "Playin* hookey again, I reckon?"
 
 THE PROLOGUE 7 
 
 Eddie had answered that question many times. 
 He felt that he was again the little motherless 
 chap who had slipped away from tutor or gov- 
 erness to find his father and ride with him, but 
 first of all to answer that old familiar question. 
 He was as little dismayed now. Vaulting to the 
 top of the pen, he held out a hand as freckled as 
 his dad's. "Howdy, Chief." 
 
 The old man crunched the hand hi his grip. 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Why well, you see, Chief, there was a 
 little difficulty in Freshman math." 
 
 The Chief did not see. He troubled Eddie 
 for a translation. 
 
 "It's trig," said Eddie. "You know, trig- 
 onometry." 
 
 "Oh, thank you; but explain that Freshman 
 part. I was sort o* under the impression that 
 this was your second year up there." 
 
 "Yes, sir; but I flunked last year hi math." 
 
 The elder Derringer inquired if Eddie would 
 as lief back up into the dictionary. 
 
 "Why, I was conditioned, that's all," said 
 Eddie.
 
 8 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "What was ailin' ye?" 
 
 "Pshaw, dad, I simply mean that I failed to 
 pass." 
 
 "Oh!" This was the old man's tone when 
 he discharged a foreman. 
 
 "But you see," placidly interposed the 
 boy, "I'd been knocking his eye out 
 the tute's the tutor's all through the 
 semester." 
 
 " How's that ? Knocked somebody's eye out ?" 
 The ejaculation vibrated with hope. 
 
 " Not literally, dad, but uh technically. 
 That is, I was there with the answer whenever 
 he called on me." 
 
 "Oh, I see." The old man realized that he 
 had expected too much. One should not look 
 for fighting out of mere clothes. " But how's it 
 happen, boy, that you didn't pass?" 
 
 "Because, dad, I bolted the exam. Fact is, 
 I forgot the date of their old exam, and went 
 fishing." 
 
 "With bait?" 
 
 " Only some home-made wine at a farmhouse, 
 sir."
 
 THE PROLOGUE 9 
 
 " Catch anything ? Here," said the old man, 
 "I'm off the range. What I want to know is 
 how in the nation all this accounts for your bein* 
 here now?" 
 
 :< Well, I had to take math again, and the exam 
 was coming on again, and when the tute an- 
 nounced it, he said he fervently trusted that 
 there would be no more subtle mendacity 
 like to have that translated, sir?" 
 
 "Go on, boy, go on!" 
 
 "No more subtle mendacity concerning the 
 forgetting to remember exam dates." 
 
 "Did he look at you when he said it?" 
 
 "Right at me, sir, and so did everybody else." 
 
 "Large man, Eddie?" 
 
 "Fair size." 
 
 "Well put up?" 
 
 "So-so. He spars in the gym." 
 
 "And what " The question hung fire, 
 
 tremulously. " what happened?" 
 
 "An uppercut, sir." 
 
 "Is that literal, or just technical again?" 
 
 "As literal as they make 'em, dad. Straight 
 to the point of the chin."
 
 10 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Now, boy, you're talkin' intelligible lan- 
 guage." 
 
 The cowboys jerked their eddying ponies, and 
 were disappointed. The old man was offering 
 his kid a cigar. How he spoiled the little dude ! 
 It was the old man's one weak streak. 
 
 "Fightin', eh? Have a light. Fightin' ?" 
 The reddish-gray brows were bunched together. 
 " Eddie, d'y' see what's happenin' to them long- 
 horns down there? You see they're bein' 
 dehorned, eh ? Well, it's because they're leavin' 
 the range and goin' into box cars. A crowd is 
 no place for long-horns, Eddie, and Civilization 
 is a crowd, whether it's box cars or college." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Don't 'yes, sir' me, you innocent-eyed mav- 
 erick. You catch my drift, all right. I figgered 
 that college would breed yours off, but it hasn't, 
 so I reckon it'll have to be dehornin'." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Stop that, I say ! Now I'm thinkin' that the 
 operation might as well begin with that cute 
 little checkbook you study so hard." 
 
 Even yet the mild blue eyes were not disturbed.
 
 THE PROLOGUE 11 
 
 The checkbook was surrendered without an- 
 guish, and the elder Derringer, turning to the last 
 stub, was not astounded to find the account over- 
 drawn. 
 
 "By the way," he asked, "don't you ever 
 need a split five hundred? Always just the 
 five hundred or a thousand ? Seems to me 
 you'd make it seven-fifty, sometime, if only 
 to stampede the monotony of it for your 
 long-sufferin' dad." 
 
 The boy looked hurt. "Why, Chief," he 
 protested, "I always spend any odd change 
 left over, don't I?" 
 
 "Odd change? Odd change! Let me see, 
 what went with that last remittance, f'r 
 instance?" 
 
 "Poker, most likely." 
 
 " Poker ? By the great hornspoon, I thought 
 you knew the game! How'd you come to 
 lose?" 
 
 "I didn't. But at the wind-up one of the 
 crowd couldn't pay me just then." 
 
 " While you paid what you owed ?" 
 
 "Yes, and that left me nothing for my board
 
 12 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 bill. So I had to draw on you again. Board 
 has to be paid, too, you know." 
 
 "Of course, though some think different." 
 
 "And I still owe a garage bill. You don't 
 seem to realize, Chief, that there's lots of 
 expenses about a schooling." 
 
 "Still, I'm tryin' to, Eddie, I'm tryin' to." 
 In the Chief, humility like this was peril itself. 
 "But," and persiflage came to an end, "what 
 do you p'pose to do now?" 
 
 Two eyes of blue opened wide. "I hadn't 
 thought " 
 
 "Hadn't thought?" 
 
 "Oh, I have it, Chief. Why not let me 
 work?" It was the one novelty the boy could 
 think of. 
 
 "Oh, pshaw!" The hustle and vim of the 
 outfit were in their ears. It would be a long, 
 long life for the old man's untamed year- 
 ling. "Pshaw, boy, you've got heaps o' time 
 for that yet, and you surely haven't got enough 
 education this quick. Travel, now " the old 
 cattleman added coaxingly, "travel, that's edu- 
 cation, too, you know."
 
 13 
 
 "But, Chief, how about your dehorning 
 proposition?" 
 
 Impulsively the Chief held out the checkbook; 
 then a second impulse withheld it. 
 
 "Look here, Eddie, you're goin' to travel all 
 right," he said, "but I'm goin' to see that the 
 education gets blended in. There'll be only 
 one little lesson, one mighty hard one, and 
 you've got to learn it by heart. You've got to 
 learn, my boy, that there isn't any such thing as 
 odd change. Each time you go broke, you'll 
 learn it, and when you're flush, you'll plum for- 
 get it. So 'flush' will be your play hour, and 
 * broke' will be your study hour. And it's not 
 goin' to be all play, either, for I mean to give 
 you only let me see well, five thousand dol- 
 lars, say." 
 
 The red blood of youth illumined Blaze Der- 
 ringer's freckles. 
 
 "Oh, don't think I'm close," said his father, 
 "for I'll be generous in another way. I'm goin' 
 to give you plenty o' time to spend it in. How 
 would two years strike you?" 
 
 "Uh but "
 
 14 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "No, sir, not a day more. And mind, boy, 
 you'd better start your education with the very 
 first dollar. The more small change, and less 
 odd change, you find in that top dollar, the longer 
 you'll be gettin' down to the bottom one." 
 
 Young Derringer looked bored. Then sud- 
 denly the lids lifted over dilating eyes. "I tell 
 you what, Chief, what if I bring that much back 
 with me?" 
 
 The old man stared. 
 
 "If you do, boy," he exclaimed, "if you do, 
 I'll go you better. I'll I'll just add two 
 ciphers to it when you come back. Then that 
 will be enough for you to go to work with." 
 
 "All right," said Eddie promptly, "it's a bet. 
 But," and he hesitated, "but you won't start me 
 off right away, will you? I want some vaca- 
 tion, you know." 
 
 The Chief's countenance brightened. 
 
 "I mean," said the boy, "I want to spend the 
 summer round here on the ranch with you, same 
 as usual." He glanced over at the dusty auto- 
 mobile of tremendous horse-power. "That the 
 same old ice wagon you had last summer?"
 
 THE PROLOGUE 15 
 
 " Jehoshaphat, no! It's the third. Come 
 along. We'll be goin' home." 
 
 The next fall, as per the Chief's conditions, 
 Blaze Derringer started on his travels. He was 
 to draw on his father at will, to the limit of five 
 thousand dollars. His first sight draft, cashed 
 in New Orleans two days after leaving home, 
 was for five thousand dollars. 
 
 Then he took a ship for somewhere.
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 ONE Cornelius Slag would have been 
 graspingly welcomed within her bor- 
 ders by the hospitable Republic of 
 Mexico. This was because Mr. Slag had lately 
 deprived the Republica of a guest she already 
 had, for Mr. Slag was something in the way of 
 being a jailbreaker. He liked to get out of 
 jail pretty well himself, though he mostly kept 
 out, and he liked nearly as well to get a fel- 
 low American out. This last time, though, was 
 a closer call than usual, and Cornelius Slag, not 
 being consecutively strong on insomnia, had 
 utilized the very first possible night to getting 
 out of the country altogether. 
 
 "Naw, 'tain't so much,'* he was saying among 
 friends in the Thirsty Switchman's Solace at 
 Galveston a few days later. These friends 
 were disposed to comment on his exploit, for it 
 had been in the papers and their Con Slag was 
 
 16
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 17 
 
 notorious, but the returned hero swaggered 
 roughshod over the awed plaudits of mere lay- 
 men. A ravenous ogre feels the same on being 
 tendered a sandwich of caviar. Perceiving that 
 the morsel was not a bullock, our ogre was 
 haughty and disdainful. 'Tain't hardly 
 nothin'." He pushed his glass from him with 
 a hairy hand, and scowled at his admirers round 
 the moist table. "Not for a man that knows 
 how, 'tain't." 
 
 " Aw, Con," growled one friend meekly, "don't 
 be gittin' so durn modest." 
 
 "Modest polecats! Ye see, Jim 'ad only sat 
 on a Greaser p'lice one paynight, an' the 'dobe 
 wall round Jim an hour later was easy diggin'. 
 'Twan't like as if Jim was a rev'lutionary, an* 
 they'd salted him down for keeps. Why, if he 
 was, there'd been need o' what I'd call real high- 
 grade jug-crackin', like you mere railroadin' 
 dubs 'ud no more rise to than a mud eel to a 
 chocolate drop. But," and Mr. Slag leered at 
 them darkly, "but mebbe there is such a case, 
 an' mebbe it's somewhere down in South 
 America, an' just mebbe it's a rich would-V-
 
 18 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 been em'prer who'd cough up a crate o' some- 
 thin' that ain't doughnuts to the right man be- 
 hind the crowbar. 'Cordin' to Jenkins " 
 
 He paused, and forgot, for the slatted doors 
 of the place burst open, revealing a glimpse of 
 scorched cedars in green tubs outside, and a 
 cool young stranger entered, whistling softly. 
 "Would you," pleaded Mr. Slag, "would you 
 look at that?" 
 
 The young stranger was breezily attired 
 shirt of lawn and a belt, crisp straw hat with cord 
 attachment, blue serge coat with glove tips 
 peeping from the breast pocket, flannel trousers 
 turned up, and low shoes of white duck. Here 
 was one unique intrusion on the sawdust floor 
 of the Thirsty Switchman's. Like a cinder in 
 the eye, it was a foreign substance. The unique 
 intrusion glanced around sociably. The young 
 man perceived that he was in a grog shop, which 
 was the essential thing. The particular species 
 of grog shop mattered not at all. He was 
 blandly at his ease. Had any one called him a 
 foreign substance, he would not have under- 
 stood.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 19 
 
 Hooking an elbow over the foam-bedewed 
 bar, he said: "Creme de menthe, please." 
 
 The surly Ganymede in rolled-up sleeves 
 behind the bar glared unsteadily. Groans sim- 
 ulating anguish rose from the table where sat 
 Mr. Slag and friends. The young man turned 
 on them in mild, blue-eyed inquiry. He pushed 
 back the straw hat, revealing red hair parted in 
 the middle, and touched his brow with a bor- 
 dered handkerchief. 
 
 "I guess," said Ganymede, "that what you 
 want is cream soda." 
 
 "Oh, no, not at all. And I do not want 
 creme de menthe, either." 
 
 "That's what you asked for." 
 
 "True, I did, but in a thirst for information 
 solely." 
 
 " Well, we ain't got any, see ?" 
 
 "Oh, thank you, thank you so much. You 
 see, pard, it's this way : I've gone and drawn up 
 a protocol with myself, according to which, pend- 
 ing a will power unfortunately not at present 
 available, I am to take nothing stronger where 
 creme de menthe is to be had. Well, I'd rather
 
 20 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 thought I'd come to the right shop, so giye m 
 red-eye." 
 
 A bottle and glass were slammed upon the bar. 
 
 "And," pleasantly chirruped the young man, 
 "have one yourself, angel child." 
 
 "Oh, I'll take a cigar." 
 
 Con Slag resented so much of diversion from 
 himself. " Aw, somebody please trun' him home 
 to his mumma," he growled. That reclaimed 
 the convivial board. It belonged again to Mr. 
 Slag. 
 
 After a little a voice from the table went up in 
 protest. " Aw, come now, Con, you don't mean 
 you'd git a million for the job ?" 
 
 "An* why not," demanded Slag, "the same 
 as a big lawyer or a big doctor ? They plug for 
 big fees, don't they ? An' what for ? Why, to 
 git people out of fixes. Well, now, 'sposin' you 
 was in jail, an' you had ten dollars, wouldn't you 
 give one of 'em to git out? All right, then. 
 Well, my would-'a'-been em'prer, he's got his 
 ten million, even 'lowin' for Sylvanlitlan money 
 bein' less'n Mexican 'dobes." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know."
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 21 
 
 The refrain broke over them mockingly. They 
 looked up, and their scowls met the friendly gaze 
 of the young stranger. Slag twisted in his chair. 
 
 " Why, you pesky little red-headed buzzard, 
 you, git on away from here." 
 
 The freckled eyelids and sandy lashes of the 
 young fellow lifted, and the pupils of two mild 
 blue eyes grew as though suddenly exposed to 
 the light. This was vaguely disconcerting. In 
 one so youthful it spoke almost uncannily of 
 worldly experience and adventure. A shrewder 
 observer than Mr. Slag would have appraised 
 the interloper more warily. 
 
 "G'wan now, kid. G'wan, trot!" said Slag. 
 
 Good-humouredly the young man beckoned 
 to the bartender. "I say," he said to Slag, 
 "prescribe for that disposition of vours, and I'll 
 pay." 
 
 All but Slag were instantly mollified. 
 
 "Take the same, Con?" asked one. 
 
 There were mumbling sounds in the negative. 
 
 "Then," the young man himself suggested, 
 *'take two of the same, Cornelius." 
 
 Slag knocked back his chair, got to his feet,
 
 and started in to curse like a viking. The young 
 man smiled on him affably, and held out a hand. 
 Slag seized the hand, to wring the arm from its 
 socket; but a pain shot up his wrist, and to 
 make concessions to the twisting of the wrist, 
 he dropped back into his chair. His face worked. 
 Distortions creased the stubble growth there. 
 He drew back his free hand for a sledge-hammer 
 sweep, and only in good time his friends pinned 
 it to the table. 
 
 "Two of the same, Cornelius?" repeated the 
 young man. 
 
 " Gawd A'mighty,"said Slag, " I'd be glad to." 
 
 Whereupon the vise opened, and Slag gazed 
 ruefully at his blue fingers, then wonderingly at 
 the youngster. "Say, flare-top," he exclaimed 
 heartily, " 'spose me an' you shake hands 
 proper?" 
 
 So everybody cordially made room for the 
 newcomer. Even Ganymede unbent. 
 
 They were on the second round. " Now," said 
 Slag, but with a certain cautious deference, " do 
 you mind tellin' us, kid, what it was that you 
 don't know?"
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 23 
 
 "Cornelius," the young man rebuked him 
 gently, "you are asking years out of my life." 
 
 "I mean, about jailbreakin' down in Sylvan- 
 litlan?" 
 
 "Oh, that! Well, how could I know how 
 you'd get a man out who is already out ?" 
 
 "Out! How'dhe " 
 
 "He would be out if he's dead, wouldn't he ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "At least, out of prison ? " 
 
 :< Yes, o' course." 
 
 "Well, then?" 
 
 Which was so palpably the last word that they 
 let it be the last. Afterward they talked rail- 
 roading, though Slag sat silent, moodily eclipsed. 
 Finally the young stranger yawned and rose. 
 " Going up or down town, Cornelius ?" he asked. 
 
 Cornelius had not thought of going at all, but 
 he roused himself and looked narrowly at the 
 young man. "Any old way," he said. "Come 
 on." 
 
 The slatted doors closed behind them. 
 
 "Look here," demanded Slag, "what in 
 thunder do you want, anyhow?"
 
 24 
 
 "To talk about Sylvanlitlan. Pretty country, 
 I've heard. Mountains, flowers, revolutions, 
 black-eyed girls. Very interesting, don't you 
 think?" 
 
 "Aw, what's the use ? You said he was dead.'* 
 
 "Oh, Cornelius, no, I didn't." 
 
 "You said as much, anyway." 
 
 "Did I? Also, old top, wasn't I immeasur- 
 ably shocked? Really, Cornelius, you do talk 
 so much when your mouth is open. It's 
 it's emptying, Cornelius." 
 
 "So you spiked the rail, eh ? Didn't want me 
 to give it all away, eh ? Look here, kid, who are 
 you?" 
 
 "I? Oh, I'm a poor but honest young man 
 inquiring around for five thousand dollars. 
 Suppose we go somewhere and talk over the 
 details?" 
 
 "Come on, then," Slag agreed. "Talkin* 
 won't hurt none."
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 MR. SLAG perceived that he was being 
 enmeshed in a conspiracy that was 
 darksome. The key to mystery is 
 often the bludgeon that mind wields over large 
 matter, and the huge jailbreaker shuffled along 
 like a faithful mastiff. They came to the docks, 
 and the jaunty youngster sat on the edge and 
 dangled his feet over the Gulf of Mexico. This 
 was his manner with big things. Slag followed 
 suit. 
 
 The young man took a pipe of French clay 
 from its case, fitted stem and bowl together, and 
 filled it from a velvet pouch. He might have 
 been settling down to a care-free afternoon of 
 fishing. 
 
 "Hey, now, cull," Slag burst forth, "start 
 this! What?" 
 
 "Why, " said the other, "I was waiting for 
 
 you." 
 
 u
 
 26 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Ever down in Sylvanlitlan ?" 
 
 "Not quite. South America being in the bot- 
 tom of the sack, I haven't got to her yet." 
 
 "Then how the blazes do you know so much 
 about my would-'a'-been em'prer?" 
 
 "By absorption, Cornelius, by absorption. 
 Like a sponge, you know. We will pause and 
 prayerfully consider. Here you are, for example, 
 and you know about George Washington, also 
 about William the Conqueror, and yet you've 
 never once married into the family or borrowed 
 money from them. Am I right ? Thank you. 
 Let us examine further. First, William the 
 Conqueror, though reputed a scholar of grasp- 
 ing research, knew nothing, absolutely nothing, 
 about George Washington. Ignorance like that 
 is almost incredible. Yet George, for his part, 
 knew considerable about Will. This is one of 
 the vexatious puzzles of history, Cornelius. 
 Second, we may, on the other hand, without fear 
 of successful contradiction, venture to assert 
 that both Will and George lived their whole 
 benighted lives through without one iota of 
 information about Cornelius Slag, whereas "
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 27 
 
 "Stop it! I I think I'm goin' batty." 
 
 The young man looked apprehensive. "I'm 
 afraid my diction is slightly involved. But we 
 will go over it again, very slowly, and per- 
 haps " 
 
 "No, no, for the love of " 
 
 "Oh, all right. So it was this way: If 
 you drive out anybody, you get into history. 
 Will and George, for instance. Also, you 
 sometimes get a situation. This is, according 
 to the ancients, a reduction of glory to the 
 practical. Hence Will and " 
 
 "For Gawd's sake!" 
 
 "Hence likewise there was Don Pedro de 
 Las Augustias down in Sylvanlitlan. Don Pedro, 
 you know, drove out the Spanish and got a 
 position as emperor. That is, until his demise, 
 you understand. Then Don Somebody Else 
 swooped down from the Andes and drove out 
 Don Pedro's son. Which made an opening 
 for a constitution, only this Don Somebody Else 
 filled the opening himself, and since then they've 
 been having openings continual down in Sylvan- 
 litlan. Am I right, as usual?"
 
 28 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "I dunno, but what I do want to know is, 
 where do we get on?" 
 
 "Probably not at all. To proceed: Don 
 Pedro's son took after his father in that he also 
 had a son, and this family trait very curiously 
 persisting, it so happens that there is a Don 
 Pedro down there to-day, and he " 
 
 "And he's the one that's in hock?" 
 
 "You win, Cornelius, for this latest Don 
 Pedro is your emperor who would have been, 
 but didn't quite. He tried to drive somebody 
 out, and now he hasn't any situation. This is 
 termed a reduction of the unpractical to ignom- 
 iny. I supposed the president down there had 
 him shot months ago, but only last night an old 
 sea-captain who touches at Puertocito was 
 yarning about Don Pedro being locked up, 
 and everybody so sorry/* 
 
 "That's correct," said Slag, "an* the president 
 is go in' to keep him locked up, till he finds out 
 where he's hidden the swag." 
 
 The freckled eyelids of the young man lifted. 
 "What swag?" 
 
 " 'Cordin' to Jenkins, it's what this here Don
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 29 
 
 Pedro scraped together for his rev'lution by 
 cashin' in his mines an' haciendas. But the 
 rev'lution got nipped cold, an', 'cordin' to 
 Jenkins, it's buried somewhere." 
 
 "Exactly who is 'Cordin' to Jenkins?" 
 
 "Jenkins? Oh, me an' him railroaded 
 together out o' Monterey, but one night he tried 
 to keep me from spillin' my Mexican fireman 
 with a shovel said it wasn't fair as the Mexican 
 only had a knife an' I skipped, an' Jenkins 
 was pinched, an' I had to come back and git 
 him out. Never heard of him since, till the 
 other day, when this letter followed me up from 
 Mexico. He's in Sylvanlitlan. Says he's runnin* 
 passenger from Puertocito on the coast up to 
 Constanza de la Paz in the mountins. Says if 
 I can git this Don Pedro disturber out o' the 
 rock pile, he can railroad him on down to the 
 coast to a ship." 
 
 "Nice man, Jenkins. What does he say 
 it's worth?" 
 
 "What's what worth?" 
 
 "Why, the getting-out of Don Pedro, of 
 course."
 
 30 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 For a moment Slag blankly considered his 
 young companion. "A hundred thousand 
 gold, 'cordin' to Jenkins," he said. "Jenkins 
 has got the em'prer's promissory, C. O. D., he 
 says. Em'prer's a stiff-neck, hotty old gobble- 
 gobble, I guess, but he seems to have a daughter 
 who can talk business, an' Jenkins done it 
 through her. Then Jenkins, he wrote to me 
 to come on an' handle the job." 
 
 A hundred thousand ! The pupils of the blue 
 eyes grew. 
 
 "Old top, let's do it!" 
 
 Slag looked from the white shoes dangling 
 over the Gulf of Mexico into the blue eyes. 
 "The nerve of him!" he murmured. 
 
 "But maybe this is your rush season, Corne- 
 lius? Crowded with advance orders, per- 
 haps ?" 
 
 Hope that was faint diffused the jailbreaker's 
 leering visage. " We might let you grubstake 
 the expedition," he conceded. 
 
 "Oh, that's all right," the young man airily 
 agreed. "I landed here the other day from 
 Barcelona with fifty dollars. But," he casually
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 31 
 
 explained, "I need five thousand to take me 
 on home." 
 
 An oath of size burst from Cornelius. ' Why, 
 where'n fire an' smoke is your home?" 
 
 "Here on the Gulf. Over at Derringer." 
 
 " An* you need five thou Oh, your grand- 
 mother, kid, you could walk it in a week." 
 
 "No, Cornelius, you're mixed. There's 
 neither riding nor walking short of the five 
 thousand. And time's up this fall." 
 
 He seemed quite sound. There was no dope 
 in those clear eyes. Slag simply passed him 
 on to insoluble problems, and stumbled back to 
 the tangible. 
 
 "But, say, your little fifty ain't goin* to pay 
 any fare to Sylvanlitlan." 
 
 "True, pity 'tis, but you see, I doubled it 
 twice bucking the tiger." 
 
 " Eh, what ? Let's see the coin." 
 
 "Of course," said the young man, "when a 
 man's sick, he's not well. I lost it last night. 
 Game of poker at the hotel." 
 
 The jail breaker groaned. 
 
 "There, there, Cornelius," soothingly spoke
 
 32 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 his companion, "you'll make your eyes red. 
 Have you got twenty -five dollars?" 
 
 "S'posin'Ihave?" 
 
 " Bank it with me. Draw interest." 
 
 Cornelius demurred. 
 
 "Capital is timid, I see," observed the youth. 
 "But that's all right, I have collateral. 
 Here's my watch." 
 
 " What's the lay ? What you goin' to do ? " 
 
 "Another game to-night, maybe. Old sea 
 captain I mentioned a minute ago he sails 
 to-morrow, touches at Puertocito and very 
 nice Spanish-speaking gentleman. Nice Spanish- 
 speaking gentleman plays well." 
 
 'Yes, an' he'll clean you up again, too." 
 
 The freckled eyelids narrowed reflectively. 
 "Oh, I don't know." 
 
 Slag stirred reminiscently. He had confi- 
 dence in that refrain. Besides, the watch was 
 worth it, and twenty-five dollars changed hands. 
 
 " You think you can ? " Slag asked anxiously. 
 
 "Yes, I think I can. Call around for me at 
 the hotel to-morrow and we'll sail with the old 
 sea captain to Sylvanlitlan."
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 33 
 
 "What name do I ask for?" 
 
 "Name of Derringer. And now, shepherdess 
 coy and fair, au revoir." 
 
 Cornelius Slag sat in a daze, and gazed after 
 him. Cornelius might quite as well have been 
 struck on the head, for when you are struck 
 on the head, you are out of adjustment with 
 the universe. 
 
 "I wonder," pondered Cornelius, "I wonder 
 if it's because I ain't had education. He's 
 somethin' I don't seem quite up on, somehow."
 
 SO BLAZE DERRINGER, baby name 
 of Eddie, had returned from his travels. 
 So, also, he was virtually penniless. That 
 was to be expected. And he was as incorrigible, 
 as improvident a spendthrift as ever. He had 
 discovered and was not in the least surprised, 
 either that it was nearly as safe to trust to 
 his wits for more money as formerly to the 
 efficacy of sight drafts on an indulgent father. 
 The initial financing of his wanderings by the 
 Chief had quite simply inspired his spendthrift 
 genius to greater vagaries of impulse, and he 
 had scattered dollars blithely over the continents 
 without help or interpreter. 
 
 Six months saw the end of that. Since then 
 there was more zest to adventure, as well as 
 remorseless incentive. He neither begged, nor 
 stole, nor cheated, yet he had not suffered. This 
 was because worry could not fasten on his heart of 
 
 84
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 35 
 
 youth. His stomach, indeed, had at times fed on 
 that heart, lacking aught else, but in good season 
 Youth always found replenishment for both. 
 
 Again in Texas, here he was, yet with no 
 thought of returning to his father's home. A 
 score of weeks were still left him for the gathering 
 together of five thousand dollars. But when 
 he entered his hotel with Mr. Slag's twenty-five 
 dollars in pocket, he owned not the wherewith 
 to meet the bill for board, lodging, and sundries 
 that had accrued against him during the past 
 three days. He was going his dissolute way 
 headlong to the hotel bar when he met an 
 acquaintance. 
 
 'Yes, indeed, Major-General," he said in 
 reply to the other's greeting, "the day is pleasant. 
 A way with days and nights, sir. By the bye, 
 General, how about assembling again to-night ?" 
 
 The tanned and happy old Southern type of 
 gentleman whom he addressed might have been 
 a major-general because of a white military 
 mustache, so Blaze Derringer had made him 
 one. He was really good old Ben Blackburn, 
 skipper of the Leviathan, and the Leviathan was
 
 36 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 a daring wee bit of a thousand-ton G. & C. liner 
 in the West Indies trade between Galveston and 
 Trinidad. Captain Ben confessed her official 
 name grudgingly, and only when formality 
 required. For him "Leviathan" had no more 
 significance than a number, given her for con- 
 venience of registration and because the Gulf 
 & Caribbean people intemperately exacted that 
 every tub of the line should begin with the letter 
 "L," letting wind and weather against seaman- 
 ship prescribe where she might end. 
 
 "Could have called her the Lollipop, cert'nly, 
 sir, just as well," Captain Ben would say. 
 "But for me, privately do you understand 
 me, sir ? she's the Southland, and never any- 
 thing but the Southland" 
 
 And by that name, privately, understand, she 
 was known at every port she touched because 
 of her skipper's quaint insistence. "Leviathan" 
 was reserved for bills of lading, and therefore 
 Captain Ben frowned when he handled bills of 
 lading. 
 
 "Do we assemble, sir?" he repeated cheerily 
 after Derringer. "Why, young man, with
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 37 
 
 pleasure. For to assemble is life, sir. It is 
 humanity, and the best of philosophy. I'd 
 assemble often, understand; only," he added 
 with a chuckle, "it takes more than just one 
 person to do it, sir." Whereat he opened his 
 mouth, and a gale of mirth startled the lobby. 
 Be his joke whatsoever, his appreciation of it 
 was not to be resisted. Men looked around, 
 and began laughing also. "It's Captain Ben," 
 they told one another in far-away corners. 
 
 "Nevertheless," Derringer gravely objected, 
 "one less than two can't assemble, either, you 
 know. Nor can two less than three. Hence, 
 Major- General, there'll be more substantially 
 an assembling, and more life, humanity, and 
 philosophy, not to mention Gehenna, if we 
 round up the third man, don't you think?" 
 
 Once, twice, and a third time, the skipper 
 opened his mouth preparatory to blowing a 
 gale, yet each time he closed it. He was uncer- 
 tain. There was a chance that the serious 
 young man did not mean a joke. Yet it sounded 
 like joking. A very undecipherable young man, 
 thought Captain Ben.
 
 38 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "That passenger of mine who played with us 
 last night Colonel Morder, remember ? we 
 might get him. By the Lady Harriet," said 
 Captain Ben, "didn't he have luck? Wow!" 
 
 The young Texan regarded the innocent old 
 sailor for a moment, and agreed with him. 
 "Lack of suspicion, sharper's luck." But he 
 did not say it aloud. 
 
 The three, including the Colonel Morder 
 mentioned, gathered that evening in the parlour 
 of Derringer's apartment. Of this Colonel 
 Morder the title, hue, gentility, dignity and 
 urbanity, were Spanish American. His ideas 
 about poker were his own. He believed that 
 they were American, and, as with his use of 
 English, he trusted that they were guiltless of alien 
 flavour. He had, indeed, travelled enough for 
 fluency, which left him with but a slightly studied 
 manner of enunciation. He spoke low usually, 
 and his deep voice was soft, like the feel of velvet. 
 Contrasting, and yet really not contrasting, 
 the man's profile was harshly, boldly carved; 
 brow, nose and chin, all three. His jet mustache 
 bristled. His black eyes and sombre presence
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 39 
 
 were domineering. Yet his manner well, no 
 manners could be more affably courteous. Der- 
 ringer honestly meant a compliment in christen- 
 ing him The Biigand. 
 
 A fourth prison was requisite to the assem- 
 bling, though <mly a negro waiter on detached 
 service for the evening. Young Mr. Derringer's 
 hospitality flowed generously, and the session of 
 playing at rards merits consideration. 
 
 In the beginning Colonel Morder stood at his 
 chair, and smiled and bowed imploringly, and 
 would under no consideration be seated until 
 after the others. 
 
 "The table stakes, is it not, gentlemen, as 
 last night?" he queried. 
 
 "If the table will hold them," said Derringer, 
 passing 'over Mr. Slag's twenty-five dollars to 
 Captain Ben Blackburn, banker, for an equiva- 
 lent in white and red chips. 
 
 Colonel Morder, noting the sum, was too 
 polite Ao make comment. Very modestly he 
 unfurled one hundred dollars in bills, begged the 
 favour of whites and blues, and laid hope to his 
 l iat the example would shortly be imitated.
 
 40 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Cut for deal," said Derringer. "Low deals. 
 Ace is low." 
 
 They cut, and Derringer won with a seven. 
 "If you don't mind," he suggested, "let's try 
 it again." 
 
 As nobody minded, they cut again. Morder 
 turned up a jack, and the skipper a deuce. 
 Derringer had not looked at his card. " Mine 
 will probably be the ace of diamonds," he said; 
 then threw the card on the table face up. It 
 was the ace of diamonds. 
 
 The skipper blinked. Urbane Colonel Mor- 
 der studied his host. 
 
 "Anybody want to try it again?" inquired 
 Derringer. 
 
 "Your deal, sir," said the Colonel. 
 
 Derringer broke open a new deck, shuffled, 
 let Morder cut, and dealt. Morder raised the 
 skipper's ante. Derringer laid down his hand. 
 The skipper raised back to Morder. Morder 
 raised again. They kept on raising, and stopped 
 only when they had bet all their chips. This 
 was before the draw. 
 
 "Nobody wants any cards," Derringer
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 41 
 
 announced rather than inquired. "Colonel 
 Morder, you hold a straight, sir. Major Gen- 
 eral, yours is a flush. You won't object, will 
 you, General, if I divide the pot between you? 
 I stacked the cards, you know." 
 
 "Cert'nly I won't, sir," stammered Captain 
 Ben. "But, but well, by the great Stone- 
 wall!" It looked like a jest to him through 
 long-distance glasses, and he crumbled by 
 sections. 
 
 Colonel Morder darted a look of involuntary 
 admiration at the young Texan; then his 
 thoughts bolted like frightened horses. 
 
 "Do you, senor sir be so good and 
 permit That is, may we see your cards, 
 too?" 
 
 "I hold three queens," said Derringer. "But 
 two trays await me on the top of the deck. 
 There, you see, a full house." 
 
 Captain Ben roared anew. 
 
 "Dear sir," Morder spoke at last, "you did 
 not do those things last night. And yet ah, 
 and yet, you were losing." 
 
 "Yes, pity 'tis, but you see, it's this way:
 
 42 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 With me real poker is a game of chance. Shall 
 we, gentlemen, play real poker? Still,'* added 
 Derringer, "I can make it pure finance, as you 
 observe, but if either of you think I would, why, 
 the game stops right here." 
 
 The Colonel rather hastily put forward a 
 deprecating palm. Captain Ben was vociferous. 
 Who more honest, demanded Captain Ben, than 
 the magician who reveals his secrets ? Great 
 fun, too, by Jupiter! But for Colonel Morder 
 there was a message in all this, and he flushed, 
 recalling his clumsy crookedness of the night 
 before. For he had shorn, not a lamb, but a 
 lion. And the rebuke! All along he had been 
 at the mercy of this marvellous virtuoso. 
 
 "On the contrary, dear sir," he protested 
 in his deepest and softest tones, "it is for you 
 to consent to play with me." 
 
 "Surely," said Derringer. "Why not?" 
 
 The Colonel understood perfectly. And he 
 resolved to play a game strictly of chance. 
 These corrective preliminaries being herewith 
 concluded, the session proper began. 
 
 The young Texan, though a Texan, played
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 43 
 
 no poor hands well at first. He did not play 
 them at all. He chose not to risk flourishes on 
 his small capital. Yet twice he pushed his 
 stack all he owned in the world to the centre 
 of the table, and once he drew back double and 
 then thrice the sum. After that he yielded to 
 temptation, and tried the efficacy of a poor 
 hand. His opponents never learned that the 
 hand was poor. At last he was in a condition 
 to plunge, on occasion. 
 
 At the first immersion he found the water chilly, 
 and came out bedraggled, though cheerful. At 
 least it was good investment for plunge two, 
 and when they hopefully called him on plunge 
 two, he held the winning cards. 
 
 The Colonel exclaimed in Spanish under his 
 breath, yet at once was smiling pleasantly 
 again. "How is it you say at the races?" he 
 asked. "Oh, yes, it is that I have separated 
 from my wad. I must replenish. My excuses, 
 eh, one moment on-ly." 
 
 With that he rose, bowed, and was gone 
 while Captain Ben all but finished the spinning 
 of a yarn. When he returned, there followed
 
 44 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 him a bellboy with champagne jacketed in ice. 
 "My compliments, gentlemen. And Mr. Der- 
 ringer, you permit that I offer So, thank 
 
 you." 
 
 Mr. Derringer, though permitting, remained 
 faithful to Scotch and seltzer, and Morder was 
 not the bungler to insist. He consoled himself 
 in the calculation that Scotch alone would 
 eventually do the champagne's office. Yet the 
 hours passed, and the black waiter served from 
 the second bottle, and the young Texan merely 
 settled lower in his chair. It was not to be 
 asserted that one card changed hands unnoted 
 by the quiet blue eyes hardly above the level of 
 the table. The room being warm and dense 
 with tobacco smoke, he threw off his coat and 
 turned back his cuffs, and it was observed that 
 the legs under him were unsteady. But to all 
 purposes the head on his shoulders was as clear 
 as a bell. Wisdom dictated to Morder that 
 fair playing continue yet a while. Instead he 
 tried to "force his luck," which is never wis- 
 dom. 
 
 " Have you bet, my Captain ? So, one
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 45 
 
 little white chip, thank you. Now I bet," and 
 the Colonel caressingly laid five yellow chips, 
 one hundred dollars, with those in the centre 
 of the^table. 
 
 "Twenty more to you." Derringer's cool 
 reiteration of that phrase was wearing into the 
 soul with its unruffled monotony. 
 
 Quoth Captain Ben: " and then that dam' 
 mule you understand me, sir ? laid back 
 those long rabbit ears o* his'n and picked up 
 his hind laigs, and How ? My bet, you say ? 
 Yes, I'll No, come to think of it, I don't 
 reckon I'd better. Hold on a minute. No, 
 I won't, either. I'll just lay down. And then 
 the scared nigger behind that mule " 
 
 "Another hundred," said the Colonel. 
 
 "And twenty," said Derringer. 
 
 Almost impatiently, and almost, but not quite, 
 with defiance, Colonel Morder pushed forward 
 all the chips he had remaining, worth nearly 
 three hundred dollars, and waited tensely on his 
 opponent. 
 
 Like a machine, without hesitation or hurry, 
 the young Texan matched the bet.
 
 46 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "I have " The Colonel swallowed. " I 
 have one pair." 
 
 "Same here, Colonel," said Derringer. 
 
 "One pair of aces." 
 
 "Same here." 
 
 c 'Eh ? Uh, my next card is a a ten." 
 
 "Mine's a king," said Derringer. 
 
 The Colonel waxed critical. "But sefior," 
 he asked, "did you not see that I drew only 
 two cards? Why did you not look and see, 
 and not always listening to Captain Blackburn's 
 little histories? Then you would be so afraid 
 that I hold three of a kind. Humph ! " 
 
 "Oh, Colonel, I was afraid," Derringer pro- 
 tested. "I was dreadfully afraid, seeing that 
 you started her off with a hundred-dollar bet. 
 Post mortems for remorse, old top." 
 
 The Colonel shrugged resignedly. He was 
 an accomplished Spanish American. "Gentle- 
 men," he said, lighting a cigarette and rising, 
 "be so good as to accept my profusion of 
 apologies. I, uh the truth is, I have ex- 
 hausted the indulgence of the hotel clerk with 
 my last draft. I am extensively desolated that I
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 47 
 
 must withdraw from this game that is so happy. 
 Mr. Derringer, down by the Equator is the 
 home of your servitor, and there you have your 
 house, sir. Good night. Captain Blackburn, 
 good night. But I shall see you again to-mor- 
 row, as your passenger back to Sylvanlitlan." 
 
 "Sylvanlitlan?" exclaimed Derringer. 
 
 "Even so, dear sir. Down by the Equator, 
 my beloved country, a jewel in the girdle of 
 Mother Earth." 
 
 "But it's a distance to travel without funds, 
 sir. Won't you let me " 
 
 The gentleman from Sylvanlitlan raised a 
 hand in dismay. Aboard his dear Captain's 
 ship he would be as at his own fireside (though 
 there were no firesides in Sylvanlitlan), and an 
 old friend like the Captain would trust him for 
 his passage until they docked at Puertocito, 
 which was Sylvanlitlan's little harbour bitten 
 out of the great high sierra. 
 
 "Bless my heart," said Captain Ben, "and 
 he can count on my very thin pocketbook into 
 the bargain, too. Mr. Derringer, I was telling 
 you last evening about Don Pedro, who
 
 48 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 befriended some of us young Confederate 
 middies when we ran away from the Surrender, 
 the Ocean being so roomy-like, and anchored 
 our little gunboat off Puertocito. Then I told 
 you how lately Don Pedro tried to turn out the 
 president's gang down there, and how he is 
 now in prison. Well, sir, let me add that our 
 Colonel Morder here is comandante of the 
 national prisons, and that," here Captain Ben 
 scanned anxiously, and perhaps a little dubiously, 
 the harsh features of the Colonel, "and that 
 he is very kind to my old friend, his distin- 
 guished prisoner." 
 
 At that Derringer did some pondering at 
 express speed. Here was his urbane Brigand 
 revealed as Don Pedro's jailor. Derringer had 
 won more than a thousand dollars, which was 
 plenteously twice enough for the expedition with 
 Slag. That much was achieved. But an 
 erratic Fate had cast the jailor himself in his 
 path. Not to eliminate him in some way would 
 seem like a jilting of goddesses. Yet how? 
 How might the gentleman be left behind? Or 
 by what cleverly indirect method might he be
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 49 
 
 bribed to stay behind? Derringer was idly 
 shuffling the deck of cards. He bent his wits 
 to this instrument, the deck of cards, that lay 
 first to his hand. 
 
 "Oh, but Colonel," he exclaimed, playing for 
 time to plot, "we must drink your health. It 
 does seem a pity, doesn't it, Major-General, for 
 one to come so far and stay so short a time in 
 well, in our fair city, you know." 
 
 The Colonel who was comandante shrugged 
 his shoulders. He hinted at imperative busi- 
 ness, the welfare of his adored country, and 
 conspiracies when his back was turned. 
 Derringer nodded to the waiter, and the 
 glasses were quietly refilled. The room was 
 smoke-laden, the champagne potent, and talk 
 reckless. 
 
 "Let us this time," said the Colonel, "let us 
 drink to the Senorita." 
 
 "Aye, aye," said Captain Ben, "and God 
 bless the little lady." 
 
 Derringer first drank the toast, then wished 
 to know who she was. 
 
 "Who is the Senorita?" repeated Captain
 
 50 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 Ben. "Who is Bess? Why, man alive, she 
 is Don Pedro's little girl." 
 
 "She is our princess," murmured Colonel 
 Morder. "She is the princess of Sylvanlitlan." 
 
 "Oh, ho," reflected Derringer, "the kind 
 jailor desires the lady, or the lady and the treas- 
 ure, or maybe just the treasure. I feel this plot 
 thickening up." 
 
 "You see," Captain Ben went on, "Don 
 Pedro sent Bess up to some young ladies' school 
 round near Boston. Wanted her out of the 
 way of his revolution business, though it took 
 him several years to get ready. But when they 
 put him in prison, why, back she comes, all 
 sails set, and privately, understand me, sir 
 before that Boston young person is through 
 down there, she will have her poor father out 
 again, too, by the Lady Harriet!" 
 
 "Ai, my Captain," laughed Colonel Morder, 
 "but I watch that glorious young person, never 
 fear. Who would not, for her own sake? 
 Yet, for my country's sake, must I not forget 
 old Don Pedro, either. It is well I depart 
 to-morrow."
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 51 
 
 Derringer stifled a yawn. "Tell you what 
 I'll do," he drawled, a little thickly, "I'll just 
 bet you a hundred you don't get off to-morrow. 
 Or I'll bet you you do. Do or don't, ol' Brigand, 
 which side you take?" 
 
 "Dear sir, dear sir," exclaimed the astonished 
 Colonel, "I do not solicit either side. It is a 
 certainty. I depart to-morrow." 
 
 "Five hundred to one hundred against the 
 certainty, then." Derringer began thumbing 
 twenty-dollar bills. 
 
 Morder was embarrassed. Here was the falling 
 of manna, broadcasted by the hand of a babe. 
 
 "Nonsense! Besides," he added, "poor me, 
 I have not the one hundred." 
 
 Derringer begged that he should not let that 
 bother him. : 'You see, it's this way: I will 
 just buy you five hundred dollars worth of chips, 
 and five hundred for myself, and we will play 
 a freeze-out for them." 
 
 " Dios mio, hombre, to what purpose?" 
 
 "Because, hombre, if you win, you will have 
 & thousand dollars. Strikes me that's simple 
 enough."
 
 /52 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "But I should owe you the five hundred for 
 the chips you loan me ? " 
 
 "No you wouldn't. According to this game, 
 if you win the freeze-out, you win also the five- 
 hundred-to-one-hundred bet that you don't 
 go to Sylvanlitlan to-morrow." 
 
 Captain Ben mopped his brow, and looked 
 uneasy. The Colonel gave it up, too. "I fear," 
 he said, "my head, it is muddled. Suppose 
 you, not I, win the freezing-out?" 
 
 "Also sweetly simple. You do not go to-mor- 
 row, and I win five hundred and your bet of 
 one hundred." 
 
 "Dear sir, are you Zoco, or am I? I have 
 told you once that I have not the one 
 hundred." 
 
 "To be sure, but you make out your note 
 for that and the five hundred, and the Major- 
 General holds it as stakeholder." 
 
 Colonel Morder groped at this, and again 
 gave it up. 
 
 "Well, anyhow," said Derringer, "we start 
 the freeze-out. Got that? If you lose, you 
 agree to wait for the next boat, in two. weeks.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 53 
 
 Got that? Then Captain Ben hands me your 
 note for six hundred. And I have that. Now 
 do you see?" 
 
 The Colonel smiled at the thought of that 
 note being worth the handing over. He was 
 at heart more than willing, but he objected 
 that he should have no funds on which to live 
 during the two weeks of waiting for the next 
 boat. Now Derringer had been playing for 
 just that objection. It offered him the chance 
 to tender the indirect bribe, and also to assure 
 himself that, in the event the Colonel lost, the 
 Colonel would abide by the agreement to wait 
 for the next boat. 
 
 "Pshaw, it's too early to stop playing yet," 
 he said impulsively, "and we've got to fix this 
 up some way. I tell you, you make out 
 that note for an even thousand. That's four 
 hundred more, for which I will give four 
 hundred in cash to Captain Ben. Then, if 
 you lose, Captain Ben will leave the four hun- 
 dred cash with the hotel clerk, payable to 
 you the day after the Captain's boat sails for 
 Sylvanlitlan."
 
 54 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 Here was a babe indeed, rash from liquor, 
 incontinently eager to gamble, indifferent to 
 \ money. A rich man's son, probably. The 
 gentleman from Sylvanlitlan indulgently con- 
 sented to amuse this babe. Let Captain Ben 
 think as he chose, a thousand for winning or 
 four hundred for losing was too agreeable a 
 prospect to quibble over. And while the Colonel 
 was about it, he could as well gather in the 
 greater as the lesser sum. The young lion, 
 by the witchery of Bacchus turned into a 
 mutton, might now be comfortably shorn. A 
 certain manipulation of cards at a critical 
 moment would suffice. 
 
 Captain Ben willingly acted as a stakeholder. 
 That innocent soul looked forward only to the 
 fun of witnessing an unusual game of poker. 
 For how unusual a stake the probable chance 
 of freedom for an entombed man thousands of 
 miles away he suspected nothing. Nor did 
 the entombed man's jailor. 
 
 The promise to pay one thousand dollars 
 was written, the four hundred dollars cash 
 counted, and Captain Ben became the depository
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 55 
 
 of both. The chips were evenly divided between 
 the Colonel and the Texan, and play began. 
 It was all over in a few minutes. 
 
 The first hands were not eventful. They 
 were rather as the sultriness that is foreboding. 
 Then came the climax. Derringer was slightly 
 winner, and Morder had gathered up the cards 
 to deal. He shot a quick glance at his opponent, 
 and saw him crouched in his chair, burning his 
 finger-tips with a match meant for his pipe. 
 The features of the South American hardened. 
 He shuffled the cards rapidly, but with concen- 
 tration, and he started to deal. 
 
 "Hold on." The young Texan stirred, 
 clutched at the arms of his chair, and pulled 
 himself up. " Homage to Dame Superstition, 
 you know. I want to cut 'em.'* 
 
 The Colonel frowned, smiled, begged a 
 thousand pardons, and surrendered the deck. 
 
 The cards fluttered and slipped together 
 between the Texan's hands, and Morder was 
 gloomily certain that the run of them had been 
 changed from top to bottom. As a matter of 
 fact, though, the uppermost ten or fifteen cards
 
 56 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 were not disturbed at all, except that the top 
 card was now on the bottom. Having cut, 
 Derringer sank drowsily into his chair. 
 
 Morder dealt, looked at his cards, and, quite 
 unexpectedly, became alert with hope. 
 
 "I will " He hesitated artfully. "I will, 
 yes, so venture one blue chip before the 
 drawing/' 
 
 Derringer pushed forward one, then a sec- 
 ond, of the same colour. Morder was again 
 painfully dubious until he had added a yellow 
 chip to the bet. Derringer added two yellow 
 chips. 
 
 "I reflect one moment,'* Morder soliloquized. 
 "Yes, I will call that. How many of the 
 cards?" Derringer picked up his hand. 
 "Along about one card, Colonel." 
 
 Morder promptly discarded two, and a third 
 card he held poised between his fingers, under 
 an apparent impulse to discard it also. But he 
 did not. He retained this third card. 
 
 "One to you, eh? There you are, dear sir. 
 And two to me, so." He was a very affable 
 dealer.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 57 
 
 Both examined their hands. Neither had 
 bettered by the draw. 
 
 " One little white chip," whispered the Colonel. 
 Derringer shoved forward two little white 
 chips. 
 
 "Now one quite red one, so.'* 
 
 "Oh, here," said Derringer, yawning, "I'm 
 getting tired. This is going to cost you, Mr. 
 Brigand, twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents 
 So." 
 
 Morder smiled blandly at the dainty little 
 pleasantry. "I am frightened, ai, ai, but 
 and twenty." 
 
 "And one-hundred-and-twenty." 
 
 The Colonel cast aside coy pretense. "And 
 as many more, dear, dear sir, as I have here 
 so." 
 
 Without a word Derringer matched them 
 chip for chip. Captain Ben sat up and watched 
 eagerly. "Why, by Jupiter," he cried, "if there 
 ain't nearly a thousand dollars in the dam' pot! 
 I say, what you got, Derringer? What you 
 got, Colonel?" 
 
 "I have," said the Colonel, "three queens.
 
 58 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 I believe they surpass the two pair of my 
 esteem-ed adversary, eh ?" 
 
 His wrist bent round the jumble of chips that 
 meant one thousand dollars. 
 
 "Easy, Colonel, easy," said Derringer. 
 "Plenty of time, you know." 
 
 A slight spasm twitched the circling wrist. 
 "Eh, you have not the filled house ?" 
 
 "No, nor a flush, nor a straight." 
 
 "Ah, then they are two pair, as I so wisely 
 calculated. You drew one card." 
 
 "Wait," said Derringer. "What do you say 
 to a little post-mortem first? Now there," he 
 went on, spreading out Morder's cards, "are 
 three charming creatures, and in poker 
 certainly very desirable. Yet four of them 
 would be more so, because more convincing. 
 Here, Colonel," he said, picking up the deck 
 and showing the bottom card, "is your fourth 
 queen." 
 
 "But, sir," protested the Colonel, though he 
 changed colour, "to what purpose all this?" 
 
 "We will suppose, dear sir," Derringer pro- 
 ceeded, "that this fourth queen had been the
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 59 
 
 top card. What then? Why, simply this: 
 7 would have held the four queens, Colonel." 
 
 " N ombre de Dios, what of that, senor ." 
 
 "Nothing much, Colonel, only in that case 
 you would have held the hand / now hold, 
 which contains" he threw his cards face up 
 on the table "four aces." 
 
 The Colonel required a fraction of a second 
 longer than usual before he smiled. "No 
 insinuations, of course ?" he observed pleasantly. 
 
 "My goodness, no. Like to play any more, 
 dear Brigand ?" 
 
 The Colonel laughed outright. " Sweet saints, 
 I should say not!"
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER was lying under 
 that quilt of unconsciousness which Na- 
 ture spreads after a night of dissipation, 
 when he slowly grew aware of very hard knocks 
 around a beleaguered dungeon, himself in the 
 dungeon and considerably of a mind against 
 being rescued. At last the commotion broke 
 down the dead walls of slumber, and he yelled : 
 " Take the door if you need it," and rolled over 
 for more sleep. 
 
 The knocks crashed faster, like artillery, and 
 there was a voice shouting above the din. " Hey, 
 wake up! Hey there, wake up, wake up!'* 
 Derringer decided that he did not really care 
 to sleep any longer. In bath robe, with red 
 hair tousled, eyes blinking, and head aching 
 terrifically, he opened to a dressed-up, perspiring 
 and profane Mr. Slag. 
 
 "All hail, sweet herald of the dawn!" 
 
 60
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 61 
 
 "Dawn?" ejaculated Mr. Slag. "More like 
 dusk. Now hustle, kid! We want to catch 
 that boat." 
 
 A bellboy, with ice jingling in a pitcher and 
 a Martini cocktail on a tray, was also at the 
 door. Blaze Derringer had resided in that 
 hotel four nights, and they knew his neces- 
 sities. The young man seized a piece of the 
 ice, and laid it to the crown of his head. But 
 he uttered no complaint. He paid the piper 
 cheerfully. 
 
 "Well," he inquired, "what's the matter? 
 House on fire?" 
 
 Cornelius Slag was looking round on the 
 cold grim wreckage of last night's warmth 
 and cheer. ;< Yep, I heard about it," he said. 
 ; 'You must 'a' been lucky, all right. An* 
 here's your watch. And look at it, will you? 
 Look at it. Three-thirty, an' our boat pulls out 
 at five!" 
 
 "Quite so. Have a nip, old top ?" 
 
 Slag helped himself from a left-over bottle 
 of Scotch, ceaselessly urging haste. Derringer 
 retired under the showerbath instead, until
 
 62 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 the jailbreaker's raps on the bathroom door 
 mingled with the fall of waters. Again robed 
 and with the ice bound by a towel to his head, 
 he emerged, grinning feebly. 
 
 "I guess you try to be a good sport," Slag 
 observed charitably. " Now what next, put on 
 your clothes, or what?" 
 
 Clothes, it appeared, did come next, and the 
 young man arrayed himself. 
 
 "At last," said Slag. "Now let's see if you 
 really got the money?" 
 
 Derringer searched through his pockets. From 
 coat, trousers and vest, crumpled like waste 
 paper, he emptied out greenbacks, silver certi- 
 ficates, and Treasury notes. Slag tenderly 
 smoothed out the abused currency. It was 
 worth an oath. "Why," he panted, "there's 
 'most six hundred dollars!" 
 
 "Is there? All right, take out your twenty- 
 five, and a hundred for interest." 
 
 Whereupon Slag committed himself definitely. 
 The kid was a good sport. " How's your head ? " 
 he inquired. 
 
 "So's I can part my hair, I reckon." The
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 63 
 
 towel came off, and Derringer verified his pre- 
 diction. 
 
 "Now what?" demanded Slag. "Your 
 trunk? All right, let me help you pack." 
 'You might throw in the things as they come. 
 No, call down to the office for a hack and a 
 porter and the bill. There's the 'phone, there 
 behind you." 
 
 Derringer meantime jerked drawers from 
 the furniture, and dumped their contents into 
 the trunk. There were the varying habili- 
 ments required of a gentleman morning, after- 
 noon, evening, or at a funeral. Silver utensils 
 of toilet he tossed into a suit case, to which 
 he added, from the table at his bedside, 
 a volume of Byron, Voltaire's Candide, and 
 several photographs of handsome women. 
 Locks snapped, and the two receptacles were 
 closed. 
 
 "There!" he announced. " South America is 
 our next stop." 
 
 "Porter's here now," said Slag. "But listen 
 first. If Jenkins an* me share up equal with 
 you on the swag, that all right ?"
 
 64 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Eh? Oh, yes. We'll stop at the bar for 
 one more. I know, but we'll take the tune. 
 We drank to somebody or other last night, who 
 was it ? Oh, yes. Cornelius, we must drink 
 to the Senorita, you know."
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 IT IS not permitted that one shall land 
 in Sylvanlitlan in a good humour. With 
 a passport, a bill of health, and a certi- 
 ficate of good conduct, all three procured from 
 the American consul at Curacao, and viseed 
 by the Sylvanlitlan consul at the rate of two 
 dollars per document, Messrs. Slag & Der- 
 ringer, jailbreakers, hoped not to be turned 
 back either as revolutionaries or infectiously 
 mosquito-bitten. One morning the Leviathan 
 anchored under the shadow of a mountain. 
 The mountain was the wall of a continent, and 
 behind the wall lay South America. Barnacle- 
 like little houses that glistened as chalky bones 
 in the Equatorial sun clung to the base of the 
 rock. These were Puertocito, romantically ill- 
 famed in the old buccaneering days of the 
 Spanish Main. 
 Tawny men in white duck and gold braid 
 
 66
 
 66 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 clambered over the rail of the Leviathan. They 
 were the Doctor of the Port and staff, the Col- 
 lector of the Port and staff, and the Captain of 
 the Port and staff. The Captain of the Port 
 wore a monocle and three-starred epaulettes. 
 He casually entered into conversation with any 
 passenger who happened to be smoking. Had 
 the passenger bought cigars at Havana? And 
 if the passenger offered no cigars, the Captain 
 of the Port asked for a smoke outright. His 
 three stars made him very successful in this. 
 
 The Sylvanlitlan officials transformed the 
 Leviathan's salon into a star-chamber, and sus- 
 piciously fumbled over the viseed documents, 
 and wrote down answers to many personal 
 questions. After staying for dinner and drink- 
 ing wine, they departed over the rail and were 
 rowed to land. But never a passenger might 
 as yet leave the ship. 
 
 Late in the afternoon the white ducks flocked 
 back, and he of the three stars levied again on 
 the passengers who had bought cigars at Havana. 
 This was a little social phase of captaining 
 the Port. Officially he came with the passenger
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 67 
 
 list, which had been telegraphed to the Senor 
 Presidente up in his capitol at Constanza de 
 la Paz, and the Senor Presidente had wired 
 back the names of the fortunate ones whom he 
 permitted to land. 
 
 The fortunate ones might now consummate 
 their arrival in Sylvanlitlan. Nothing further 
 was required, except money. The boatman 
 knew how to charge, of course, but in Sylvan- 
 litlan boatmen drop to the rank of petty piracy. 
 There is the Republic, and her fees; a fee for 
 the passenger, and for each piece of baggage. 
 There is the Dock Concession and fees, also 
 for self and each piece of baggage. There is 
 the Custom House, and fees for inspection of 
 self and baggage. There is the railroad, and 
 charges for extra baggage over twenty kilos. 
 This about ends the fees. But if one is an 
 angel, he adds a gratuity to each fee. 
 
 When finally aboard the train, and climbing 
 the mountain up and around devious curves, 
 the traveller wishes to look out at South America 
 from the car window, a red capped soldier taps 
 him on the shoulder and requires him to write his.
 
 68 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 name in a book. The next morning, before arriv- 
 ing at Constanza on the plateau, another red cap 
 goes through the train gathering another census. 
 
 "Serious-minded jackasses, aren't they, Cor- 
 nelius ?" observed Blaze Derringer. "I suppose 
 it's against the law to change your name, so 
 every nice little revolutionist puts down his 
 real name the very first dozen times, and is so 
 happy in his Sunday school." 
 
 Cornelius scratched his head. He didn't 
 know for sure. 
 
 "I've a good notion," Derringer mused 
 thoughtfully, "to start a revolution." 
 
 "No you don't, neither," growled Slag. " We've 
 got more to start now 'n we can likely stop." 
 
 "But they deserve it, Cornelius," pleaded 
 Derringer. _^>- 
 
 i Slag ordered him to get that notion out of 
 his head; and then, as they had been puffing 
 and pulling up mountains all night, he wondered 
 when they were due at this here Constanza place. 
 
 "There's your beloved Jenkins now," said 
 Derringer. "Ask him." 
 
 Jenkins was conductor of the train, but Jen-
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 69 
 
 kins had not proved sociable. He was a crusty, 
 gloomy man with a pompadour, a hatchet face, 
 a spare frame of big bones, and a very meagre 
 general hopefulness as to whether anything in 
 this world would ever pan out right. Jenkins 
 stopped at the door of the drawing room, which 
 was occupied by Derringer, and Derringer 
 cordially asked him in to have something. 
 
 "Hat checks," said Jenkins; and having 
 taken the hat checks, Jenkins proceeded on 
 his way through the train. 
 
 "Real lovely friend of yours, Cornelius," 
 remarked Derringer. "Do you suppose he's 
 waiting for your letter of introduction ?" 
 
 Slag warned his young companion against 
 gaiety, at least until he had done served some 
 apprenticeship at the difficult profession of jail- 
 breaking. It was further advisable to let Jenkins 
 alone, as Jenkins knew what he was about. 
 
 Later the same morning, after they had arrived 
 at Constanza and were installed at the Hotel 
 Bolivar on the Plaza Bolivar, they saw Jenkins 
 again- They were trying out the hotel cafe, 
 and the conductor, unofficially attired, sauntered
 
 70 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 in by the street door. He nodded to the two 
 Americans. He could do that, because he was 
 an American also, and they were three Americans 
 under the same roof in South America. The 
 scraping of acquaintanceship was inevitable, 
 and South America expected nothing else. There 
 were several of South America in the cafe, som- 
 nolently taking rum or chocolate at marble-top 
 tables. Thus Jenkins knew what he was about. 
 
 "Can any of you two fellows tell me," he 
 inquired, "how God's country looks?'* 
 
 Slag told him that it had looked sloppy to 
 fair when he saw it last, but mostly sloppy; 
 and swore at the gizzard-burnin* cognac. Was 
 that what they expected a white man to drink, 
 just because it was the Equator ? 
 
 Jenkins frowned. White men shouldn't come 
 to South America. They ought to be arrested 
 for it. He sat down, and sorrowfully looked 
 at the comic pictures in a Madrid weekly lying 
 on the table. He paid out his reserve sparingly. 
 Little by little contact grew into conversation, 
 and conversation subsided to a pitch low and 
 intimate.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 71 
 
 "I reckon it's all right now, Con," said Jen- 
 kins, "but you look at that wild young Greaser 
 over there drinking out of a stone bottle 
 and blowing smoke through his nose the 
 one in the upholstered uniform. Eh? Well, 
 that's Major De Marzi, and while Colonel 
 Morder is away, that Major boy is the head 
 jailor of this here Republica. And there ain't 
 no telling who else might be around watching. 
 Long as Don Pedro's alive and they can't make 
 up their minds to kill him, they don't sleep 
 much o' nights. By the way, Con, you've got 
 to rig up some sort of visible occupation to 
 explain yourself by, unless you reckon you can 
 pass for a vag. And say, who's the red-headed 
 dude?" 
 
 "Yes, Cornelius," said Derringer, "present 
 me to the old Roman-nosed, lantern-jawed 
 clothes-horse of a misanthropic sexton Ah, 
 honoured, I'm sure." 
 
 "Look here, bub," said Jenkins, "I wasn't 
 asking you for my photograph. And Con, hear 
 me now, you want to tuck him in good o' nights. 
 This altitude is some bad for tender blossims."
 
 72 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Hold on, Jenkins," growled Slag, "you 
 better let him alone. You know well enough, 
 Jenkins, that if a man's with me, he's liable to 
 be medicine. Dude, your grandmother!" 
 
 "That's all right, Cornelius," said Derringer 
 gently. "I won't hurt him." 
 
 "Oh, thank you, sir," said Jenkins, "thank 
 you most to death. Do I go on breathing as 
 usual, please?" 
 
 Derringer shot a look of unexpected liking 
 at the glum and big-boned American. "Yes," 
 he replied gravely, "you may for the pres- 
 ent." 
 
 Slag was impatient. Lowering his voice, he 
 demanded certain details about Don Pedro's 
 prison and as to when they might get to work. 
 Jenkins did not hasten to reply. He was still 
 doubtful about Derringer. He asked bluntly if 
 Derringer had been taken in with them; then 
 wanted to know what Derringer had brought 
 to the partnership. 
 
 "Me, for one thing," said Slag, "and a wad. 
 What else he brought, he's got in him, I guess. 
 Now where' s that prison ?"
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 73 
 
 "We'll take a walk," replied Jenkins. "Like 
 to take a walk, bub?" 
 
 "I thought, Cornelius," said Derringer 
 reproachfully, "you told me he had such a 
 sweet face." 
 
 "You hear me, you two watch out for each 
 other," Slag retorted. "Now come on." 
 
 On their way out, they had to pass the table 
 occupied by the fiery young native whom Jenkins 
 had pointed out as Major De Marzi. Jenkins 
 passed him first, then Slag, and then came Der- 
 ringer. A boot scraped on the floor, a spur 
 jingled, a sabre rattled in its scabbard, and the 
 wild young De Marzi stood before the Texan, 
 smilingly requesting the favour of some "fire" 
 from his cigar. The fellow with his black 
 eyes was as handsome as Lucifer. Derringer 
 suddenly smiled a/so, and gave him a light. 
 There were matches on the table before the 
 
 man. 
 
 
 
 I espeek Anglish," said Major De Marzi. 
 "I should say you do," returned Derringer. 
 "I espeek jus' a few," the Major explained. 
 "My girl, she have learn the Anglish in school
 
 74 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 of United States. I mus' make practise no ? 
 so she admire my Anglish espeeking." 
 
 Derringer assured him that he certainly must, 
 and recommended that he practise English with 
 the girl herself. 
 
 "Oh, Mister," cried the Major, "you have 
 not acquaintance with the Senorita. She no 
 permit that I, that any unacquainted senor, 
 talk with her. But I see you again ? I do 
 practise with you, yes?" 
 
 "Sure," said Derringer. "Come around any 
 time." Then he excused himself, and joined 
 his two compatriots waiting outside. 
 
 "What did he want?" asked Jenkins. 
 
 " Wanted to know what I'm here for; Asphalt, 
 Pearls, Revolution, or Jail Delivery." 
 
 "You don't mean he asked you?" 
 
 "Hardly." 
 
 "That fellow," muttered Jenkins, "is the 
 Presidente's own pet, and the devil's too, I 
 reckon." 
 
 "Well, I declare!" 
 
 " You needn't be declaring, neither. He killed 
 a man right here on this Plaza last month.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 75 
 
 Clipped a shoulder off him with his pretty 
 sword. Don't know if he's killed his man this 
 month yet or not. Watch out for him, bub." 
 
 Derringer let this go by default. ''What," 
 he asked, "is the meaning of the word 'Seno- 
 rita 'round here? Is it a generic term, or 
 a title of some one in particular?" 
 
 "Wh what?" 
 
 "If a man comes up to you and says he's 
 in love with ' the Senorita,' what does he mean ? " 
 
 " He means old Don Pedro's daughter, that's 
 who; and," said Jenkins, "any man who'd 
 ever seen her might say the same thing, if he 
 was particularly out for telling the truth." 
 
 "Suppose," said Derringer, "we go around 
 
 and call on her?" 
 
 i 
 
 He might as well have proposed a bank rob- 
 bery. 
 
 "You hear me, bub," exclaimed Jenkins, 
 "this ain't one of your little sociable Texas 
 towns. This here is South America." 
 
 "Where does she live?" 
 
 " Might as well show him, Jenkins," said Slag. 
 
 Jenkins consented, since they would pass
 
 76 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 the Senorita's home on their way to look at 
 the prison. He led them through the luxuri- 
 antly tropical Plaza into a street that was long 
 and narrow, like a shallow canon between the 
 houses. The end of the canon, far away, seemed 
 to be closed up by the side of a mountain, but 
 when they reached the end, the mountain had 
 receded and was part of a distant sierra. Off 
 there, outlined against the base of the mountain 
 chain, there was a church with two square 
 towers, reached by a wide sandstone walk 
 between lofty palms, and also by a very wide and 
 very dusty driveway on either side of the walk. 
 The sandalled feet of water carriers pattered on 
 the sandstone, and a little farther on the Ameri- 
 cans passed the fountain where they filled their 
 buckets. Women with their heads wrapped in 
 rebosas, and other women wearing black shawls, 
 idly, patiently plodded along, devotions in 
 the church beyond being as urgent as water. 
 
 On either side dashing equipages conveyed 
 their occupants through the dust to the church 
 for prayer, and brought them back through 
 the dust for show. Here and there an impos-
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 77 
 
 ing old residence faced the driveway from behind 
 walls of adobe. In the rear was bleak soli- 
 tude, a wild tableland of cactus that encroached 
 on the curbing of the boulevard in the vacant 
 places, and stretched backward over loneliness 
 to the distant sierra. 
 
 Jenkins explained that they were now on the 
 Paseo the Paseo of Palms and that if they 
 kept going almost to the church, they would 
 come to a bronze statue of the first Don Pedro, 
 who was the liberator, and on the other side 
 they would see a castle-like building of stone 
 which was the prison house of the last Pedro, 
 who very much required liberating. 
 
 "An* you got his promissory for a hundered 
 thousand," said Slag. "Now, I wonder what 
 a thing o' that kind really looks like." 
 
 Jenkins produced the document itself, and 
 they gazed on the perpendicular Spanish, then 
 on the regal signature with underscoring nourish, 
 and lastly on the daughter's name as witness; 
 but most of all they gazed caressingly on the 
 dollar mark with the figure one and five 
 ciphers.
 
 78 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 Mr. Slag was enthralled. "Aw," he strug- 
 gled feebly, " 'tain't so much.'* 
 
 "Steady, steady," said Derringer. "The 
 maturity of the note waits on us, so the busier 
 the quicker. What shall we do first?" 
 
 Slag looked professional. "Well," he said, 
 "as I can't consult with this Don Pedro person 
 himself, I ought to see the girl, seems like." 
 
 That was all very well, but Jenkins gloomily 
 inquired how he was going to do it. 
 
 "Same way you did, mebbe," said Slag. 
 "You saw her, didn't you ?" 
 
 Yes, but Jenkins had seen the girl and her 
 aunt on his train passengers in the drawing- 
 room and he had wondered about how 
 troubled she looked until he learned that she 
 was the Seiiorita. So of course she was heart- 
 sick, with her father in prison waiting to be 
 killed as soon as they found his money, and it 
 made Jenkins very acid. 
 
 He kept seeing her wan face all the time 
 he went through the train collecting tickets, 
 and then, back in the third-class coach checking 
 up, all of a sudden he remembered Con Slag,)
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 79 
 
 Jail breaker. Directly afterward, Jenkins was 
 knocking at the door of the drawing room, and 
 a moment later he had offered to bet the princess 
 of Sylvanlitlan that Con Slag could get her 
 father out of prison. 
 
 "But you know how 'tis, Con,'* said Jenkins, 
 "how a dying man will even call in a snake 
 doctor when the regular fellows give him up." 
 
 The poor little Senorita was ready for the 
 snake doctor, and Jenkins had sent for Slag. 
 It seemed, however, that the girl had needed 
 to persuade her father first. Jenkins reckoned 
 that her father was too high up and uncommon 
 to vulgarly break jail. What Don Pedro prob- 
 ably wanted was cannon and a brass band, 
 and then to stride forth like one of them kings 
 of France, casting smiles on his faithful retainers, 
 and pardoning the other fellows, his detainers, 
 who were lying around on the castel walls 
 of the prison, dripping blood down on the 
 ostridge plumes of the loyal hullabaloo in 
 the courtyard below. But the Senorita, was 
 different. The Senorita had been to school 
 in Boston, and she knew what was real up-to-
 
 80 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 date and proper, and so, some way, she had got 
 her father to consent to Con Slag. Jenkins 
 reckoned that it was a hard dose for the old 
 man, and looking at Slag he didn't wonder. 
 A mighty nice girl, too! 
 
 "Then where in the world does she live?" 
 Derringer insisted. 
 
 "Wait, Blazes, wait," said Slag. "I want to 
 ask how she gets to see her father." 
 
 "Morder lets her see him sometimes." 
 
 "An' Major What's-his-name, what about 
 him?" 
 
 "De Marzi ? He lets her in any time, long 
 as Morder isn't here." 
 
 "Then it's lucky we left Morder behind. 
 Now let's go see the girl." 
 
 Jenkins stopped, and waved an obliging 
 hand toward a massive old house of stone that 
 they were then passing. It was moss-coloured 
 and almost hidden among original forest giants. 
 There was a high wall surrounding the house 
 and grounds, and the carriage gate of iron bars 
 was guarded by a red-cap sentinel with carbine 
 and bayonet.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 81 
 
 "There you are," said Jenkins. "Help your- 
 self." 
 
 "But what's that shrivelled little saddle- 
 coloured soldier thing there for?" demanded 
 Slag. 
 
 "Oh, don't mind him," retorted Jenkins, 
 "he's only in case anybody tries to get in and 
 smuggle out the treasure. But he can't shoot 
 straight, so hurry along; I'll wait for you here." 
 
 The jail breaker hesitated, scowling. 
 
 "Come on, Cornelius," Derringer called. 
 Derringer was crossing the road direct for the 
 forbidden gate. 
 
 "The little fool," muttered Jenkins. "Still, 
 it ain't square not to back him up. Come on, 
 Con."
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 
 THE feelings of the sentry at the gate 
 were hurt because a tourist-looking 
 American in outing flannels seemed 
 to be unaware of sentries. With a guttural 
 exclamation of surprise the man presented his 
 bayonet at Derringer's necktie just as Der- 
 ringer pushed open the gate. Derringer gave 
 back, a startled and grieved look on his face, and 
 asked the guard in reasonably bad Castilian 
 if he had ever heard of Major De Marzi. The 
 guard was considerably impressed and mysti- 
 fied, and stammered that of course he knew 
 Major De Marzi, since Major De Marzi was his 
 comandante in the absence of Colonel Morder. 
 
 "Well," said Derringer, "the Major asked 
 me if I would mind stopping on my way by here 
 to shoot the red off your cap. He wants my 
 opinion of a new automatic pistol." Derringer 
 touched his hip pocket. 
 
 82
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 83 
 
 The sentry began to change colour. Major 
 De Marzi was evidently not incapable of such 
 requests. 
 
 'You are also acquainted with Colonel 
 Morder?" pursued Derringer. 
 
 From the vortex of a troubled spirit the man 
 nodded. 
 
 "Very good," said Derringer; "because here 
 is Colonel Morder' s order for the treasure of 
 San I mean Don Pedro. Might we trouble 
 you to run in and get it for us ?" 
 
 The guard stared. "Holy Maria!" he suddenly 
 cried; "this is a crazy American!" 
 
 "Read the order for yourself," and Derringer 
 unfolded the note for one thousand dollars won 
 from Morder in Galveston. The sentry recog- 
 nized the signature, but he could make nothing 
 of the text. Derringer was forced to explain 
 that Colonel Morder had written it in English 
 out of politeness, because he and the other 
 two senores were English-speaking Americans. 
 Would the sentry therefore hurry, and bring 
 out the treasure ? 
 
 "In true seriousness, senor," pleaded the
 
 84 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 man, "what will my Colonel wish in his English 
 handwriting?" 
 
 Derringer's grave countenance relaxed. He 
 laughed, and gave the man a ten-bolivar bill ; this 
 was to help him perceive that it was all a joke. 
 
 14 You see for yourself," he said. "Colonel 
 Morder writes us a permiso to visit Don Pedro's 
 gardens. Colonel Morder was my guest for 
 a brief period in the States, so he kindly " 
 
 Derringer filled in the pause with a second 
 ten-bolivar note. 
 
 "Oh, senor," exclaimed the guard, "would 
 you think that I question the signature of my 
 Colonel?" He glanced swiftly up and down 
 the boulevard. "No one observes. Pass 
 quickly, seiiores there. But come again 
 when I whistle. Thank you, senor." 
 
 The three conspirators were in the gardens 
 of the first emperor of Sylvanlitlan. 
 
 "That last you gave him makes thirty boli- 
 vars," said Jenkins. "That's two dollars 
 admission each, enough for shady seats at the 
 bull-fight Sunday." 
 
 "An* what do we see for it?" Slag waved a
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 85 
 
 hairy hand "only an amateur graveyard. 
 What's all this digging in here for, anyway?" 
 
 The gardens of the dead and gone emperor, 
 shaded by the great trees, cluttered over with 
 blossoms by myriads, and tangled in branches 
 sagging under perfumed weight, did indeed 
 resemble a cemetery; that is, a cemetery pre- 
 pared for disordered and wholesale burials and 
 then mysteriously abandoned. There was not 
 a handful of earth but had been turned over by 
 pick or spade. 
 
 "The Presidente's gang," explained Jenkins. 
 "They've been sort of scratching round for the 
 treasure." 
 
 "Do you think she's at home?" asked Der- 
 ringer. 
 
 Slag, jailbreaker, took charge. He kept 
 close to the wall, so as not to be seen through 
 the gate, and led them, single file, mid foliage 
 and fragrance. He supposed there must be 
 back doors to emperors' houses. They came, 
 instead, upon what Slag termed "somethin' 
 'twixt a porch an* a dug-out." It was a loggia, 
 cut under the upper story of the old stone house,
 
 86 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 and forming a shady nook behind vine-clad 
 pillars a bower for some lonely princess. 
 
 The three men crept carefully nearer, until, 
 through the leaves, they saw the bright colours 
 of a hammock ; or rather, one end of a hammock ; 
 and Derringer caught a" glimpse of something 
 else there, which was the high red heel of a 
 lady's shoe. Jenkins, of course, had to tramp 
 on the traditional twig that snaps, whereat 
 the high heel suddenly twitched, jerked, and 
 vanished. Then before them, framed as a 
 picture of loveliness between the flowers twin- 
 ing round the pillars, there stood a girl, a 
 slender, sweet, and very pretty girl. Chestnut 
 brown eyes, still beautifully heavy from sleep, 
 opened widely on them, questioning and indig- 
 nant. The lonely princess of the bower, but 
 combative ! 
 
 A wisp of hair lay moist against one 
 cheek, and the cheek was rose-red, marked as 
 she had lain on it, and one bare forearm showed 
 where the cords of the hammock had pressed 
 the soft flesh. The truant wisp was put in 
 place, and both cheeks became of the same
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 87 
 
 pink, and she was unconsciously haughty, and 
 bewitchingly prim, and as alluring as tropical 
 womanhood, and all of these at the same time. 
 Con Slag shifted from one foot to the other, 
 Jenkins awkwardly took off his hat, and Der- 
 ringer Blaze Derringer of Texas 
 
 ;< What a corking pretty girl!" he murmured. 
 
 She overheard, and she understood. She 
 flushed in her helplessness there before them. 
 
 "I I am afraid, sir," she spoke in a quiet 
 little voice, "that you have been a long time 
 away from your mother." 
 
 Slowly the blood left Derringer's face. He 
 stood, for the first time in his life, abashed. 
 
 "I forgot," he said, "that you understood 
 English ; but you are quite right, for I have been 
 away from my mother a long time. My 
 mother is dead." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 It was a low cry, and he looked up quickly, 
 and saw pity in her eyes. From that moment 
 he worshipped; simply, frankly, and humbly 
 worshipped. 
 
 "There, it is all right, you know," and he
 
 88 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 smiled, so that she might see that he was not 
 hurt. "And we haven't much time, you know. 
 We only want to help, and," he promised ear- 
 nestly, "we will help. We have come to get 
 your father out of prison." 
 
 The vision of her father once more free; that, 
 rather than hope, illumined her face. Her 
 little body swayed, and she pressed a hand 
 tightly to her breast. But she saw in a moment 
 how finely spun the vision was. These three 
 men, foreigners, so oddly assorted; one huge, 
 slouching, with a scowl; another big, loose- 
 jointed, as glum as Despair; the third a young 
 fellow in outing flannels, too airily optimistic 
 to be aught but inconstant, erratic, irresponsible 
 these three men of a distant continent pro- 
 posed to free her father, despite the dungeons, 
 the spies, the armies, of Sylvanlitlan ! She was 
 a clear-sighted young person, and she half 
 laughed at them. Then she saw, vividly, a 
 dark niche in solid masonry, where her father 
 lay, and walls within walls, and she ceased to 
 smile. Of course, there was no hope. 
 
 Yet how had these three men come to her?
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 89 
 
 She was more accustomed to seeing jailers 
 than prospective rescuers. How, then, had they 
 passed the armed power of Sylvanlitlan at the 
 gate ? Did they even intend rescue ? 
 
 "You don't remember me, Miss, I see," said 
 Jenkins. "Not being in conductor's uniform, 
 perhaps that's it. But you and your aunt were 
 on my train some weeks back, and we " 
 
 "Yes, yes, now I remember." 
 
 "Well, Miss," said Jenkins, jerking a thumb 
 at Slag, "I've brought the snake doctor." 
 
 Slag, darting a first look of hate at his friend, 
 buttoned his coat, coughed, rubbed his chin, 
 and assumed a demeanour of immense gravity. 
 He was still rubbing his chin and assuming 
 demeanour, at a loss for words bereft of pro- 
 fanity, when the Senorita spoke to him. With 
 a precise little air of business, not unlike a small 
 lady conferring over a piece of work with the 
 plumber, she asked Jailbreaker Slag if a tunnel 
 would not be the best way. 
 
 Mr. Slag brightened. He was as the undis- 
 covered artist who finds the boon of sympathetic 
 appreciation.
 
 90 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Well, you see, Miss uh, Miss de Las 
 Augustias " 
 
 "Miss Bess will do," she interposed, "and 
 then you will save so much time." 
 
 "Miss Bess; well, you see about tunnels, 
 I don't ever use 'em, not if there's a handier 
 way. Still, that's not sayin', " he added defe- 
 rentially, "but what a tunnel does make a neat 
 job and a swell get-away." He was somewhat 
 reluctant to forego tunnels himself. 
 
 "Do you think do you really think," ex- 
 claimed the girl, "that you can bring about 
 my poor father's escape ?" 
 
 "Uh, well, Miss no cure, no pay, of course." 
 
 "Oh, you will free him, I know!" The hope 
 was forlorn, but well, Jenkins was right in 
 his snake - doctor psychology. Her emotion 
 stirred in Slag a vague, mellowing disquiet. 
 
 "Aw, we'll not talk about pay. We'll talk about 
 about doctors. Now, what do doctors do 
 with a man that's all tangled up in a hard knot 
 o* fever? Why, they dope him, that's what 
 they do, till they shove him into some other 
 kind of fever that they can stampede. Take
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 91 
 
 your pa, Miss Bess, for 'n instance, mebbe we 
 can't git him out o' that prison, but," he added 
 hastily, because her look tore his leathery heart, 
 "but there ought to be some other place we can 
 git him out of, don't you see ? " 
 
 "No, I'm afraid I don't." 
 
 "Listen; where'd they put him, 'sposin' he 
 was took real sick?" 
 
 " Sick ? " He frightened her. 
 
 The jailbreaker explained, the while leering 
 craftily from one to the other. He was sure 
 that there was a hospital annex to the peniten- 
 tiary, since prisoners in a Latin-American coun- 
 try so often arrive in a hacked-up fix. Wasn't 
 there a "hospittle" at all ? 
 
 :< Yes," said Jenkins, there was the Hospital 
 Militar. 
 
 But was it off by itself, or plum* in the 
 middle o' town somewhere ? It was by itself 
 out on the Paseo, across from the penitentiary. 
 The statue of Don Pedro I. stood in front of it. 
 
 The jailbreaker received this with a grunt 
 of satisfaction. Next he wanted to know about 
 the walls and windows of the hospital.
 
 92 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 The girl herself eagerly replied. The hospital 
 was a group of small buildings, or wards, and 
 they were all enclosed in a compound surrounded 
 by a high wall. 
 
 "An* that's where they put sick prisoners, 
 you say?" 
 
 "If they are very sick, there's a separate ward 
 for them.'* 
 
 "All good enough," said Slag, "an* now I'm 
 sorry to tell you, Miss, that your father is liable 
 to be a very sick man." 
 
 Her eagerness vanished. 
 
 "Only just a sore," he added soothingly, 
 "nice an' ugly, you know, on the cheek, that 
 will look like blood poison and coffin fittin's 
 immediate." 
 
 The girl shuddered. 
 
 "At least I'mtakin' it," said Slag, "that they 
 ain't wantin' him to die yet ?" 
 
 "No, no!" 
 
 "Just so; then they'll hustle him over to that 
 there hospittle to keep him goin' till he makes 
 his will an' testimony an' tells where he's 
 hid the money. Aw, 'tain't nothin' to feel
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 93 
 
 so bad about, Miss. The beggars in Mexico 
 do it, just a scratch an' some acid an' a 
 blisterin' powder, an' I bet you'd hunt your 
 pocketbook for any beggar with a cheek like 
 that." 
 
 " My father is not a beggar," she said. 
 
 "But he's worse off, ain't he? Mebbe we'd 
 better fix him on both cheeks." 
 
 The girl resolutely put the horror of it from 
 her, and listened stoically. She agreed to repeat 
 the' jailbreaker's message to her father; but, 
 there was a difficulty, a serious difficulty, and 
 the corners of her mouth quivered into a faint 
 smile. They did not know her father; he was 
 so ridiculously stubborn, poor dear. How 
 could she suggest this sham of beggars to him ? 
 He would not be more hurt if she joined his 
 persecutors. To take poison for her, to stab 
 himself, that was little to ask of him; but 
 
 this other No, they certainly did not 
 
 know her father. 
 
 Slag's brows knitted over his heavy eyes. 
 Here were obstacles new to his profession. 
 Jenkins, morose, Roman-nosed, hatchet-faced,
 
 94 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 was more direct. He did not consider the 
 obstacles at all. 
 
 " You will coax him to it, Miss Bess," he said. 
 "And you'll have to do it quick. We must try 
 to get your father put in the hospital before 
 Colonel Morder comes back." 
 
 "Colonel Morder!" she repeated. 
 
 The name awakened both alarm and detesta- 
 tion. She knew that Morder had been out of 
 the country. Her aunt, the Dona Pepita, fat, 
 placid, but with the enterprise of the curious, 
 brought home the gossip in high circles. The 
 servants brought back the talk of the street. 
 Morder was expected back on the last boat, 
 the Leviathan, and Bess supposed that he had 
 already returned. 
 
 "Not at all," said Jenkins, "because Bub 
 here asked him to stay behind, and he did, just 
 as he asked that watch- dog at your gate to let 
 us in, and he did. Bub's a precautions lad, 
 Miss Bess." 
 
 Miss Bess, however, had no time for Der- 
 ringer's exploits, though Derringer had all 
 eternity for Miss Bess. He was watching her
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 95 
 
 intently. He would be doing that in any case, 
 but her distress on hearing Morder's name 
 set his thoughts to racing. He recalled his 
 inference that night in Galveston, that Morder 
 was pursuing the daughter of his prisoner, and 
 in the light of this knowledge Derringer inter- 
 preted the girl's pallor now. With which 
 keener insight the young man came to the aid 
 of his two companions. He could tell the 
 Senorita how she might pursuade her father 
 to acids and powders. It was a delicate argu- 
 ment for a strange man to hint to a girl, but 
 Derringer was thinking entirely of the girl, and 
 he drove to it boldly. 
 
 "Senorita," he began, "would your father 
 refuse to do as Slag says, if he knew it was on 
 your account also ?" 
 
 She turned, and the brown eyes questioned him 
 patiently. She was not the one in prison, she said. 
 
 "No," replied Derringer, "nor is Colonel 
 Morder." 
 
 Again a fluttering terror whitened her cheeks. 
 
 "And your father," added Derringer, "knows 
 nothing of this peril to you."
 
 96 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Of course he does not, sir, or he would make 
 me leave Sylvanlitlan. That is why I have not 
 told him." 
 
 "Just the same," said Derringer bluntly, 
 "you must tell him now, and you must tell him 
 also, that you intend to remain here as long as 
 he is in prison." 
 
 "And then, sir?" 
 
 "And then he will do anything to get out." 
 
 "To be sure he will." 
 
 " Sure as love and death, Seiiorita, the dignity 
 of a Don Pedro to the contrary notwithstanding." 
 
 The girl turned to Slag. "Very well," she said, 
 " I will send a woman to market to-morrow." 
 
 "Good enough," said Slag. "An' as she 
 passes by the hotel she will stumble and spill 
 her basket." 
 
 "Rice and frijoles and lamb chops," added 
 the girl. "So now I know what to pray for 
 acid and powder, acid and powder. My poor 
 obstinate father!"
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 WHEN the Senorita's servant, plodding 
 along with a loaded market basket 
 and staring at a vendor of python- 
 skins just ahead, had stumbled to her knees and 
 over her basket in front of the Hotel Bolivar; 
 when an American leaning his uncouth bulk 
 against the archway of the hotel entrance had 
 jeered; when the American and the woman and 
 the vendor of python-skins and three bootblacks 
 had scrambled for rolling fruit and scooped up 
 the leguminous contents of broken paper sacks; 
 when the basket's cargo had been restored, 
 with two parcels in two more sacks added ; when 
 the Senorita's servant was once more homeward 
 bound; then Messrs. Slag, Jenkins & Derringer, 
 a firm of jailbreakers operating in South America, 
 discovered that there was nothing further for 
 them to do except to wait. 
 
 Mr. Jenkins, incidentally, had to take his 
 
 vt
 
 98 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 train as usual down to the coast, and bring her 
 up the hill again, approximating the schedule 
 desired and dreamed of by a visionary train- 
 master of the Ferrocarril Internacional de Syl- 
 vanlitlan y Nueva Andalusia. 
 
 The remaining two partners had leisure 
 only. One of them pondered on walls and com- 
 pounds and hospital buildings. The other 
 likewise was pensive. But his mind's eye 
 dwelt not on walls. Merely the dainty high 
 heel of a lady's shoe filled his vision. There 
 was creme de menthe in the Cafe Bolivar, and 
 he spent the day in dusting off an old broken- 
 down resolution. It had the effect of making 
 him thirst greatly, though vainly, after a 
 Scotch highball. The lad was very human, 
 indeed. 
 
 One evening, several days later, he sat hi the 
 Plaza under the palms and the moon, and 
 listened to the band, and wished that the glorious 
 Bess might also be hearing that "Ai monte 
 ritornoremo" business from the "Trovatore." 
 Other pretty girls were out. He thought that 
 he could spare, say twenty of them, to have her
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 99 
 
 there in their stead. He was checking off the 
 twenty, one by one, as they passed under the 
 arc lights, when a gay voice of recognition made 
 him lose count. 
 
 "Oh, I have talk' with her, with the Senorita. 
 She come to-day to see her papa. He is seek, 
 so seek of the face. We mus' send him at the 
 hospi-tale; I think to-morrow, yes." 
 
 It was the jubilant Major De Marzi, twirling 
 upward his moustache militaire. With a clank- 
 ing of sabre and tinkling of spurs, the young 
 officer dropped beside Derringer on the bench. 
 He was too friendly to be repulsed. Moreover, 
 the young Texan was glad of his wicked and 
 lightsome company. Still, the young Texan 
 could have wished that the Senorita had talked 
 with some one else. 
 
 "Make out all right with your English?" he 
 inquired. 
 
 The Major kissed his finger-tips. "Splen- 
 deed. She say in Spanish if she can see her 
 papa, and I say, 'Yes, Miss Senorita/ and she 
 say 'Gracias* Spanish thanks and pass on 
 in."
 
 100 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Well, I declare," said Derringer, "that was 
 going some, wasn't it?" 
 
 "Oh, but we have not finish'. When she 
 come out, she say Spanish thanks again, and I 
 say it is not mention', and what she do? She 
 look at me and smile, she is so surprise' at my 
 Anglish. And I help her go in her carriage, 
 and I help her aunt Oh, yes, I forget Aunt 
 Pepita and she say 'Good morning,' like 
 that, in Anglish. In Anglish, senor! Ai, ai, I 
 know she can no long re-sist, no." 
 
 Derringer held back a retort on his tongue. 
 "I shouldn't wonder," he drawled lazily, 
 "but that she would talk a heap more English 
 if you would let her father escape. Say," he 
 cried, "that's a great scheme. Why don't 
 you?" 
 
 De Marzi half jumped off the bench. The 
 question was peril. It voiced either the dread 
 or the prayers of all Sylvanlitlan. But the 
 mercurial De Marzi gave only the first start. 
 " Of what good, senor ?" he laughed. " The ol' 
 Don Pedro, he die soon and save the trouble. 
 We beseech him make his will. Then he die
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 101 
 
 ennyhow. Ah, our Senor Presidente," he 
 reverently exclaimed, "he is a ve-ry smart 
 man." 
 
 "Certainly a very nice man," said Derringer. 
 "Nice music." 
 
 " So-so. You like our coontry ?" 
 
 "Very nice country. Everything nice. I 
 think I'll stay a while." 
 
 "Busy-ness, no?" 
 
 "And pleasure. Wonder if it would be any 
 sport rescuing that girl's father. And if I did, 
 you think she'd talk to me, too?" 
 
 The Major laughed, but noting the gravity of 
 the American's countenance to the last freckle, 
 he left off laughing. He floundered. He was 
 puzzled. 
 
 "You won't feel bad, Major? My idea, 
 you know." 
 
 "You are ve-ry funny man," returned the 
 Major quietly, "but maybe we can be ser'ous 
 also. You like to know how so? One, two, 
 three, zass!" He thrust an imaginary rapier. 
 "I keel you now, if you like." 
 
 "Help yourself."
 
 102 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 De Marzi considered. "No," he said, "I 
 decide some other time. You are so good 
 com-panny, and I am lone-lee." 
 
 "All right, then, let's go and have a creme de 
 menthe." 
 
 The two young Americans of two Americas, 
 the hot-blooded one of the Equator linking an 
 arm in his companion's, crossed the street from 
 the Plaza and entered the Cafe Bolivar. But 
 here also was boredom. They tired of it in 
 fifteen minutes. Yearning in the strains of 
 music, the moonlight, the subtle teasing calm 
 of the tropical night, these matters made the 
 youngsters restive and long for they knew not 
 what. The Texan shoved his half-emptied 
 glass from him with a petulant gesture. " What 
 next ?" he challenged. De Marzi saw adventure 
 rampant in the mild blue eyes. 
 
 "Goddam, I do not know what next," he 
 answered mournfully. "To make love. To 
 fight. But who at ? Tell me who at, senor. 
 I do not know." 
 
 "If Colonel Morder were here." 
 
 De Marzi suddenly choked, and spat viciously
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 103 
 
 on the floor. His handsome face was contorted. 
 One thought of fangs and venom. 
 
 "My Colonel. Ah," he cried longingly, "he 
 is a bootiful swordsman. But no, I mus' wait 
 a leetle." 
 
 Derringer kicked back his chair. He could 
 almost taste Scotch whiskey. "Let's get out 
 of here. That whining thing they're playing 
 out there worms into my capacity for sitting 
 still. If you can't bring on something doing, 
 Major, I'm going upstairs to read a book." 
 
 They were both in a mind for mischief. 
 
 "Oh-la, I have it," cried De Marzi. "We 
 will go amigo, we will go pay real nice visits 
 to the Senorita. And you, my fren', you will 
 
 make converse with Aunt Pepita, and I " 
 
 'Yes, you will! Have you ever called out 
 there before?" 
 
 "N-o. But I tell you she talk Anglish to me 
 to-day. And I comman* the soldier before the 
 gate, and we pass, and at the house they be 
 'fraid not let in Major De Marzi." 
 
 "See here," said Derringer, "do you mean 
 you'd break in?"
 
 104 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Adio-dio, why not? A so pretty girl!" 
 
 Lucifer was awake now, and in the saddle. 
 A devil to match leaped up in the young 
 Texan. 
 
 "A-l-1 right, come ahead!" Blaze Derringer 
 looked forward to a high old time now 
 directly. 
 
 Arm in arm they held the narrow walk in 
 their course up the canon-like street, the pet of 
 the Presidente shouldering unwary citizens over 
 the curb, and so they came to the Paseo of 
 Palms. At the Don Pedro gate the sentry 
 popped out of his box and cried, "Halt there!" 
 De Marzi knocked up the man's bayonet with 
 his sabre, and cursed him for a disrespectful 
 imbecile, whereat the dazed creature saluted, and, 
 being so ordered, opened the gate. De Marzi 
 stood aside, and bowed. "After you, sefior." 
 
 "You are quite sure you are bound to do this ? " 
 asked Derringer. 
 
 "Ha, the serior is 'fraid ? Mus' I go alone ?" 
 
 "No," and Derringer passed through the 
 gate, the Major following. 
 
 The mounds of earth and gaping holes,
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 105 
 
 revealed under the trees in ghostly patches of 
 moonlight, seemed more than ever a plundered 
 graveyard. De Marzi, all the accoutrements 
 of his martial estate jangling in metallic unison, 
 strode gaily up the walk toward the front steps 
 of the mansion. Seeing Derringer hold back, 
 he took him fraternally by the elbow to hasten 
 him forward on their adventure. 
 
 "But," protested Derringer, "the house is 
 dark. It's not recognized as good sport to 
 frighten sleeping women, you know." 
 
 "Eh, my fren'," the other laughed mockingly, 
 "you are the frighten' one." 
 
 "At least," said Derringer, "suppose we go 
 around the house first to see if there are any 
 lights." 
 
 "Bueno," De Marzi agreed, leading under the 
 side windows and peering up, "for maybe I 
 discover which is her room." He kissed his 
 finger-tips. "Ai, ai, senor mio, I am good at 
 climbing." 
 
 "The deuce you are," said Derringer. "But 
 no matter, here is a good place, where the 
 guard can't hear us."
 
 106 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "How so ? Why you take off your coat ?" 
 
 "To decide," said Derringer, "whether we 
 do or don't intrude on a nice girl. Take off 
 your own, quick!" 
 
 "Ho," cried the Major in Spanish, his English 
 forgotten, "this is better than I thought! Both 
 fight and make love, eh? Fight first, eh? 
 But, senor mio, you have no weapon?" 
 
 "Fists for mine," said the Texan. "Quick 
 now, strip." 
 
 "Fists?" The first note of anger grated in 
 the Major's tone. "So, so, that is insult, and 
 now I decide to kill. On guard, senor!" He 
 drew his sabre. "And in the morning, you are 
 found dead, here. They will say you were hunting 
 Don Pedro's treasure, and the Presidente, he 
 will speak a thousand thanks to his dear, faithful 
 De Marzi. Zassl " He lunged with the sabre. 
 
 Derringer could think of nothing better than 
 to keep out of the way. He jumped back, 
 and struck a pillar behind him. A glance over 
 his shoulder showed him that he was backing 
 into what he had named the Vine-entangled 
 Loggia of the High-heeled Shoe. He laughed,
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 107 
 
 thinking of newspaper headlines. Lady's 
 Bower Turned into a Shambles. He 
 stooped to clear the vines, and darted around the 
 pillar just as De Marzi essayed a full arm sweep. 
 The sabre rang against the pillar and broke. 
 Whereupon De Marzi plunged into the vines, 
 but he caught a spur in the mesh and lurched 
 headlong. His fall was somewhat the heavier 
 because as he fell Derringer was on his back. 
 Over and over they rolled on the stone floor, 
 De Marzi letting out little gleeful yelps as he 
 groped for a strangle hold. Derringer was 
 enjoying himself also, but he was more quiet 
 and business-like. 
 
 Abruptly they were aware that they scuffled 
 and spluttered and wrestled in a circle of light. 
 Derringer, rolling over, saw that the light came 
 from a lamp. De Marzi, rolling over, saw that 
 the lamp was held by a chubby and agitated hand. 
 "Ai, Aunt Pepita, good evening," he shouted 
 as he vanished under Derringer. Then they 
 stopped rolling, and lay blinking up at the 
 lamp, and up at Dona Pepita, fat, placid, but 
 with the enterprise of the curious. She gazed
 
 108 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 down on the erstwhile kaleidoscopic young men 
 with wide-open and startled eyes. 
 
 "Bless me the saints," she gasped. "What 
 do you two boys signify by fighting on my back 
 porch in this manner ? Now get up at once, 
 do you hear? Vdlgame Dios, I was so fright- 
 ened; I thought you were the cats! Get up 
 from there, I say!" 
 
 Derringer scrambled to his feet, dusting off 
 his clothes, and when he ventured to look at her 
 and met her indignant gaze, he grinned. And, 
 by a psychologic alchemy unfathomable to the 
 male sex, that grin won her heart. Then De 
 Marzi got to his feet, and when the Dona 
 opened her mouth, for this was no affair to 
 pass over in silence, he kissed her a rousing one 
 squarely on the cheek. So he, likewise, won 
 her heart, though she nearly lost the lamp for 
 the resounding box on the ear she gave 
 him. 
 
 "Now march, both of you," she ordered like 
 a brigadier. "No, you don't, not that way. 
 Into the house! There is much more to be 
 said; indeed yes. March!"
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 109 
 
 The door opening on the loggia was ajar, 
 and she herded them in, scolding under her 
 breath as she followed with the lamp. They 
 went, like schoolboys, yet not tremendously 
 alarmed. Anticipation, or rather, the uncer- 
 tainty of what to anticipate, set tingling the 
 fibres of youth. And especially was this true 
 of the Texan, for he was never forgetting for 
 a minute that there was a girl who lived in this 
 house.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 THEY went through an arched passage 
 into the patio of the old dwelling, 
 where a fountain sparkled in the moon- 
 light, and the fragrance of lime blossoms 
 filled the air, and broad-leaved banana plants 
 rose higher even than the upper gallery that 
 overlooked the court on its four sides. Double 
 doors of glass opened on the patio from various 
 rooms, and one was partly open, as they immedi- 
 ately perceived because of a green-tinted glow 
 of light within. 
 
 "Here, sefiores," said the implacable Dona, 
 directing them to the door that was partly open. 
 They meekly obeyed, and entered a room 
 that was spacious, where there were large easy- 
 chairs, and an enormous mahogany table lighted 
 by a green globe lamp. There was a square 
 piano, strewn with music. There was a group 
 of sectional bookcases, varnished and modern, 
 
 no
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 111 
 
 filled with home-like, worn bindings. Servants 
 of the house, men and women, the men armed 
 with antique weapons from the grand salon, 
 one "A'ith a blunderbuss, another with a halberd, 
 a third with a broadsword, stared at them in a 
 mixture of panic and menace. 
 
 At the table, beside her chair, stood the girl 
 concerning whom the two young men had 
 fought. The book she had been reading lay 
 open on the table, carefully faced downward so 
 that she might not lose her place. In contrast, 
 as the warm abandon of Spanish blood contrasts 
 with books, a guitar w y as on the floor at her feet. 
 The girl herself revealed the like quaint blend of 
 the precise with the impulse and throbbing of all 
 that is of the South. She seemed a trim bit of 
 New England among magnolia blossoms. Her 
 brow was high and white, and the brown hair 
 was brushed back severely, yet only to wave 
 rebellion in little tendrils. Her manner was 
 prim, deliciously prim, except when the full 
 blood of her race swept it aside. Her cheeks 
 were soft and pink, and her lips were scarlet. 
 A child of warmth and passion had been to
 
 112 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 school in Boston. The manner of sweet and 
 precise little woman who had returned was yet 
 she whom Derringer in his thoughts called his 
 glorious Bess. The lure was there, there was 
 no doubt about that. The Texan trusted his 
 instincts; at least, he resisted them not. He 
 frankly revelled in that he was vanquished. 
 
 Her level gaze met the two young men as 
 they entered. The servants stirred menacingly, 
 and she dismissed them to their quarters. She 
 had not called them, and they were not to burst 
 on her so at every alarm. Thus spoke the 
 chatelaine. Then her gaze rested inquiringly 
 again on the two young men. 
 
 "How they startled me!" said Dona Pepita, 
 palpitating yet. "I feared certainly that the 
 cats had the parrot. But," pinioning them by 
 a gesture of disdain, "such as they are, I have 
 brought them to you." 
 
 In this wise were they delivered before the 
 seat of judgment. 
 
 "Indeed," said the girl; "and won't you take 
 them away again, please?" 
 
 Derringer was looking into her eyes, a thing
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 113 
 
 he could not help. Her words brought him 
 nearer the earth, and he pointed a thumb at his 
 fellow captive. "The Major will now explain," 
 he announced. 
 
 De Marzi glared at Derringer, restlessly 
 passed his fingers over the brass buttons of 
 his torn jacket, and stole a glance at the girl. 
 She looked so pretty that he took courage. 
 
 ; 'We will espeek the Anglish," he began. 
 
 "You need not speak at all, Major De Marzi," 
 said she. "Or rather, you may, to tell us why 
 you have used your position to intrude 
 here?" 
 
 "Ai, young men," said the Dona, "I feel 
 sorry for you now. My faith, I do ! " 
 
 A quick smile curved the girl's lips. She 
 knew the good soul's weakness for young men. 
 " Won't you sit down, my aunt, before you drop 
 that lamp ? Now, Major De Marzi, I am 
 waiting." 
 
 "Dios mio" cried the hard-pressed Major 
 in Spanish, "we came to call, that is all." 
 
 "And stopped to fight like ragamuffins on 
 my back porch," added Dona Pepita.
 
 114 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Not I, Senorita," protested the Major. 
 "Ask the American. It is his fault, for he 
 decides, presto! that we do not call. And he 
 takes off his coat. Fists, ai de mi!" 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed the Senorita, darting a 
 swift glance at Derringer. The first time she 
 had seen this American, he was allied with 
 jailbreakers. And to-night, apparently, he was 
 allied with jailors. Yet that could not be, 
 either, for he had fought De Marzi, to save 
 her from De Marzi's visit. At once, in the 
 natural bent of her race for intrigue, supple- 
 mented by the practical training of the Pilgrim 
 daughters, she began to speculate on how the 
 intrusion might be turned to account. For a 
 time she looked intently at nothing, the chestnut 
 eyes half closing and opening again. 
 
 "Frankly, Major De Marzi," she spoke at 
 last, "did not my father's money, which all of 
 you insist is buried here, did not that have a little 
 to do with your prowling excursion to-night ? " 
 
 The gallant Major was distressed. How 
 cruelly obstinate was the Senorita, that she 
 would believe naught of the compliment to
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 115 
 
 herself conveyed in his presence there! Such 
 was the purport of the wounded appeal in his 
 black eyes. 
 
 She seemed to relent. ''Very well, Major 
 De Marzi," she said, "will you kindly imagine 
 that I give you a chart " 
 
 The black eyes forgot their appeal. 
 * and that the chart indicates where a 
 chest a heavy chest, I believe lies buried ?" 
 
 The eyes gleamed like the fire in black opals. 
 But the Major let that betrayal go no further. 
 To heavy chests he was indifferent. Had he 
 not assured her that treasure, the buried kind, 
 was not the object of his quest ? Nevertheless, 
 he waited expectantly. 
 
 She turned, instead, to Derringer. "And you, 
 sir," she asked, "what would you do with such 
 a secret?" 
 
 "Why," said Derringer, "I'd go and dig the 
 thing up, of course." 
 
 She laughed, and De Marzi bowed mocking 
 tribute to the simplicity of the American. Then 
 her next words left him aghast. 
 
 "That being the case," she said, "and as I
 
 116 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 should like to have the chest, I shall ask you, 
 Senor Americano, to be so kind as to dig it up 
 for me. Come, and we will look for the chart." 
 
 She rang for a servant, and the woman of the 
 market basket appearing, she bade her take 
 the Dona's lamp, nodded to Derringer, and 
 suggested that De Marzi wait with Aunt Pepita. 
 Derringer soberly assured everybody that the 
 Major would be delighted to do so. 
 
 The girl went ahead with the servant, Der- 
 ringer following. They crossed the patio into 
 a cavernous hallway that ran through the house 
 to the heavy front doors. The ceiling and walls, 
 as the lamp dimly showed, were panelled in oak. 
 Before a velvet-curtained arch the girl stopped, 
 taking the lamp. Against the dark red of the 
 drapery her girlish figure was outlined in filmy 
 white, and as Derringer reached her side, 
 she turned to him a beaming smile of friendliness, 
 as though they were playmates off on a daring 
 expedition. Derringer, for a reason hidden in 
 the mystery and instinct of chivalry, took care 
 that his hand did not touch hers as she gave 
 him the lamp.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 117 
 
 "Here, Sir Aladdin," she said, parting the 
 curtains, "is the cave of precious charts. Enter." 
 
 "And may I wish," he asked, looking down 
 into her eyes, "may I wish that " 
 
 "Enter," she repeated, and told the servant 
 to wait for them there. 
 
 He passed between the curtains, feeling like 
 the explorers. He believed at first that he must 
 be out of doors, for the sense of walls was lack- 
 ing. He peered upward, half expecting to 
 see the stars. He made out big squared cypress 
 beams, and he knew that he was in some sort 
 of a baronial hall. 
 
 The Senorita rubbed the toe of her shoe upon 
 the floor. "This is where we used to dance," 
 she told him. He thought of the naive remini- 
 scent delight of a country lass pointing out the 
 barn that had been used for a ball-room. He 
 nodded, and looked about him. Far away he 
 saw a slender girl in white and a young fellow 
 with a lamp. Shifting his gaze, he saw another 
 far-away slender girl and young fellow. And 
 at every angle, there they were again. The 
 reflections were in mirrors, very long and heavily
 
 118 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 framed. The hugely shrouded bulk of cluster- 
 ing candelabra hung from the centre beam 
 overhead. Where they used to dance! This 
 was a throne room. It was the throne room of 
 the Augustias; but ransacked, dismantled, pil- 
 laged, in the vandal search for an elusive 
 treasure. 
 
 "Now then, v said the girl, "to find that 
 wonderful chart." 
 
 "Senorita, you do not really mean 
 
 "Oh, but I do, though." She laughed at 
 the importance he attached to it. She was 
 elfin-like, chirruping, enraptured over their 
 enterprise. 
 
 She went down the room, counting off the 
 long mirrors. Before one she stopped, beckoned 
 to Derringer, and pulled the base of the heavy 
 gilt frame from the wall. Derringer at her 
 command held it so, and she darted behind, 
 drew out some loosened nails from the planking 
 of the mirror, and pried back one of the boards. 
 She gave a little cry of satisfaction as a 
 scrap of paper went fluttering to the floor. 
 Since long before she was born, she told Der-
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 119 
 
 ringer, that paper had lain between the glass 
 and planking of the mirror. Derringer was 
 intent on the yellowed scrap in his hand. 
 If a chart at all, it was no more than a 
 fourth of one, the upper right-hand corner torn 
 off the original sheet. At the top was written: 
 Memo, de B. B. There were also lines or 
 tracings, but these broke off at the ragged edges 
 of the paper. 
 
 She enjoyed his perplexity. "Do you know 
 where in all the universe those broken lines 
 jump off to?" she asked. No, of course he 
 did not. 'Yet,'* she said, "it is only a question 
 of exact information, as you would know if you 
 had ever been 'finished 5 by a young ladies' 
 school near Boston. To be quite exact, we 
 will count three. There," and at the third 
 mirror beyond she stopped again. 
 
 "Of course," said Derringer, "if one mirror 
 holds one scrap of paper, another mirror 
 might hold another scrap. It is only a question 
 of probabilities, Miss Bess, as you would readily 
 grasp if you had ever been finished at 
 poker."
 
 120 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Do you think you are very wise?" she 
 inquired. 
 
 "Enough not to play against certainties," 
 he replied. "You knew that it was the third 
 mirror." 
 
 Thus the young scholastics, alone together, 
 dealt in converse that lighted no fires, or 
 to be as exact as Boston that fanned none into 
 perilous warmth. 
 
 As with the first scrap of paper, they brought 
 forth two more instalments, and these made 
 the chart complete. Derringer pieced the scraps 
 together, and she held the light, her eyes alive 
 with fun as she watched for each change in his 
 expression. At last he made an abrupt sound 
 between a snort and a chuckle. He had 
 expected cryptic convolutions worthy of a Poe. 
 Here was only a square and an X and two key 
 words: 10 varas. He appreciated the anti- 
 climax. 
 
 "There's a heap more certainty lacking," 
 he said. 
 
 "And that, sir," said she, "is why so many 
 men unearth no treasure. The square you
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 121 
 
 see there represents the wall around our 
 house." 
 
 ' Yes, but the X is outside the wall ?" 
 
 " Which," she said, "explains why they have 
 found no chest inside. But you, fortunate and 
 certain one, you will dig outside, here" she 
 laid a finger tip on the X "which is against 
 the east side wall, at a point ten varas from the 
 rear corner. And right there," she concluded 
 with the air of opening a five-cent prize box for 
 a child, "you will find all the treasure that lies 
 buried on these premises." 
 
 Derringer carefully folded the three scraps 
 of paper and handed them back to her. "Please 
 tell me why you give me this secret ?" 
 
 She smiled at his earnestness. "Why?" she 
 repeated. "Or are you quite dense? Do you 
 not want the whatever the chest contains?" 
 
 ;< You know," he said, a little impatiently, 
 "that De Marzi out there will be my shadow 
 henceforth until I dig up the chest. You are 
 calculating on that, Miss Bess, or else somebody 
 else is dense. Now suppose you tell me frankly 
 how I am to help you in all this monkey-
 
 122 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 monkey-how-many-monkeys-are-there-here busi- 
 ness?" 
 
 She considered him gravely for a moment. 
 "The swashbuckler has mentality," she mused. 
 "No, I was not mistaken." 
 
 "Miss Bess," insisted Derringer, "what am I 
 to do?" 
 
 "Nothing, and forget," she said. "Major 
 De Marzi will demand the secret of this chart. 
 Give it to him and forget." 
 
 "And you imagine that then this Major 
 fellow will annoy you no more?" She nodded. 
 "But listen," he went on, "don't you know 
 that they will kill your father as soon as this 
 money is found?" 
 
 "Oh," she laughed, "I believe you are a 
 goose." 
 
 "And cackling once saved a considerable 
 burg," he retorted. "Besides, have you any 
 right to buy off a man's annoyance so dearly, 
 supposing," he added, noting her bright red lips, 
 " that a buried chest is really the cause? Your 
 father's fortune is rather a price to pay, you 
 know. "
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 123 
 
 Again her enigmatic merriment puzzled him. 
 
 "You forget, too," he persisted, "that De 
 Marzi is not the only annoyance." 
 
 The fun died from her eyes. He had touched 
 a flaw in her merry plot. 
 
 "I know," she murmured despairingly. 
 ; 'You mean Colonel Morder." 
 
 "Oh, pshaw," cried Derringer in quick 
 sympathy, "don't mind him. If you really 
 know what you are doing though I don't 
 I can patch up your net to catch Morder too." 
 
 "Oh, how? tell me how!" 
 
 "Easy enough. You will keep the chart, 
 and give it to the Colonel himself when he 
 returns." 
 
 "Yes, but " 
 
 "De Marzi? Well, he won't be bothering 
 you. He will be too busy shadowing me." 
 
 "And you? Tell me what you will do when 
 Colonel Morder returns and possesses this 
 chart?" 
 
 "I will do this. I will then go, the very same 
 evening of the day when you give him the 
 chart, and dig at X. De Marzi will follow me,
 
 124 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 to seize the fruits of the digging at X. And 
 Morder will come independently, also to dig at 
 X." 
 
 "Splendid! Yes, yes?" 
 
 "The chest is unearthed." 
 
 She closed her eyes, saw the scene, and 
 applauded with her finger-tips. 
 
 "And they will seize the chest between them," 
 she said. 
 
 "Yes," he replied. He did not perceive the 
 reason for quite so much ecstasy. Privately 
 he resolved that neither of the scoundrels should 
 rob her. The chest itself, that was different. 
 Oh yes, he would let them have the chest.
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 
 THE following morning, while Slag and 
 Derringer were at breakfast in the 
 glass-roofed patio that was the dining- 
 room of the Hotel Bolivar, the third member of 
 the jailbreaking firm joined them in a state of 
 crusty gloom. He had just brought his train 
 from the coast, and was still in uniform. 
 
 With the future exigencies of jailbreaking 
 tactics in mind, Jenkins had contrived to get 
 himself changed from the day run to the night 
 run on his division. He made the trip down- 
 hill to Puertocito by the sea in seven, eight or 
 nine hours, according to wash-outs, govern- 
 mental interference, hot boxes, and other things. 
 After a day's lay-over at Puertocito, he climbed 
 the hill back again, in nine, eleven, or thirteen 
 hours, also according. Personally he strived 
 to arrive at the Hotel Boliver in time for 
 breakfast. 
 
 125
 
 126 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Pass that coffee-pot, Con." He flung his 
 cap on the floor, and sat down. Contortions 
 twisted his hatchet face until there came a smile 
 that was a work of art and irony. "Morder's 
 back," he observed sweetly. 
 
 Slag ripped out the oath that was to be 
 expected. "Hang you, anyway, Jenkins, ain't 
 you ever got nothin' better to do than always 
 comin' round with a frost-bitten grin, an' a 
 head-on collision up your sleeve? Why you 
 don't associate alone a while, an* make vinegar 
 o' yourself, I can't see." 
 
 "He's back, I tell you." 
 
 "Why," said Derringer, "he can't be, you 
 know; there's no boat from the States for a 
 week yet." 
 
 Jenkins struck the table palm downward, 
 and a half-dozen mistaken waiters hastened 
 toward him. 
 
 " He, Mor Here, you, I want huevos, fried 
 on both sides, sabe? And clear on away from 
 here. Morder got off my train not ten minutes 
 ago, I tell you. Landed yesterday came from 
 Haiti on the Dutch Mail."
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 127 
 
 "And he got to Haiti by a boat from Gal- 
 veston." 
 
 " 'Less he walked it." 
 
 " He can't be here," Derringer repeated, " but, 
 seeing that he is . 
 
 It was needless to project the thought in words. 
 Slag's patient and client, Don Pedro, was to 
 have been transferred from prison to hospital 
 that morning; and now here was Morder, jeal- 
 ous and suspicious of De Marzi, and certain to 
 countermand De Marzi' s orders regarding the 
 valuable prisoner. Slag later verified these fears. 
 He dragged his hulking frame up and down the 
 Paseo all morning, between the gray castellated 
 walls of the prison on one side and the low-walled 
 compound of hospital buildings on the other. Or 
 he sat on a bench under a royal palm, and read 
 Bertha M. Clay, whom he admired inordinately. 
 Yet he saw no ambulance, nor other conveyance, 
 cross the Paseo from prison to hospital. He 
 so reported at dinner, whereupon there were 
 words of a saw-edge because young Derringer 
 would not be downcast. 
 
 "I tell you, Cornelius," he pleaded, "I just
 
 128 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 can't seem to get despondent. Yes, I do try, 
 for your sake, but I can't. Didn't any carriage 
 stop at the penitentiary at all ?" 
 
 "One," said Slag. "One with our Sefiorita 
 girl and a plump lady. But what of it? Do 
 you s'pose the Senorita girl asked Morder to 
 please to change his mind?" 
 
 The young Texan stirred his black coffee 
 intently, as though it were a laboratory experi- 
 ment. Exaltation tugged at the corners of his 
 lips, and excitement in prospect distended the 
 freckled eyelids. 
 
 "Eh, Blaze Derringer," said Jenkins, "you're 
 not at church. You're at grub. Slag here 
 was asking what you reckoned, or what you 
 didn't. Now," he implored them with vast 
 leisurely sarcasm, "let's all ca'm down. This 
 here kid knows something." 
 
 "Maybe," Derringer conceded, "I know the 
 day isn't half over yet. Unless the jailbreakers' 
 union objects to a full day's work, let's send 
 Cornelius for another stroll on the Paseo this 
 afternoon. Hurry, Cornelius, it's time the 
 whistle blew."
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 129 
 
 "Go yourself," said Slag; "what are you 
 goin' to do?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Derringer cheerfully, 
 "though I might go out on the Plaza in front 
 and sit down while the fountain plays. I've 
 got some troubles that need thinking over." 
 
 Slag growled. He had finished Bertha M. 
 Clay, and he was tired of doing all the work. 
 
 "Never mind, Con," said Jenkins. "Just 
 run along and do what the little boy says." 
 
 And Slag did. Behind Jenkins's prickly sar- 
 casm there was support of Derringer, and Slag 
 instinctively trusted Jenkins's discernment. 
 
 Derringer had the afternoon to himself, and 
 he used it in the lazy way of the Tropics. He 
 found a shady bench on the Plaza, and he 
 lounged there in a watchfulness that seemed 
 drowsy meditation. A servant woman trudg- 
 ing through the Plaza with a basket of alligator 
 pears could not resist the cool spot, and she 
 seated herself on the other end of the bench. 
 After a time the murmur of the fountain and 
 the breathing of dozing Nature in the leaves 
 overhead put her to sleep. One arm lay limp
 
 130 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 across the basket, and once, when she stirred, 
 the brown wrapping paper on top was brushed 
 off and fell to the gravel walk. Her eyes opened, 
 and sighing wearily, she took up the basket 
 and shambled off. 
 
 Derringer refilled his pipe, gazing dreamily 
 at the fountain. He was taken with a notion 
 to make a sketch of that fountain. He 
 sharpened his pencil, picked up the brown 
 wrapping paper that had fallen from the woman's 
 basket, smoothed it out on his note book, touched 
 the pencil point to his tongue, and began to 
 sketch. It was necessary to scratch out a word 
 that happened to be written on the paper, but 
 he made the scratches answer as shading for 
 the base of the fountain. Perhaps the word 
 written on the paper should be mentioned. 
 
 It was: "To-night." 
 
 Derringer did not think much of his sketch. 
 He rose, yawned, tore up the sketch, and threw 
 it into the fountain. He languidly crossed 
 over to the cafe of the hotel, and had an iced 
 sangria. 
 
 Cornelius Slag, in a medley of bewilderment
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 131 
 
 and jubilance, found him there. With him 
 was Jenkins. 
 
 "I'm not understandin' it at all," said Slag. 
 "First, how she coaxed Morder, if it was her, 
 an' second, how you was so sure she would. 
 What's behind this, Blazer? What do you 
 know, anyhow?" 
 
 Derringer knew that Bess must have given 
 Morder the original chart to the hidden chest, 
 and that the chart had likely availed as coaxing 
 for Morder. But he said : 
 
 "Suppose you tell us what all this is that 
 Morder has been doing?" 
 
 " They must 'a' been a regiment of 'em." 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " Of them tin soldiers to escort the ambulance 
 across the Paseo from the pen to the hospittle. 
 Sick or well or locked up, they're sure skairt o' 
 Don Pedro. This here case," declared Mr* 
 Slag, " is going to make my rep." 
 
 "Or truncate your career," added Derringer. 
 " How long are ten varas?" 
 
 "About as many yards. Why?" 
 
 "Because," said Derringer, "you go ten
 
 132 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 varas, and that's where you dig for the ambrosial 
 cash." 
 
 Then he had to explain how he came to 
 possess the secret of the buried treasure. They 
 were two dumfounded Americans who heard 
 him. 
 
 "But," protested Jenkins, "supposing we do 
 dig it up, it ain't ours and it wouldn't be square 
 to - - " 
 
 "Don't matter a pewee," cried Slag. "Just 
 let us git holt on it once, an' it's security for our 
 pay." 
 
 "I think," said Derringer, "that we will 
 probably give it back to Don Pedro's daugh- 
 ter." 
 
 They had to wait on Slag's profanity. 
 t "Oh, very well," said Derringer, "then we 
 won't dig it up." 
 
 " We won't, hey ? Oh, won't we ? Oh, we'll 
 let Morder do it, eh ? If our Senorita girl loses 
 her money, how's she goin' to pay us for freein' 
 her dad?" 
 
 "Exactly what I was thinking." 
 
 "We got to save it for her, that's a cinch."
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 133 
 
 "Of course," said Derringer. 
 
 They had to go that very night. The one 
 word on the brown wrapping paper made that 
 plain. Morder had the chart, and Morder 
 would profit by the first hour of darkness to 
 possess the buried chest. Also there was Major 
 De Marzi. The reckless De Marzi, knowing 
 that Derringer had the secret, would not be 
 far behind. Prospects were fair for a three- 
 cornered excavation and a three-cornered clash. 
 Jenkins grew more and more crusty. He had 
 to take his train down the hill, and so would 
 be among those not present. 
 
 It was dusk when Slag and Derringer left 
 the hotel after an early supper. As they passed 
 the cafe, out stepped Major De Marzi, his sabre 
 pounding against his leg. He made no secret 
 of his purpose to follow them. Derringer 
 turned, and called to him cordially to come along. 
 The young South American accepted, and Slag 
 grumbled blasphemy. Derringer was untroubled. 
 He and De Marzi locked arms as boon com- 
 panions and swashbucklers might, and minded 
 peevish old Slag not at all. Where the walk
 
 134 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 became narrow, Slag had to fall behind, and he 
 muttered and spluttered all the way. 
 
 Darkness was thickening over the cactus plain 
 off toward the mountains when they gained 
 the Paseo. At the vacant space next the Don 
 Pedro gardens Derringer halted. 
 
 "I'm afraid, Major," he said, "you will have 
 to show us the way now." 
 
 "I, amigo?" De Marzi laughed. "By 
 Jurge, if I know the way, you theenk I wait for 
 you ? Why you delay ?" 
 
 Derringer waved a hand over the cacti. " Too 
 many thorns." 
 
 "u4i, you find them in Sylvanlitlan then." 
 
 Derringer chided him. "Major, you are too 
 obvious. Do you think we are a costume 
 play?" 
 
 "I not understan' what you mean, but it is 
 all ri'." He unsheathed the sabre. "The 
 sword for thorns. So so so ! " 
 
 The spiny brush fell before him, and the two 
 Americans followed in his wake. 
 
 "How far, mi capitan?" De Marzi called 
 over his shoulder.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 135 
 
 "The length of Don Pedro's side wall here. 
 Then to your left, and the length of his back 
 wall." 
 
 "Ai de mi!" panted De Marzi. Yet, as 
 he would not trust his sword out of his hands, 
 he had to cut the swath the entire distance. 
 Slag ceased grumbling to chuckle, and patted 
 Derringer on the back. 
 
 The far-spreading trees in the garden brushed 
 the top of the wall and rustled their leaves over- 
 head. The desolate plain behind had lost its 
 hue of dull purple, and under the branches it 
 was night. They reached the far corner of 
 the rear wall, and stopped. Slag breathed 
 heavily, his great fingers clutching and opening. 
 De Marzi, dripping perspiraton, wet his lips 
 with his tongue. The virus of gold-lust was 
 in their veins. They waited greedily on Der- 
 ringer. 
 
 ; ' Where did the sun go down?" asked Der- 
 ringer. 
 
 They thought this persiflage, and said so. 
 
 "All right, then, whenever you're ready to 
 go back ...
 
 136 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Aw," said Slag, "it went down over yonder, 
 see ? An' it's a pleasant day, an' 
 
 "And we're on the rear east corner, and all 
 you have to do is count off ten varas along the 
 side wall from the corner." 
 
 They had forgotten to bring a rule, but De 
 Marzi remembered that his sabre blade was a 
 vara and a fifth. It had been measured once 
 by an opponent's seconds. He used it now for 
 a rule, and thrust it in the ground to mark the 
 spot. 
 
 "Presto," he cried. "I wield the sword. 
 Who now the shovel wields ?" 
 
 " Or men ? " added Derringer " if you must 
 be obvious. Con, step along near the wall, 
 until you stumble on your face. That will 
 probably be the pick and shovel she said she 
 would have thrown over for us." 
 
 Slag found the tools, and he and De Marzi 
 were soon plying them like hungry grave diggers. 
 Derringer stood with hands in pockets, and 
 thought of the fun there would be presently. 
 Morder might come at any moment, though 
 very likely he was waiting for the moon.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 137 
 
 A dull sound, a thump, rose from the exca- 
 vation. 
 
 " Wow, my head, you Dago!" 
 
 "And my head, ou-ou! But wait. I keel 
 you in one moment." 
 
 They had ceased digging and dropped on 
 their knees. And groping in the fresh earth, 
 they had bumped heads. But they touched 
 never a chest of buried treasure. 
 
 "Here," said Derringer, "is this a prayer 
 meeting, or what ? Why don't you dig ? " 
 
 They dug and the moon was rising. They 
 perceived that it was the bared foundation of 
 the wall which they had struck and thought to 
 be the chest. Suddenly De Marzi turned on 
 Derringer, throwing down his shovel. 
 
 " I have observe' no chart. You do not deeg. 
 You stan' and laugh at us, by Jurge. Mr. 
 How-you-call-him Slag we hang him, you 
 and me. We do the laugh. Come, Mr. Slag! " 
 
 Slag flung down the pick, and glared ques- 
 tioningly at Derringer. 
 
 "Perhaps," said Derringer, "if you'd cut 
 under the wall, you might What Major, you
 
 138 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 want to dig too, eh ? Well, well, well, the hang- 
 ing can wait." 
 
 Still, if they found no chest, here was a mess 
 for Derringer, and the lass in the big house on 
 the other side of the wall to thank for it. He 
 recalled again that she had warned him to forget 
 the affair at once. There was also her merri- 
 ment over the idea of revealing the secret to De 
 Marzi and Morder. What if there were no 
 chest ? 
 
 " Struck wood ! " grunted Slag. 
 
 " Queek, queek ! " cried De Marzi. 
 
 A moonbeam slanting obliquely touched the 
 end of the pick handle. It was quivering 
 violently, and the point of the tool, somewhere 
 in the depth of the pit, had held fast. Slag 
 wrenched it loose, and brought forth rotted 
 splinters. 
 
 "A coffin, or box, or somethin'. Here, let me 
 
 " He brushed De Marzi aside, and swung 
 
 the pick with explosive grunts, as furiously 
 excited as a terrier at a rat hole. De Marzi, 
 like another terrier, darted back and forth along 
 the brink of the pit, peering into it.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 139 
 
 "From under the wall, si, si!" he cried, 
 reverting to Spanish. "The strong chest of the 
 Augustias it is. It holds the Hacienda Nar- 
 cisa, sold by Don Pedro for two million bolivars. 
 And the Guiana Gold Mines, seven more mil- 
 lions. Ai, ai, Madre de Dios, and the Narcisa 
 and the Guiana are in that chest! Queek, oh, 
 queek, senor, I no can wait! Ai, ai, now I go 
 to Pa-rees. I buy Pa-rees. Oh, will you be 
 queek, senor?" 
 
 'Yes, hurry," said Derringer. "He will 
 need the money." 
 
 The young Texan drawled because he, also, 
 was excited. If the millions were there, then 
 he had a ravenous South American hot-blood 
 to disappoint, and therefore to fight. 
 
 On knees and head in the pit, Slag tugged and 
 sweated. He struggled to his feet with a weight 
 between his hands. "There," and he dropped 
 a great chest on the sod. 
 
 With a cry, De Marzi leaped on the chest, 
 and Slag threw his arms about it as about the 
 coffin of his child. 
 
 "Here, here," said Derringer, "we can't open
 
 140 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 her that way, you know. Let go, Con. Hop 
 off, Major." 
 
 The Major instead kicked a spurred heel at 
 Slag's face, and Slag wrapped an arm around 
 the Major's knees. When the Major hurtled 
 his length on the ground, Slag climbed out of 
 the hole and sat on him. 
 
 " That's just as well," said Derringer. " Hold 
 him!" 
 
 The jailbreaker snatched at elusive hands 
 that clawed. "'Bout as lief hold a bobcat," 
 he sputtered. 
 
 "You've got to hold him, Con." 
 
 "Aw, I just dearly love to, the precious lamb. 
 Ouch! For the love o' Moses, Blaze, hurry 
 up!" 
 
 Derringer was hurrying. He had not forgotten 
 the imminence of Morder. The chest was of 
 thick cedar heart, iron bound. But the lid gave 
 like pulp under a blow of the pick. He thrust 
 his fingers inside. 
 
 "What's " Slag warded off the flaying 
 arms. " What's in it, Blaze ? gold or 
 what?"
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 141 
 
 "No, it's paper." 
 
 " Money ? You mean it's money ? " 
 
 Kneeling where a moonbeam struck, Der- 
 ringer was thumbing through a limp packet of 
 notes. The moon lighted a recurring large 
 denomination. 
 
 "Only hundred-dollar bills, Con." 
 
 " Hundered oh, Gawd A'mighty, whoop- 
 ee!" 
 
 Under Slag the South American was gurgling. 
 Words bubbled to the surf ace . . . "Pa-rees 
 . . . Par-ees! . . . Ai, I buy Pa-rees! 
 . . . I buy her, hundred-dollar bills . . . 
 The favour ... let me rise . . . queek 
 . . . queek!" 
 
 Derringer bent close to the top note of the 
 packet. He was puzzled, and lighted a match 
 under his hat. Abruptly something made him 
 choke, then chuckle, then laugh, much as the 
 Senorita had laughed. He rummaged through 
 other packets. They confirmed his mirth, and 
 he tossed them back into the chest. He rose, 
 and laid a hand on Slag's shoulder. 
 
 "Well, old top," he said, "let's be going."
 
 142 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 From a little distance came a crashing sound 
 like a bull in the cacti. 
 
 "Hurry, will you? There's Morder!" 
 
 " You got the money ? " 
 
 Derringer laughed, and whispered in Slag's 
 ear, and Slag lost the power of comment. He 
 scrambled dazedly to his feet, pushed by Der- 
 ringer, and sped swiftly around the corner of 
 the wall. Off to one side a large man was 
 breaking through the brush. 
 
 De Marzi, left alone, was getting to his feet. 
 He had had no intimation that Morder was to 
 make one of the party. He caught up his sabre, 
 and stood by the treasure to meet the newcomer. 
 
 Derringer could not resist stopping to peep 
 around the corner of the wall. He beheld two 
 shadowy figures circling warily, and lunging 
 and slashing in the full clang of combat. The 
 impulse was on him to save both their pelts by 
 telling them what fools they were. But Morder 
 would take him in charge, and end his chance 
 of helping the Senorita. Reluctantly he left 
 them. "Oh, well," he thought, "they are enjoy- 
 ing it."
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 143 
 
 On the Paseo Slag was waiting for him. 
 
 "Now, say that again," demanded Slag, 
 "that what you were saying." 
 
 Derringer handed him a packet of the hundred- 
 dollar bills, which he had kept for a sample. 
 
 Slag hurried to the first electric light, and 
 scanned the top bill. He began to scowl. 
 All the bills were the same. The scowl deep- 
 ened. He put his hand vaguely to his head as 
 though he were sick. Three times he opened 
 his mouth to speak, and Derringer expected the 
 blasphemous torrent. But suddenly his jaws 
 clamped tight. And he thrust the clenched 
 fist holding the bills in his pocket, and started 
 off at tremendous strides. 
 
 "Cornelius," protested Derringer, trotting to 
 keep up, "you don't understand, old top, what 
 fine money it really is, you know; it's the first 
 money I've seen that I can't spend." 
 
 The jailbreaker halted. He jerked out the 
 crumpled bills, and ran a stubby finger under 
 certain words thereon. His jaws worked, though 
 he said nothing. The words underlined by 
 the stubby index were :
 
 144 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "The Confederate States of America will pay 
 to the bearer on demand . . . 
 
 Once, twice, three times, Slag's mouth 
 opened. The fourth time he succeeded. "Oh, 
 hell!"
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 
 THE daughter of Don Pedro sat perched 
 in a tree of her father's gardens watch- 
 ing two military gentlemen fight with 
 sabres by moonlight. 
 
 The combatants did not know that the lady 
 was there, yet there she was, and had been for 
 some time. She was clothed in black, and the 
 foliage screened her besides. The tree grew 
 near the wall, and the limb she had chosen 
 enabled her to observe unseen all that went on 
 beneath her outside the wall. 
 
 She had already witnessed, and with mirth 
 hardly suppressed, the unearthing of a buried 
 chest, followed by the departure of two of 
 the argonauts. After which, with shudder ing 
 expectancy, she beheld the apparition of a 
 new arrival, who had straightway engaged the 
 remaining treasure-seeker. And now they were 
 at it, as noisy as a tin shop. 
 
 US
 
 146 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 As she hardly knew how to make them stop, 
 she screamed. She had to do it again, and 
 very angrily, too. 
 
 "Hold, my Colonel," panted one of the 
 swordsmen. "I [thought I heard " 
 
 The Colonel parried a devil's own stroke for 
 the head. "So did I hold!" He was a 
 ponderous man, and under stress of exertion 
 his words came by jerks, like Percherons heav- 
 ing against a mired load. "Hold, you imp of 
 fire and pepper ! Now hark ! ' ' 
 
 A clear voice, as of the Dryad of the tree, was 
 floating down to them. "Must I, senores, 
 must I scream again ?" 
 
 They fell apart, lowering their points, and 
 gazed upward into the density of leaves. The 
 Colonel's antagonist flung wide his arms in a 
 pagan gesture of worship. "No," he mur- 
 mured, "no, I cannot be mistaken, and yet 
 'tis very strange I seem to hear no rustling 
 of wings." 
 
 "Major De Marzi!" The seraphic voice 
 reproved him as primly as a schoolmarm's. 
 "You are fighting again, Major De Marzi!
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 147 
 
 And you, Colonel Morder ? " The voice wavered 
 in dread. "And you " 
 
 "And I, Senorita, I crave pardon and an 
 indulgence." The Colonel's voice now was 
 deep and velvety. "Be so kind as to consider 
 that I am under the necessity of killing this 
 presumptuous young man." 
 
 "Aye, dear lady," hotly cried De Marzi, 
 "kindly consent, for his necessity is very press- 
 ing." 
 
 The invisible dear lady said, "Oh, dear me!'* 
 and was impatient with them. Why should 
 they fight at all ? 
 
 'You must know, Senorita, quite well," 
 replied Morder. "This morning you gave me 
 a chart for finding a buried chest " 
 
 " Oh ho ! " ejaculated De Marzi. 
 
 "And I arrive," said Morder, "to discover 
 this boy here already. How he knew the hid- 
 ing place is a mystery, and his misfortune. 
 He would tell the Presidente that I have 
 the chest. Therefore " Morder shrugged 
 resignedly. "I must kill him. My regrets, 
 Senorita."
 
 148 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "You see," said De Marzi, "so please go 
 away.'* 
 
 "No," said the practical girl, "'tis both of 
 you who fail to see. You forget that the dead 
 body of one will betray the other." 
 
 "H'm, how, Sefiorita?" 
 
 "First," she patiently explained, "there are 
 your tracks. Any police officer could find 
 them, and then he will find not only the body, 
 but that hole you have dug. Second, picture 
 to yourselves your Presidente. 'The Augustias 
 treasure was in that hole,' says your Presidente, 
 * and the survivor has taken the treasure.' He 
 will be very desirous to identify that survivor, 
 will he not, senores ? " 
 
 "Peste!" exclaimed D e Marzi. 
 
 "But, Senorita," asked Morder softly, "who 
 will name the survivor to him ? " 
 
 "I will," said the girl, "when he comes to 
 question us here." 
 
 The two men looked at one another. De 
 Marzi sighed regretfully. Morder flung out his 
 palms in surrender. 
 
 "Your dear lady has us," he said.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 149 
 
 "Patience, my Colonel; if I can wait, you 
 can also." 
 
 } "Thank you, young sire, that is a promise. 
 Besides," said Morder, "the chest is heavy. 
 The favour to lend a hand." 
 
 "And, senores," the daughter of Don Pedro 
 mockingly called after them from her tree-top, 
 "endeavour to feel a little sorry for the girl you 
 have despoiled." 
 
 Through the outer portal of the bleak pene- 
 tentiary, across a courtyard, and into the office 
 of the comandante, the two military gentlemen 
 carried their burden of Confederate money for 
 equal division. 
 
 So, a second time that night, they took their 
 medicine from the girl in the tree. 
 
 Yet, through their rage and chagrin they 
 saw that, except for her, both must have lost 
 their lives for this trash. 
 
 But on her own account, where lay the motive 
 of the hoax? They thought that out also, or 
 thought they did. 
 
 She had given each of them a secret to hold 
 over the other, since each, to the other's know-
 
 150 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 ledge, had tried to steal treasure confiscated by 
 the government. 
 
 And this secret she held over them both. 
 
 They appreciated that there was medicine left 
 in the bottle.
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 SLAG was for taking the next train and 
 boat off the continent. The jailbreak- 
 ing enterprise had lost its glamour. He 
 was telling all about it at breakfast on Jenkins's 
 return. 
 
 "If that there's the breed an* colour an' date 
 o' their money," said he, smashing an open palm 
 on a vain C. S. A. promise to pay one hundred 
 dollars, "then you can photograph right here one 
 rough neck that ain't p'posin' to risk itself an- 
 other step." 
 
 "Necks don't step, Cornelius," said Der- 
 ringer. "They're stepped on." 
 
 ' ' Aw, shut up ! Why don't you say somethin', 
 Jenkins ? Ain't I right ? Ain't I ? " 
 
 One by one the astringent lines of Jenkins's 
 morose countenance had been relaxing, and at 
 his mouth a gap opened that looked like a 
 disreputable and jocose dent in the edge of a 
 
 151
 
 152 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 hatchet. Jenkins was grinning! Some one else 
 had gathered up the burden of gloom required 
 to balance a light-headed universe, and Jenkins 
 was taking a rest. 
 
 "Careful not to spill over, Slag," he cautioned, 
 "or you'll burn a hole in the table cloth. No, 
 don't bother me for a minute. This is serious. 
 It's the first funny thing that's ever happened, 
 and I don't quite know how to act." He 
 caught a view of Slag's fury, and he leaned his 
 pompadour on his hand, and they beheld the 
 silent convulsions of a strong man who has 
 broken over at last. When he raised his head, 
 there were tears bowling over the end of 
 his Roman nose. "Lord, Lord," he moaned 
 weakly, "ain't there something I can do for this ? 
 Blaze, get me to a funeral quick, or I'll 
 I'll- -" 
 
 "Shut up, you overbiled, cacklin', gibberin' 
 body-snatcher," roared Slag. "My hand is 
 back in the discard, that's all / got to say. 
 Save me a bunk on them toy steam cars o* 
 your'n to-night, you slab-headed, cracked an* 
 crumblin' tombstone imitation of a "
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 153 
 
 "Don't, Con, don't! Can't you see I'm 
 expiring rapid, and I ain't finished breakfast 
 yet ? Seems to me you two might have broken 
 this more easy-like." 
 
 Slag jumped up. They pulled him back 
 into his chair. 
 
 "Now tell us where it hurts," pleaded Jenkins. 
 "Tell old Jenksie where it hurts." 
 
 Slag told him. He wasn't going to get any 
 would-have-been em'prer out of the pen an* 
 be paid for it in Confederate money. He was 
 through. Con Slag was through. 
 
 'You listen here, old top," said Derringer. 
 "Say you have peanuts in one pocket. Is that 
 any sign you haven't gum drops in the other 
 pocket? Answer me." 
 
 "Aw, cut that out. You're workin* onto 
 one o' your batty streaks." 
 
 "Wait. We will now simplify. You see, 
 Cornelius, it's this way. You find anachro- 
 nistic currency in one chest. Hence there is no 
 current currency in any chest. Q. E. D." 
 
 "I ain't seen any real money yet." 
 
 "No, and you haven't earned any yet. When
 
 154 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 you do, maybe you can bear the sight of it 
 without hurting your eyes." 
 
 "The question," exploded Slag with finality, 
 "is just here " He made the table hop under 
 his hairy fist. "How do we know any real 
 money is comin' to us?" 
 
 "How did we know it before ?" 
 
 "We didn't. Oh, Jumpin' Joseph, what's 
 the use o' pushin' idears at such a flare-top? 
 They sizzle up before they git on in. 'Nough 
 said. I quit, see ?" 
 
 "No, you don't," said Jenkins soberly. "It 
 ain't square, leaving an old man in a hospital 
 any such way." 
 
 "No," said Derringer, "and it's not ethical. 
 You'll be disbarred." 
 
 But Slag was resolved. They could see that 
 
 now. 
 ft 
 
 I quit," he shouted. "Q, u, i, double t, 
 quit!" 
 
 Derringer's expression changed. "You don't 
 quit." 
 
 "Oh, don't I? Who, for the love o' babies, 
 are you ? Why don't I ? Say, why don't I ? "
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 155 
 
 "Because," said Derringer. He was writing 
 in his note book. "Just because." He tore 
 out the leaf, and handed it to Slag. The jail- 
 breaker read : 
 
 "On demand, after inheriting from my father 
 or otherwise coming into property, I promise to 
 pay to Cornelius Slag all or any part of the sum 
 of $33,333.33 not paid to him by Pedro de Las 
 Augustias for services rendered in procuring 
 the release from his present imprisonment of 
 the said Don Pedro. This note of hand is 
 void until the above mentioned services are 
 duly performed. 
 
 "EDWARD DERRINGER." 
 
 The young Texan's freckled eyelids were 
 distending slowly. "I knocked off a third of a 
 cent," he mentioned, quick and sharp. "Do 
 you want that on tooP" 
 
 Slag knew quite well who Derringer was. 
 He knew the youngster's certain prospects, and 
 all that, but when a man chums around with 
 a King or a Pope or a City Editor, the identity 
 with power gets lost somehow in the human 
 being. Slag now regarded his companion with 
 other eyes. He had much to do to connect the
 
 156 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 democratic little red-headed spendthrift with that 
 considerable dot on the map of Texas signifying 
 the Derringer acres. 
 
 "Aw, Blaze," he protested, "I wasn't meanin' 
 nothin' like this. Aw," he added with dig- 
 nity, getting his terms mixed, "I don't ask for 
 retainer fees." 
 
 "You sickly sport," observed Derringer, 
 "keep it just the same. Call it a contract, 
 if you wish. Only understand this, you're 
 working for me now, and I want action. You 
 get that, don't you?" 
 
 Slag whistled softly. Here was talk that 
 went with the Derringer acres. Obediently he 
 pocketed the note. 
 
 Jenkins stirred. He was looking intently at 
 the young Texan. 
 
 "Thirty-three thousand and some odd, that's 
 a heap of money," he mused aloud. "I say, 
 Blaze, is it an investment, or a speculation, or 
 a a valentine ? " 
 
 Derringer reddened uncomfortably. Possi- 
 bly it was the first time he had reddened uncom- 
 fortably.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 157 
 
 "Which is it, Blaze?" pursued the relentless 
 Jenkins. 
 
 'You finish your breakfast," snapped Der- 
 ringer. 
 
 His face clouded. "Besides," he added, "I've 
 got more to say to Slag. Let's go up to my room." 
 In his room, with the doors closed, he went on: 
 "Suppose Morder thinks like Slag does, that Don 
 Pedro's fortune is spurious. Then Morder can't 
 have any further interest in prolonging Don Pe- 
 dro's life, can he ? Well, well, somebody answer." 
 
 No one spoke. Jenkins was glum again. 
 Slag frowned helplessly. 
 
 "Look here, Con," said Derringer, his eyes 
 ablaze, "what's the matter with getting him 
 out to-night?" 
 
 "Oh, all right," sneered Slag, "or step down 
 an' buy a cigar, or any other little thing." 
 
 "We can't wait, I tell you." 
 
 "W r e got to, that's all. W T e got to wait till 
 Captain Blackburn pulls into Puertocito with 
 his boat. Don't we, Jenks?" 
 
 "She's due Thursday," said Jenkins, "and 
 sails Friday. That's five days yet."
 
 158 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Then," announced Slag, "we'll get his nibs 
 out Thursday night. An' we've got to hustle. 
 You two seem to think jailbreaking is just 
 casual-like, but by " 
 
 "What's there to do?" 
 
 "Take a walk." 
 
 Whereupon Slag and Derringer set out for 
 a walk, and Jenkins retired for his day's sleep. 
 
 The jailbreakers bent their stroll into a narrow 
 street lined with little retail shops. Now and then 
 they paused to look in the windows. They came 
 to one window that was really a dike holding 
 back an overflow of junk. There were bicycles, 
 old and new, and parts of bicycles, and tires, and 
 pumps for tires, and lamps, oil cans, shoes, 
 sweaters, caps, and nearly everything else per- 
 taining to the lost craze of cycling. The jail- 
 breaker was strangely interested. 
 
 "Let's pasear in here a minute," he said, 
 and went on in. Derringer followed him, won- 
 dering. 
 
 The shop was as the window. Bicycles, 
 dismantled and assembled, rusted and tarnished, 
 were piled in a jumble on the floor, were hanging
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 159 
 
 on the walls by nails, were dangling from the 
 ceiling. There was even one with two seats, 
 a tandem imported in the rash expectation of 
 a public demand that never materialized. Slag 
 gazed at it like a haberdashery drummer 
 contemplating a suit of Fourteenth Century 
 armour. 
 
 The native who sold bicycles, when he could, 
 and repaired them, possibly, happened to 
 gravitate their way. He was not to be decoyed 
 into a recrudescence of hope concerning tandems. 
 Slag indulged him in this view. 
 
 "I don't want anything, sake?" said the 
 jailbreaker in the language of the country. 
 "But this senorhere," indicating Derringer, " he 
 thinks he wants to start an American bicycle 
 agency, sabe? Bad business, eh?" 
 
 Derringer did not know that he wanted to 
 start anything of the kind, but he took Slag's 
 word for it, and looked prospective and capital- 
 istic. The native only looked bored before the 
 vision of competition and rum. 
 
 "Want to sell out?" demanded Slag. 
 
 Whatever all this had to do with jailbreaking
 
 160 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 was not apparent. But Derringer piped up 
 and said: "Well, how much?" 
 
 The native would take ten thousand bolivars. 
 That was to see whether they meant it. Slag 
 offered him one hundred. That was repartee. 
 There followed an eddying of figures, and at 
 last the diverging numerals coalesced, and the 
 deal was closed. The bewildered native took 
 his coat and hat, that being suggested to him 
 as the next formality, and left them in possession. 
 Derringer, hands on hips, hat on the back of 
 his head, gazed from littered floor to garnished 
 ceiling, from one junk-festooned wall to the 
 other. 
 
 "I s'posed," murmured Slag, "that as you 
 liked blowin' in money so well " 
 
 "Right you are, Cornelius," said Derringer, 
 "and I was just wondering why I'd never 
 thought to go in for scrap heaps before. But 
 what's it for? What do we do with it ?" 
 
 Slag pointed to the tandem. "That's the 
 velocipede we want." 
 
 "Bought the whole shop for that?" 
 
 The jailbreaker leered his craftiest, as was
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 161 
 
 usual when he thought himself very deep and 
 professional. "C'rect," said he. "The shop 
 will explain why you ride the tandem." 
 
 "Oh, I ride the tandem, do I?" 
 
 "Why not? Don't you want an excuse to 
 wear them dude golf clothes you got ? What 
 else was golf an' bisackles invented for?" 
 
 "Who do I ride with?" 
 
 Slag grinned. "I'm scared it'll have to be 
 poor old Jenks." 
 
 "But," said Derringer, "I don't seem to 
 want to ride bicycles very much." 
 
 Again Slag leered with enormous complacency. 
 "Still, you got to advertise, ain't you? You 
 got to get these Dagoes to thinkin' they must 
 have tandems an' such, or you cain't sell none. 
 Cain't you rec'lect you've come down here to 
 go into the bisackle business?" 
 
 "Maybe I can with practice. But what are 
 you down here for?" 
 
 "Me? Oh, I'm your mechanic. I do the 
 repairin'." 
 
 "For $33,333.33! You come high, Con. 
 The business won't stand it. I'll have to fire
 
 162 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 you, and keep an open shop. Do I get any 
 more instalments just now as to what's stewing 
 behind that furrowed brow?'* 
 
 Slag shook his head. 
 
 "All right, then. Suppose we go back and 
 celebrate on a creme de menthe. I never owned 
 a menagerie of wheels before, you know."
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 ED UARD DERRINGER Bicecletas 
 Americanas was glad that his incep- 
 tion into the retail trade of Sylvanlitlan 
 was not tinged with permanence. He had to 
 promise so very much. Otherwise, the novelty 
 of it was not distressing. But to linger till 
 the promises fell due were ruinous extrava- 
 gance. 
 
 Coyotes require no messenger boy in brass 
 buttons to inform them when a fresh beef has 
 dropped behind the herd. 
 
 The news did not spread. It fell broadcast 
 like a grateful shower, and the thirsting knew 
 that a capitalista Americano was among them. 
 The swooping down of the harpies began when 
 a day or so later Derringer and Slag were putting 
 up their new sign. Came their landlord, dingy 
 and obsequious. There had been certain 
 lamentable arrears in the rent, senores. The 
 
 163
 
 164 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 stock in the shop was the only security the poor 
 man had. Regrets harassed him, but Don 
 Eduardo, would he 
 
 "Tell him the first of the month," said Slag 
 through a mouthful of nails. 
 
 So Don Eduardo told him the first of the 
 month. 
 
 A government clerk, in a black frock coat 
 turning green that revealed a brass collar button 
 at the back of the neck, tiptoed in and softly 
 proclaimed that he strived to please. He had 
 Lptoed over from the Jefetura de Hacienda 
 regarding the transfer of the lease to Don 
 Eduardo, which had to be written out on 
 stamped paper. The stamped paper cost five 
 bolivars a sheet, and as the clerk wrote a large, 
 careful hand, the document required ten sheets. 
 
 "Save my child!" Slag ejaculated; "that's 
 ten dollars! Tell him to lock it up in the vault 
 till the first." 
 
 Likewise there was a city official collecting 
 merchants' licenses. Also a tax collector. Also 
 a collector for the government concession of 
 municipal lighting. Derringer looked in vain
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 165 
 
 for any token of municipal lighting in the shop. 
 That, explained the collector, was the occupant's 
 neglect. If everybody did not pay who did not 
 have lighting, the government concession of 
 municipal lighting would have no money to 
 spare for lighting those who did want light, 
 so 
 
 "The favour to explain that all over again 
 the first of the month," interposed Don Eduardo. 
 
 With practice the Americans became adept. 
 After a little they could take a new one on every 
 five minutes. Once they did it in a minute and 
 a half. However, that was on a cash basis, four 
 centavos, to a beggar with palsy and govern- 
 ment monopoly matches. They never bettered 
 this record, unless one counts the mangy dog 
 of a vendor of State Lottery tickets that nipped 
 Mr. Slag on the leg. The animal was immedi- 
 ately catapulted across the narrow street through 
 the door of an ice-cream parlour. 
 
 "I think," said Derringer consolingly, %< that 
 Don Pedro is bound to appreciate all this expert 
 jailbreaking on his account." 
 
 A woman holding a soft warm bundle to her
 
 166 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 breast paused to watch the hanging of the 
 sign. The soft bundle was a baby, and the 
 baby and the woman's head and shoulders 
 were closely swathed in a rust-coloured rebosa. 
 So much of the baby was seen as a little round 
 patch of olive face. The woman's face might 
 hardly be seen at all. As the native women do 
 when they have a cold, she held the rebosa over 
 her mouth and nose, letting one end hang over 
 her shoulder. Without a word she passed on 
 into the shop. 
 
 "Well," said Slag, "what do you reckon 
 she wants? A bisackle?" 
 
 They found her wandering around in the back 
 of the shop. 
 
 "Here," said Slag, "que quiere? What are 
 you up to?" 
 
 She was slight, and stooped, and frail, and 
 at the gruff demand she commenced to cough. 
 
 "Caridad," she said plaintively, holding out 
 a hand. 
 
 "Charity, eh?" grumbled Slag. "All right, 
 gimme ten cents." 
 
 Derringer stared an instant at the woman's
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 167 
 
 hand. Then quickly he closed and locked the 
 front door, and hung out the "Back in Five 
 Minutes" placard. As he hurried back she 
 was saying, "Si, senor, caridad"; whereupon 
 she lifted her eyes from the babe, and looked 
 steadily for a moment at Derringer. The eyes 
 were piteous, tragic, and her brow was as white 
 as a nun's. Derringer caught up a chair and 
 placed it for her, and stood on one foot and the 
 other, trying to think of what else he might do. 
 Something those eyes, perhaps had made 
 a pin cushion of his heart. 
 
 "Miss Bess," he stammered. "Miss Bess!" 
 
 Seated there, half trembling, she stroked the 
 baby's head. " Poor little thing," she murmured, 
 "I borrowed him from my maid. Oh, I 
 had to come ! My poor father " 
 
 Among oil cans and wrenches, caressing a 
 servant's child, the daughter of an imperial 
 line was pleading with a jailbreaker for the 
 charity of deeds. Rough old Slag, such as he 
 was, was her final hope. 
 
 "Yes, Miss Bess," he urged her dumbly. 
 "Your father, you was sayin' "
 
 168 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 'Yes, yes, listen. My father has to take 
 their medicines. They watch him while he 
 swallows the stuff, and he cannot refuse. And 
 the the medicines are they are different. 
 They " she shuddered " they make him 
 delirious." 
 
 "But " 
 
 "Wait, please. This morning, for the first 
 time since Colonel Morder's return, they let 
 me see my father, and he told me that last 
 night he lost consciousness again from their 
 their drugs. He knew that he talked out of his 
 head. And when he he recovered, Colonel 
 Morder was sitting beside his cot, listening, 
 straining to hear every word my poor father 
 uttered." 
 
 "He's one devil, that man!" roared Slag. 
 "Of course, ma'am, he's only after learnin' 
 where your pa stowed away the money. I 
 don't reckon he believed that that well that 
 chest we dug up was the real thing, do 
 you?" 
 
 The wraith of a smile fluttered to her lips. 
 "Hardly," she replied, "though no doubt he
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 169 
 
 believes that I thought it was. At least I am 
 annoyed no more as a source of information, 
 but " she sighed heavily "but now he 
 devotes himself entirely to my father." 
 
 'Yes," exclaimed Slag, "an' the the low- 
 lived hombrey will git the secret out of him, 
 too!" 
 
 The girl's eyes brightened defiantly under their 
 wet lashes. "No," she said, "because my 
 father does not know the secret himself. Only 
 I know it. We took that precaution some time 
 ago." 
 
 "Oh, well, then, what's the worry? A little 
 delirium ain't goin' to hurt him none." 
 
 "But you do not understand. You do 
 not understand that Colonel Morder is hard 
 pressed. He knows that at any time Major 
 De Marzi can ruin him by a hint to their 
 Presidente that a buried chest was carried 
 away from our place. The mean little tyrant 
 suspects Morder of ambition already, and he 
 and De Marzi both ask nothing better than 
 a pretext to take Morder's life. I suppose De 
 Marzi is waiting only to think out a plausible
 
 170 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 story to explain his own connection with steal- 
 ing that chest." 
 
 Slag frowned in perplexity. "But what in 
 the world, Miss Bess," he demanded, "are we 
 worryin' about Mr. Morder's troubles for? 
 What's all that got to do with us?" 
 
 "It has everything." She paused wearily, 
 discouraged. This hulking American with his 
 frowns was very dense. For a time she gazed 
 down on the babe in her lap. Derringer could 
 not see her eyes ; only the wet lashes. 
 
 "Don't you mean, Miss Bess," he faltered - 
 for the very pain of his eagerness to help her 
 he had to say something. "Don't you mean 
 that Morder is well, in a hurry? That he 
 is thinking about running away ? And that 
 that first he's bound he will get your father's 
 money to take with him?" 
 
 She looked up, pressing her handkerchief 
 tightly against her upper lip. The brown eyes 
 shone with a fine courage. "Thank you," 
 she said, "that is it. But not not all. 
 Since drugs fail, Colonel Morder intends to try 
 to try " She bit her lip bravely under the
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 171 
 
 handkerchief, but got no further. Suddenly 
 she put the handkerchief to her eyes. 
 
 Derringer's imagination leaped apace. Twice 
 he checked the words on his tongue. The 
 thought was too incredible. It was so horrible 
 as to be absurd. "You cannot mean," he 
 ventured at last, "that Morder would try 
 torture?" 
 
 She crouched under the w^ord. They saw her 
 slowly nod her head. 
 
 Slag snatched a pneumatic tire from a nail 
 and began looking intently for a puncture. His 
 lips moved, and there were gurgling noises in 
 his throat. He was swearing inwardly. Der- 
 ringer's face was white. Cruel visions of 
 another age weakened the realization of the age 
 in which he lived. 
 
 "Oh, you do not know," she burst forth 
 bitterly, "you others in Boston, far away, you 
 do not know that within the prison walls of 
 Sylvanlitlan there is a rack such as you see only 
 as a museum trophy, and an iron crown with 
 thumb-screws, and a boot, and a leather bucket 
 with a length of leather hose. And you would
 
 172 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 teach a little Sylvanlitlan girl the history of 
 the Middle Ages! Learn a little of your own 
 times, my dear teachers, while we of Sylvan- 
 litlan . . . Oh, my poor father, my 
 poor " 
 
 Slag hurled the tire to the floor. "How 
 do you know?" he protested. "How do you 
 know?" 
 
 "I I saw it," she moaned" the iron 
 crown. They had it brought over to the 
 hospital. I saw it this morning." 
 
 "Then Morder meant for you to " said 
 Derringer, catching eagerly at the theory. "He 
 lets you see your father now. He thinks you 
 will beg your father to give up the secret. Why, 
 that's it, of course. Morder is only trying to 
 frighten you both." 
 
 "Frighten my father?" She laughed a little; 
 not scornfully, only in pity. 
 
 "You really think, then " 
 
 "I know," she said. "Colonel Morder is 
 away to-night. Their Presidente has sent him 
 to inspect a fortress. But Morder told my father 
 that that 'the seance would begin to-morrow
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 173 
 
 night/ Those were his words." She paused, 
 then added significantly: "I am to be allowed 
 to see my father again in the morning." 
 
 Derringer understood. " Miss Bess," he said, 
 "your father needs that secret, and when you 
 see him in the morning, you mean to tell him 
 where the money is hidden." 
 
 She smiled up at him for his knowledge of her. 
 
 "I have tried to tell my father already," she 
 said, "and he would not let me. Still, that 
 does not matter, for I can give the secret, and 
 even the money, to Colonel Morder himself." 
 
 "Wh what's that?" cried Slag. 
 
 The interruption fetched Derringer back to 
 the fact that there was a jailbreaking scheme 
 afoot. For a moment it was hard to realize, 
 and it did seem very hopeless and preposterous. 
 His jaunty self-confidence had left him. The 
 girl, her distress, were real. The other was a 
 wild adventure. To offer her that as hope; 
 the thought of it angered him. 
 
 "Buy off Morder by all means," he pleaded 
 with her. "Anything, to keep him from your 
 father."
 
 174 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 It was the surest plan, he decided. True, 
 she could go to the Presidente, but the Presidente 
 would merely set a spy to listen to Don Pedro's 
 confession of the secret. Or perhaps she might 
 stay Morder's hand by threatening to reveal 
 the affair of the buried chest to the Presidente. 
 Yet Derringer would not advise that, either. 
 The desperate Morder would abduct the girl 
 to keep her quiet. 
 
 "Buy him off, buy him off," he repeated. 
 
 "Look here," Slag's growl arose, "where do 
 we come in?" 
 
 Derringer turned on him savagely. "We 
 don't come in," he retorted. "We don't come 
 in, do you understand?" 
 
 "Mr. Mr. Derringer!" It was the Senor- 
 ita who intervened. Her eyes were softened to 
 their great depths. "You do not reflect, sir, 
 that I would have bought over Colonel Morder, 
 or any of them, long ago, if that had meant 
 my father's freedom. But it would not. So 
 soon as they had his wealth, his death would 
 follow. And that is still true. So," she added 
 despairingly, "I have come to you two
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 175 
 
 Americans." Then to Slag she said: "Ac- 
 cordingly, you have until to-morrow night to 
 save this money from Morder, including what 
 I have promised you. If you fail, you 
 make matters no worse for my father, and if 
 . . . Oh, tell me," she cried, "is there a 
 chance ? Have you any plans ? Only tell me, 
 tell me!" 
 
 The sharp note of pain left Derringer white 
 with resolve. He wheeled on the jailbreaker. 
 
 "Now, ease down, you," said Slag, answering 
 the look. He was unwontedly stirred himself. 
 "We got till to-morrow night, ain't we? Well, 
 ain't to-morrow night Thursday?" He put 
 the boy from consideration, and addressed the 
 girl. "Attention, now, Miss Bess. You said 
 you'd be seem' your father hi the morain' ? 
 Good. An' you're allowed to send him his 
 meals?" 
 
 ' Yes, of course." 
 
 "An' he has to have his wine, I reckon ?" 
 
 " Most assuredly." 
 
 "Good again. I was some countin' on that." 
 
 "Then you do have a plan," she exclaimed.
 
 176 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Oh, tell me what I must do, what my father 
 must do." 
 
 The jailbreaker told her, professional gravity 
 growing on him as he proceeded. 
 
 As she listened, her body grew tense, and at 
 times she shivered, but she would press her lip 
 under the handkerchief, and so kept herself 
 to the ordeal through to the end. 
 
 Often during the rest of that day, and then 
 at night, Derringer would close his eyes so that 
 he might see again her brave face and the fine 
 courage in her eyes.
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 DERRINGER waited possibly sixty sec- 
 onds after the daughter of Don Pedro 
 had left the shop before he caught up 
 his hat and followed her. She held the babe 
 closely, keeping the rebosa to her eyes, and 
 her slender, girlish figure was lost in the stooped 
 humility of the native woman. Yet the anxious 
 young man behind, whose watchful protection 
 she never once suspected, was deadly certain 
 that all the world must pierce her disguise. 
 After which he marvelled why the world did 
 not. Then he lost sight of her himself for a 
 moment as she threaded her way across the 
 street through a little group of native women, 
 and he could not for the life of him tell which 
 was she. It provoked him immeasurably. 
 But, his gaze darting along the pavement, he 
 caught a glimpse of the red heels of her 
 shoes, and at once he knew how impossible it 
 
 177
 
 178 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 was to mistake her for any one else in the 
 universe. 
 
 A half a block farther on, she stopped a third- 
 class hack, indicated by a yellow tin flag, and 
 the hack drew up to the curb. Derringer saw 
 the driver nod his head as she gave him her 
 address, saw her step inside and close the door, 
 and reluctantly saw the last of the hack as it 
 rattled around the first corner. As he went back 
 to the shop, he felt unaccountably lonesome. 
 
 On his return, Slag gave him orders as a 
 coach orders about an athlete in training. He 
 was to array himself in his cuffed knicker- 
 bockers and let the half-dozing populace behold 
 him disporting on the tandem bicycle. It was 
 necessary to get themselves identified with tan- 
 dem bicycles, and Slag was inexorable. He 
 had forced a cuffed - knickerbocker raiment 
 on Jenkins also, and though the conductor 
 lost hours of his daytime sleep between trains, 
 there was nothing for it but to bestride the 
 double-seated rig with Derringer, and dazzle 
 the town as though he enjoyed it. Jenkins was 
 not in the city now. He had left with his train
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 179 
 
 for the coast the night before, and the young 
 Texan had to make the distasteful show of him- 
 self alone. 
 
 Slag remained behind and kept shop. There 
 was a bit of carpentering to occupy his big 
 clumsy hands, besides a considerable deal of 
 thinking to churn up his elephantine brain. 
 After supper that evening, before the moon rose, 
 he stalked forth alone on dark affairs of moment, 
 a preoccupied scowl creasing his brow. 
 
 The next morning was Thursday. When 
 Derringer came down, Slag was standing in the 
 hotel patio, frowning at the railway and steamship 
 bulletin board. There was no mention of the 
 Leviathan, otherwise the good ship Southland, 
 Benjamin Blackburn, Captain. 
 
 "Oh, she will drift in some time during the 
 day," said Derringer. 
 
 "Don't matter," growled Slag. "We got to 
 be sure. 'Cordin* to Jenkins, she mostly drops 
 anchor in Puertocito before sundown of a 
 Wednesday." 
 
 "Oh, all right, go ahead and worry then. 
 That'll help. Jenkins showed up yet?"
 
 180 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "No, he ain't, an' that's another thing; his 
 train is on time an' due now, if you'll look at 
 this here board." 
 
 A hack stopped at the door, and an American 
 shoe drummer flung his hand baggage to the 
 hotel porter and stepped out. Yes, he said, 
 he had come up on the train from Puertocito; 
 and wasn't this a likely town for business? 
 
 "His train's in all right," Slag mumbled, 
 "an* it's breakfast time. Where in blazes do 
 you reckon Jenkins is?" 
 
 Two more hacks with passengers arrived from 
 the depot, and beside the driver on the last, 
 was the hotel runner himself. Still no Jenkins. 
 Slag questioned the hotel runner. No, he hadn't 
 seen the Seflor Jenkins. Another conductor 
 had brought up the train. 
 
 Slag filled the air with anathemas. "Stuff's 
 off," and he cursed again. "We cain't git our 
 man out o* the country without Jenkins." Much 
 profanity left him haggard, yet did not cease. 
 In the afternoon he walked out on the Paseo. 
 Derringer met him at the hotel on his return. 
 
 "The upper- story window was open," Slag
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 181 
 
 announced. "That was her signal that she'd 
 seen her pa this mornin', an* to go ahead. 
 Go ahead? Hell! No train, no boat, there's 
 no goin' ahead to-night." 
 
 Derringer thought of the opening of that 
 window, of the girl as she raised the sash, 
 and her anguish in a last flickering hope, of 
 which the simple act was a token. 
 
 "But the boat is in, Con," he said. "She's 
 down on the bulletin board." 
 
 "An' she can stay on the bulletin board for 
 all the good she'll do us without Jenkins. The 
 stuff's off, I tell you." 
 
 They went to the cafe, and sat in gloom. 
 With Derringer, youth and optimism rebelled, 
 and a something in him new and better, the 
 thought of a girl and of her thoughts this long 
 day, made a host of three that would not down 
 youth and optimism and the thought of a girl! 
 He knew that he would attempt the deed alone, 
 failing Slag. But how? How? He could 
 never quite figure that out. Each time he 
 brought up against the need and the lack of 
 a railroad train. He grew aware that his wits
 
 182 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 were fagged out, that they were travelling the 
 same groove, and that the groove was always 
 blocked at the end by railroad tracks where 
 no train was waiting. 
 
 Dusk began to gather outside, and there was 
 a clatter of hoofs and wheels on the cobble-stones. 
 These were the hacks that had met the day 
 train from the coast, but they failed to rouse 
 the jailbreaker and his companion. Then the 
 door slammed open, and Jenkins walked in. 
 
 "Well, of all the things," said Jenkins, cutting 
 short Slag's abuse, "if a man can't be took 
 decently sick and lay up a few hours without 
 being singed all over for it by language, I want 
 to know!" 
 
 "But it weren't no time to be sick," roared 
 Slag. 
 
 "Look here, Con," said Jenkins, "I wish 
 you'd step on that voice and soften her up 
 some. And I'd have you notice that I got well 
 enough by this morning to bring up Number 
 Three, which," he continued, lowering his voice, 
 "still gave me time enough to see and talk to 
 Cap Ben Blackburn. His old raft dropped
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 183 
 
 anchor outside during the night. Now maybe 
 you can take a gimlet and screw it into your 
 skull, why I happened to be took sick. If not, 
 just keep the gimlet, and throw the skull away. 
 One of them's worth fifteen cents." 
 
 " What did Blackburn say ?" 
 
 " Blowing guns of some description off Trini- 
 dad. He " 
 
 Slag smote the table. "What did he say?" 
 
 "He was thinking he'd shift cargo some, 
 Which would take him till to-morrow morning." 
 
 "Is he with us on this deal? Yes or no?" 
 
 "What would he want to shift cargo for? 
 Don Pedro is an old pal or something o' his. 
 And I take out the train to-night, as usual. So 
 it's up to you fellows. Are you ready ?" 
 
 Cornelius Slag, jailbreaker, rose, stretched 
 his long arms over his head, and yawned. 
 "Bout ready for supper, yes." 
 
 "All right," said Jenkins, "but try to remem- 
 ber this time to bring back what you go after. 
 And don't forget, either, that I pull out at ten. 
 Can't wait any longer than that. Now I'm 
 going to get some sleep." He stopped, and turned
 
 184 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 back to them. "Might never see you again, 
 you know," he said. Absent-mindedly, he put 
 a hand on Slag's shoulder, and drew it away 
 when he happened to notice. Next he was 
 curling Derringer's red forelock about his finger. 
 "Gee," he said abruptly, "but I'm sleepy!"
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 IT WAS eight o'clock and dark when 
 Slag and Derringer finished supper, 
 and Slag sauntered out to the front 
 doorway, picking his teeth. Across the street, 
 on the Plaza, the palms under the arc lights 
 invited humankind to indolence, and the musi- 
 cians in the bandstand were languidly tuning 
 up for the first serenaia of the evening. The 
 jailbreaker leered at the seductive, festive night 
 out of doors, seemingly, like the shoe drummer 
 and other lounging guests, wondering how he 
 should amuse himself till bedtime or later. 
 
 A hostler from a livery stable appeared, 
 leading two saddled horses. The horses were not 
 admirable specimens. One was stringhalted, 
 and jerked up a hind leg in an abrupt and 
 unreliable manner. The other wheezed; he 
 had been heard approaching for two minutes 
 past. Both were observed to have ribs or 
 
 185
 
 186 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 anatomical corrugations, and hip and shoulder 
 bones distended the hide in curious lumps. 
 They seemed downcast and melancholy. 
 
 "Hey, you mozo, here I am," Slag called to 
 the stable boy. The shoe drummer laughed. 
 "Aw," protested Slag, "that's my string of 
 horseflesh." 
 
 He persisted in the quaint notion that he had 
 adopted the creatures. Furthermore, the stable 
 boy bore him out by delivering the halters into 
 his hands. Slag stroked their manes, defiant 
 of mirth, and the disreputable scrubs cheered 
 up and cocked their heads at him gratefully. 
 They had cause for gratitude. They had been 
 condemned to the bullring, and their new 
 master had found them there. 
 
 Derringer came down from his room, garbed 
 in golf-cycling clothes. When he saw the two 
 horses and Slag and the grinning throng that 
 was assembling, he put his hands in his pockets 
 and smiled. 
 
 "Come on," said Slag. "Which one you 
 want?" 
 
 Derringer shook his head positively. "Not
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 187 
 
 on your life, Con," he said. "You'll need 
 them both, and then some." 
 
 Slag urged him and swore. What had the 
 kid said he wanted to pasear on horseback for, 
 then? Derringer replied that he believed he 
 had changed his mind, and he coolly pushed 
 through the laughing crowd and strolled over 
 to the Plaza. Slag ruefully watched him go, 
 then for a minute contemplated the two horses. 
 "Here, mozo," he burst forth suddenly, "take 
 'em back to the stable." The mozo, however, 
 had departed, and there was nothing for Slag but 
 to take them back himself. He left on foot, 
 mid cheers, tugging at the halters. 
 
 Over on the Plaza, Derringer soon wearied 
 of the music and the languorously pretty girls. 
 He thought he had had enough of that atmos- 
 phere as a tonic inciting to adventure, and 
 catching sight of Major De Marzi before De 
 Marzi caught sight of him, he quit the place. 
 
 Leaving the Plaza behind, he turned into a 
 narrow street and kept on until he came to the 
 bicycle shop of which he was proprietor. With 
 a heavy iron key he unlocked the door and
 
 188 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 entered. Directly he reappeared, pushing the 
 tandem. At once he mounted and was off, 
 not bothering to lock the door behind him. 
 "To the first harpy the spoils/* he said to him- 
 self, laughing, eager, hot on the future of the 
 hour hence and all it should unfold. 
 
 His course was devious, bumping over the 
 cobble-stones of crooked streets, now on the 
 broad Paseo of Palms, and then on a lonely 
 and dusty burro trail threading the cactus plain 
 toward the mountains. "Good thing they're 
 cushion tires," he thought when a thorn speared 
 his ankle. He turned into a cross trail, heading 
 for the double-towered church at the end of the 
 Paseo. Thus he passed along the rear wall of 
 the hospital compound. 
 
 The cluster of low buildings within were 
 ghostly white, and as silent and desolate under 
 the stars as a monastery of the desert. On the 
 front the Paseo was deserted, and the spectral 
 blank of side and rear walls, flanked by the 
 spiny wilderness, might have been an abandoned 
 oasis khan of Arabia. There were palms 
 within the compound, and these put out their
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 189 
 
 plumes so high aloft that they were rather of 
 the firmament above than of dust and crawling 
 things. The tiled roofs of the bungalow-like 
 wards of the hospital rose but a little higher 
 than the surrounding walls, so that the few dim 
 lights were not to be seen from outside, fulfilling 
 the illusion of dreary solitude. 
 
 Here was an odd destination for a lone cyclist. 
 Well, it was a bizarre destiny that had brought 
 him hither. 
 
 The figure of a man rose from the brush, 
 and caught the tandem by the handle. "Stow 
 it away," he whispered, "here, against the wall. 
 An' say, you red-headed rooster, you thought 
 that was pretty gay, didn't you, leavin' me 
 to git them nags out o* that fool mob by 
 myself." 
 
 "Oh," Derringer whispered back at him, 
 "then are you also one who has suffered?" 
 It was his revenge for the tandem infliction. 
 "But, I don't see the horses ?" 
 
 "'Tain't likely. But they're handy all right, 
 over in that scrub oak, the three of 'em." 
 
 " The three ? Then "
 
 190 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Yes, Miss Bess sent that saddle mare o' her'n, 
 as she said she would. That horse is made o' 
 fire an' needles, 'side o' them other two. Lend 
 a hand with this here tackle." 
 
 He led to a thick clump of prickly pear, and 
 groped among the thorns with hands gaunt- 
 letted in buckskin. The end of a beam rose 
 out of the jungle, and Derringer caught hold, 
 and together they dragged out Slag's recent bit 
 of carpentering. It looked like a gibbet for 
 hanging a thief. There was the upright post, 
 and the arm at the top, and even the rope dang- 
 ling from the end of the arm. But instead of 
 a single rope and noose, this was a rope ladder; 
 and also, on the upright, cleats of wood were 
 nailed across, making that into a chicken lad- 
 der. 
 
 The jailbreaker felt the scaffolding over, and 
 in professional pride made comments. Here 
 was more than book-learning i.e., Derringer. 
 More than statecraft i.e., the doomed pris- 
 oner. Here was Specific Experience. Thus 
 might Slag's reflections be translated. At the 
 king's bedside the mighty of the earth make
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 191 
 
 way for the physician. The scowling, rough- 
 neck jail breaker was Master. 
 
 "H'ist her now Hold so." 
 
 Between them they stood the gibbet thing 
 against the wall at a spot carefully located 
 by Slag, and twisted it half round until the pro- 
 jecting arm lay across the top of the wall. 
 
 "There now," murmured the jailbreaker, 
 "the next move is his'n." 
 
 One or the other kept an ear to the wall. 
 Everywhere the quality of the universe was 
 silence in darkness. It seemed the most unlikely 
 of all precarious human events that there should 
 come a sound of dull tapping on the other side 
 of that wall. The torpid minute dragged its 
 length more and more slowly over the edge of 
 eternity, and the two men alone there in South 
 America began to doubt if any token from 
 one of their own kind were among happenings 
 predestined and arranged. They reasoned 
 heroically, and memory contradicted doubt, 
 but memory in dark solitude is a gossamer 
 anchor chain that ravels steadily. 
 
 " Why in blazes don't he come ?"
 
 192 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 Now and again Slag's low growl rallied them, 
 and they fell back on memory. They recalled 
 what the daughter of the prisoner inside had told 
 them. They pictured a row of stone cells, each 
 cell with a door and a barred window opening 
 on the yard of the compound. This row was 
 the criminal and political ward. A guard with 
 bayonetted carbine patrolled back and forth 
 before the doors. If the entombed sick had 
 friends in the world outside who still loved 
 them enough, or money enough, they were not 
 required to subsist on the state diet of bread 
 and water and codfish and beans. The physi- 
 cians approving, they might even have their 
 wines and cognacs. The guard with the car- 
 bine particularly approved. Here was a source 
 of perquisites, and consolation for not being 
 detached on service at the big front gates, where 
 his brother guards often seized and kissed 
 warm-cheeked girls on their way to mass. 
 
 So it happened that Don Pedro had his 
 liquors, and the guard, who would gladly have 
 run Don Pedro through at the least move, 
 deigned to share these delicacies with him.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 193 
 
 Cornelius Slag, jailbreaker, reluctantly per- 
 mitted himself to utilize a measure so hackneyed 
 in the profession, but here it was so obviously 
 and providentially ordained that he weakened, 
 especially as all his wits could offer no ingenious 
 substitute. The old remedies are often the 
 best. So the jailbreaker, half ashamed, had 
 confided to the daughter of Don Pedro a vial 
 of "drops," and Don Pedro was to administer 
 the same according to directions. 
 
 Therefore, here and now, in the silence of 
 the universe, the hope of a doomed man hung 
 on the customary thirst of a fellow creature 
 with carbine and bayonet. 
 
 " Why the blazes don't he come ?" 
 
 They could not draw the complete picture 
 behind that spectral blank of wall. At that 
 moment perhaps, for all the stillness of the 
 world, Don Pedro lay on his cot, a gag in his 
 mouth, writhing in agony, while Colonel Morder 
 patiently, suavely, asked of him a secret he did 
 not know. 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 "I am hushing."
 
 194 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 The token, when it did come, astounded 
 them mightily. Their ears to the wall, they 
 heard, very faintly, a "Tap-tap! Tap!" 
 
 Both acted. Slag pushed the upright beam 
 of the gibbet flush against the wall and braced 
 his weight against it. Derringer scaled it by 
 the cleats, and, lying on the wall, he dropped 
 the rope ladder that hung from the projecting 
 arm over into the hospital yard. It was very 
 dark below, and he could not see, but after a 
 little he grew aware of a stealthy tugging on 
 the rope ladder. Some one was making the 
 lower end fast. 
 
 "Who are you ? " whispered Derringer. 
 
 A pause; then a smothered reply "Boston." 
 The Senorita herself had devised that counter- 
 sign. It could occur to no one else in all Sylvan- 
 litlan, she calculated. Don Pedro de Las 
 Augustias, who had tried to be emperor, was 
 at the foot of the ladder. 
 
 Derringer rejoined Slag, and together they 
 waited for the man who should come over the 
 wall. The seconds passed while they gazed 
 upward, and still no head appeared. Yes, he
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 195 
 
 had started. They felt the strain communicated 
 down the scaffolding, and they put their com- 
 bined weight to the beam to keep it to the wall. 
 The joint at the projecting arm creaked horribly. 
 Slowly above the wall there grew a shadow} 7 
 blot, the head of a man, which itself grew; 
 shoulders, bust and torso; and a moment later 
 a cloaked figure, commanding and stately, stood 
 on the wall. 
 
 "Of all cussed fools," hissed Slag. "Lay 
 low, you, lay low! " 
 
 The man peered down uncertainly into the 
 darkness. 
 
 "Kneel, and feel with your foot. So, that's 
 right. Now you're on the chicken ladder. 
 And now you're free! " 
 
 The man stepped to the ground between 
 them. Slag clapped him on the shoulder. 
 "Put her there, Don Pedro shake!" 
 
 The man drew back hastily, wrapping his 
 cloak about him. 
 
 "Oh, if you feel that way about it!" muttered 
 Slag. "Yet you might hand over that money 
 your daughter brought you for me this morninV
 
 196 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 The man started violently. " Eh ? " 
 
 : *You know all right, my high an* mighty," 
 Slag insisted. "It's my fee, in draft or cash, 
 thirty-three thousand dollars. Hand it over, an' 
 we're quits." 
 
 "Eh?" came the stifled voice behind the 
 cloak. "Eh? Dios miol I forgot I have 
 forgotten it. Wait, I will return." 
 
 With startling agility he pushed them away, 
 and went clambering back up the ladder. 
 
 The money might be left behind, and welcome. 
 Not for that would Derringer let the Senorita's 
 father return within those walls. He seized hold 
 on the cloak, and the cloak fell away in his grip. 
 JHe jumped, and his arm circled the ankle of a 
 spurred boot. The man toppled backward, 
 and went heavily to the ground. Slag struck 
 a match, and flashed it in the man's face. In- 
 stantly, Derringer leaped for the man's throat. 
 
 " Choke him, choke him ! " he sobbed. " It's 
 Colonel Morder!"
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 
 THEY had loosed the wrong bird. As 
 the match flashed they saw a profile 
 bold and cruel. The man struggled 
 to twist free the revolver at his belt. Slag's 
 fist, as big as a mallet, swung roundly to the 
 man's head, and the man's knees shut like 
 hinges. They rolled him over on his back, 
 stuffed a handkerchief in his mouth and trussed 
 him with strips ripped from the cloak. 
 
 "Now for our get-away," gasped Slag, spring- 
 ing to his feet. " Quick, come on ! " 
 
 "What's the hurry?" Derringer's voice at 
 his ear vibrated like a snarl. 
 
 "Come on!" 
 
 "Go, then! Save your carcass if you want, 
 
 but " The boy was scaling the cleats to 
 
 the top of the wall. 
 
 Slag understood, and caught him by the foot. 
 "Listen here, Blaze," he pleaded, "I cain't let 
 
 you go!" 
 
 197
 
 198 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 :< You might try, though," and the heel of a 
 shoe struck a pain so sharp through his wrist 
 that he let go. Derringer squirmed over the top 
 of the wall. A moment later he was in the 
 hospital yard. 
 
 On the ground at the foot of the rope ladder, 
 Derringer made out the form of a man. That 
 was as he had expected, and why he had come. 
 No one but Don Pedro himself could have given 
 those signal taps. No one else could have given 
 the word, "Boston." 
 
 What, then, had happened ? 
 
 Colonel Morder, passing through the hospital 
 yard on torture resolved, had stumbled over 
 the body of the guard at the open door of Don 
 Pedro's cell. Swiftly and silently Morder had 
 then come up behind his prisoner in the act 
 of climbing a rope ladder. He had struck his 
 prisoner with the butt of his revolver, and had 
 climbed the ladder in his place. He hoped to 
 learn from Don Pedro's friends on the other 
 side some clue to the hidden fortune. Instead a 
 strange American voice demanded thousands 
 of dollars of him. Precious and tantalizing
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 199 
 
 information ! To return and take the thousands 
 of dollars from his prostrate prisoner; that had 
 been Morder's thought. 
 
 Derringer figured it so. He passed a hand 
 over the body; found that the heart was beat- 
 ing. He glanced upward. The wall looked 
 mountain-high, but he lifted the emaciated 
 body until it doubled inertly over his shoulder; 
 and inch by inch, he struggled up the rope 
 ladder with his burden. At the top he gripped 
 the wrists, and lowered the body over the wall. 
 All at once the strain of the weight eased on 
 his muscles. 
 
 "Let him come!" 
 
 So Slag had waited. Good old Slag! 
 
 The jailbreaker received the burden, and 
 spilled it gently to the ground. Derringer cut 
 the rope ladder with his knife, letting it fall 
 into the yard below, and climbed down beside 
 Slag. The jailbreaker was busily working a 
 sweater over the head and shoulders of the limp 
 Don Pedro. 
 
 "Here, help with the pants," he ordered, 
 unrolling a pair of knickerbockers from a bundle.
 
 200 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 Instead, Derringer tilted a whiskey flask to the 
 prisoner's lips. 
 
 " What did you do with Morder ? " 
 
 " Just dragged him off out o' hearin'. By grab, 
 I never knew it was so hard to dress a man!" 
 He had slipped the knickerbockers over Don 
 Pedro's trousers, and was adding the stockings. 
 
 "Look, he stirred then! He stirred, I 
 tell you! Rub his hands or something, he's 
 coming to." 
 
 "Bout time, too, 'less we leave him here. 
 Listen, did you hear that ?" 
 
 They both heard plainly enough; first a 
 little panicky squeal of alarm within the com- 
 pound; then a pattering of sandalled feet. A 
 nurse or servant had blundered on the uncon- 
 scious guard. 
 
 Slag caught up Don Pedro under the arm-pits, 
 and stood him against the wall. "I never seen 
 such a man," he grumbled. "Why don't he 
 do some more o' that stirrin' ? We cain't " 
 
 The pattering of feet died away. Loud voices, 
 a yell and a gunshot, split the silence. The alarm 
 had roused the sentry at the front gates. An
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 201 
 
 awakening t cl amour of blurred shouts and firing 
 answered across the Paseo on the prison towers. 
 
 "They'll still need five minutes to guess what 
 it's all about," said Slag. "Blowed if I don't 
 stick a pin in him ! " 
 
 "No you won't! He's " The shooting on 
 the prison walls blazed into a fusillade. " There, 
 that brought him . . . Now, now, Don 
 Pedro." 
 
 "Give him more whiskey. A live man can 
 understand whiskey. Now bring your tandem 
 set him on it." 
 
 They straddled the limp form over the front 
 seat. 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 A voice between them, hollow and faint, was 
 laboriously making sounds. 
 
 "Hi, sing the Doxology, he's woke up!" 
 cried Slag. " What's he say ? " 
 
 "He's talking about brave rescuers Put 
 his feet on the pedals." 
 
 "They won't stay put," and Slag took the 
 last of a line of emperors by the shoulder and 
 respectfully shook him.
 
 202 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "My brave rescuers -" 
 
 "He thinks he's a mellydramer," Slag 
 groaned. "Here, Don Pedro, stiffen your legs. 
 Now push, push like " 
 
 The clamour over at the prison had travelled 
 like a crackling flame and leaped up anew at 
 the hospital gate. There were loud, vague 
 explanations, and curses, and scurrying of 
 feet. 
 
 "But I do not understand,'* Don Pedro was 
 protesting. He kicked back his heel as though 
 it wore a spur. "My charger, my horse, he 
 does not move." 
 
 "You are dazed yet," said Derringer. "It's 
 not a horse, it's a bicycle. I'll mount behind. 
 Now quick " 
 
 "Sefiores!" An ocean of insulted dignity 
 swept the word upon their ears. Before they 
 knew what he was about, and trembling as in 
 a chill, Don Pedro cleared himself of the tandem, 
 and stood, lank, dignified and indignant. 
 
 " What the devil !" gasped Slag. 
 
 "Gentlemen." He spoke sorrowfully. :< You 
 mistake, gentlemen. I am not a gamin, I am
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 203 
 
 not a circus performer. Don Pedro, gentlemen, 
 must have a steed of mettle." 
 
 "An' you got one. Get on now, an* hurry 
 about it!" 
 
 A cannon on the prison wall boomed forth. 
 
 "Lord save us!" moaned Slag. "Now they're 
 callin' out the army!" He glared around him. 
 "Anyhow, it's my move, all right. I'm goin'." 
 
 "Wait!" The tone was of command. Don 
 Pedro was speaking. He handed Slag a long 
 envelope sealed with wax. "My daughter en- 
 gaged me to give you this. Now you may go." 
 
 The jailbreaker snatched the packet, but 
 hesitated. "Blaze," he said, "bring off the 
 queer old duck if you can. He's game, anyhow, 
 but you cain't wait. Sounds like a regiment 
 hot-footin' up the Paseo now. An* I cain't 
 help you. I got to be doin' the decoy stunt. 
 So long, kid." 
 
 They heard him pounding off through the 
 brush. They could almost judge when he 
 swung into the saddle, for the sound of hoofs 
 came to them immediately after, not of one horse 
 but several. The jailbreaker had mounted the
 
 204 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 mare, and was leading the two nags. Shots 
 were fired in that direction from the Paseo, 
 and there was a new note in the turmoil yells 
 of discovery and men running in pursuit. Off 
 to the right, across the plain, the hoof beats 
 died away. The Republic of Sylvanlitlan did 
 not at once find mounts to take up the chase. 
 
 It was a good plot. It worked like beautiful 
 machinery. Derringer was proud of it, proud 
 of Slag; and now to have such a plot spoiled, 
 that was the last exasperating straw. This 
 hidalgo grit in the bearings, wrecking the beau- 
 tiful machinery! He turned, full of fight, on 
 the obstinate Don Quixote. But abruptly he 
 ceased thinking of plots, of ruined works of 
 art. He thought of this prideful fool's daughter. 
 She was waiting in the great house of the 
 Augustias; she could hear the din and shots. 
 Only she knew nothing of her father. 
 
 The picture of her flashed and was gone. 
 Slag had not reached his horses before Derringer 
 knew a way. He caught Don Pedro by the 
 wrist, heeding nothing of haughty protest, and 
 talked, talked swiftly for life.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 205 
 
 "Do you know who struck you? Who came 
 over the wall in your place?" He gripped the 
 wrist to compel attention. "It was Morder. 
 We tied him. He is over there now. Listen. 
 Before we knew who he was, Slag asked him 
 for the money your daughter had brought. 
 You understand that? You understand that 
 Morder knows who has the money ? They 
 will find Morder soon. They will find you. 
 You will be back in your cell, and Morder 
 your daughter eh, you do understand, do 
 
 you?" 
 
 "I I would ride a donkey ! " 
 
 "Well, Christ did, as for that. Now get on, 
 quick!" 
 
 Derringer held the tandem while he mounted, 
 and mounted himself, with one arm braced 
 against the wall. Don Pedro found the pedals 
 and worked valiantly. Derringer put forth his 
 muscles, shoved clear of the wall, and steered 
 into the trail that had brought him there.
 
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 A ATMOSPHERE murky with ill-humour 
 enveloped the depot of the Ferrocarril 
 Internacional. The arc lights under 
 the train shed sputtered fretfully. Also did the 
 passengers who had a boat to catch the next 
 morning. Neither the lights nor the passengers 
 were altogether unusual in this. The night 
 train for the coast was late again, that was all. 
 She was already made up, for that matter, and 
 simply lay dormant under the shed while people 
 told each other good-bye over again. Officials 
 had answered questions until their mood was 
 rancid. The division superintendent stood 
 under the cab window of the engine, and was 
 asking a few of the engineer on his own account. 
 He recommended the "old man" to wait for 
 breakfast before starting. The "old man" 
 threw down a handful of waste and invited 
 the superintendent to run his old scrap pile 
 
 206
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 207 
 
 himself. Then he bent again to an essential bit 
 of repairing. 
 
 "Say, Sam," asked the fireman, "what's the 
 matter with her, anyhow?" 
 
 "These here brass letters," replied the engi- 
 neer, rubbing them hard with the waste. 'You 
 know plenty well, Jim, it ain't safe to run an 
 engine 'less you can see any time who her maker 
 is. And you might be thinkin' about your own 
 if you got any more o' them inkries in your kit." 
 
 The fireman had no more inquiries. They 
 were waiting for their conductor, he knew that 
 well enough. Jenkins was out riding that fool 
 tandem again, and he must have got a puncture 
 or something. At any rate, the "old man" 
 was blocking traffic with a handful of waste. 
 The "old man" and Jenkins were steadfast 
 pals, and Jim revered such friendship. He 
 hoped they would let him in some day when he 
 grew old enough. 
 
 The fireman was a bright and likely lad, 
 but the "old man" was surcharged with more 
 things secretive than he ever dreamed of. And 
 at the far rear end of the train there was another
 
 208 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 live wire. The name of this other live wire 
 was Ebony. Ebony was the porter of the 
 sleeping car. The car had been American, 
 and nobody of his colour could be more Ameri- 
 can than Ebony. He was therefore the poten- 
 tate of that car. He owed allegiance to no 
 sleeping-car conductor, since there was none, 
 though he did permit Mr. Jenkins to levy taxes 
 through the length of his realm. 
 
 Ebony's woolly head was flustered and enor- 
 mously knowing this night. With duster he 
 dusted perfunctorily, whether passengers or 
 upholstery. He dusted rearward, where the 
 lights were dim, and where the drawing 
 room was closed tightly. Often he paused and 
 cocked his important head sideways. Either 
 this was a cocky manifestation, or because he 
 was listening. Then he did hear something, 
 which caused him to speed, keys in hand, 
 through the narrow and dark corridor, and 
 unlock the rear door. Two men brushed past 
 him out of the darkness of the platform. One 
 of the two men supported the other, who was 
 long and thin and haggard.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 209 
 
 "Great day!" gasped Ebony. "This way, 
 gemmen, this way." 
 
 The door of the drawing room opened, and 
 Jenkins hastened them inside. 
 
 There was a quick, sunny warmth of welcome 
 in Jenkins's eyes. "You been hearing any 
 rumours we're doing stationary railroading 
 here ? " he growled. " Now, Mr. Blaze Derringer, 
 you stand up and recite what kept you so long. 
 Here I been changing from them golf clothes 
 into my uniform for a half-hour, pretty near. 
 One of these days they'll call me up on the 
 carpet, and I'll get scolded. This Don Peter? 
 Why, howdy, Don, pleased to meet you, sir. 
 Now let me out." 
 
 Derringer started to follow. 
 
 "One minute." In sepulchral volume Don 
 Pedro had spoken. 
 
 Don Pedro's nose was arched, his eyes calm 
 and imperious, and his cheeks hollow, one being 
 marked by a raw scar. Despite the scar and 
 the pasty white of his skin, he was the tenacious, 
 wiry aristocrat all the way through. There 
 was no pose about him, however his absurdities
 
 210 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 may have seemed in the dark. The absurdities 
 were part of his being. If you transplant 
 anachronisms back in another age, they flower 
 seasonably. Don Pedro was a planet out of 
 its orbit, but he was a planet nevertheless. 
 Only a tremendously greater force might hold 
 him fixed. 
 
 " Wait," Derringer whispered to Jenkins out 
 of his recent wisdom. "There's going to be 
 trouble." 
 
 Don Pedro was regarding the young Texan 
 with kindly eyes. He held out a long sealed 
 envelope such as he had given Slag. 
 
 "There is a New York draft within for " 
 
 Derringer turned away impatiently. Quite 
 in an instant he realized that he could not 
 cheapen his adventure so. He was not a pot 
 hunter. The sportsman in him rebelled. Don 
 Pedro smiled understandingly, and returned the 
 envelope to his pocket. 
 
 "Quick," said Jenkins, "hurry up your row. 
 We ain't got all night " 
 
 "And here," calmly proceeded Don Pedro, 
 " is a third draft for the Senor Jenkins. Take
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 211 
 
 it, for I see that my daughter is not here to go 
 with me, and therefore I must remain behind 
 to protect " 
 
 "The row's on!" cried Derringer. He had 
 provided himself with a towel from the rack. 
 In a trice he had it over Don Pedro's mouth, 
 and was tying the ends behind his head. Jen- 
 kins snatched down more towels for wrists and 
 ankles. There was no time for other argument. 
 They laid him on the couch, and left him. 
 Jenkins locked the drawing-room door after 
 him, gave the key to Ebony, and a moment 
 later was outside, waving his lantern to the 
 engineer. "Vdmanos, vdmanos!" Brakemen 
 echoed the warning, and the train began to 
 move. Derringer swung off in the switch yards 
 just beyond. 
 
 He watched the receding outline of the last 
 coach, the two green lanterns like dragon eyes 
 glowing in the dark. He sighed as one who 
 lays down a heavy valise. 
 
 "It's been bully bully," he murmured to 
 himself. 
 
 Then he thought of Don Pedro's daughter,
 
 212 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 and of her peril, now so much greater than her 
 father's had been. It occurred to him very 
 abruptly that here was the reason why he had 
 swung off the train. He had already set his 
 teeth in the knotty problem of her danger when 
 a shrill locomotive whistle rasped every loose 
 end of a nerve in his body. 
 
 The whistle was a cry of distress, of angry 
 protest, from the train bearing Don Pedro. It 
 had gone barely two hundred yards, and was 
 curving slowly out of the switch yards. Squarely 
 on the track, and in the glare of the headlight 
 like a picture thrown on a screen, Derringer 
 saw a mounted cavalryman with drawn sword. 
 He was ordering the iron monster to halt. 
 
 In his cab the "old man'* obeyed the waving 
 sabre. Air brakes hissed and screeched, and 
 the heads of passengers were thumped against 
 the backs of seats. Troopers flooded through 
 the train, while the "old man" sat grimly, his 
 eyes on the bell cord and a hand petting the 
 throttle. 
 
 In the sleeping car, in the drawing 
 room, Ebony stood like a dusky Colossus,
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 213 
 
 straddling space, a foot on one couch, the other 
 foot on the couch opposite. The rest of him 
 was a pose for Atlas. His arms were bowed 
 over his head, and his upturned palms were 
 flattened against a half -lowered upper berth. 
 The sweat welled forth like glass beads on his 
 forehead. His jaw hung, and his eyes were 
 white. A tense voice from the corridor, Jen- 
 kins's voice, came to him. " Now!" He heaved 
 upward, straightening his arms, and the berth 
 closed with a snap. The forward door of the 
 coach slammed open, and the car filled with 
 men and jangling sabres. They scrutinized 
 the ceiling and under the seats, and frightened 
 the passengers nigh to hysteria. But nothing 
 else happened. 
 
 "Bien, it was for precaution only," muttered 
 the pompous colonel of the troopers. 
 
 This colonel was Morder. Trussed and swad- 
 dled and raging in the cactus brush, he had 
 caused five running pursuers to stumble and 
 fall before he had caused himself to be discovered. 
 But the sixth to fall did not get up and plunge 
 on like the others. He tarried to draw a thorn
 
 214 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 from his foot and so perceived that the stumbling- 
 block was a man. A squad of cavalry had 
 already departed on the chase of Slag's decoy, 
 and, the main body of the troop then appearing, 
 Morder had placed himself at their head and 
 led them back to the city. The night train for 
 the coast, just pulling out, had offered a chance 
 for a display of vigilance. As it was, he would 
 have much ado to appease the hawk-eyed little 
 Presidente. If the Presidente should ever 
 believe that Morder had not let Don Pedro 
 escape, considering Don Pedro's power to pay, 
 then, thought Morder, the wrong man was 
 Presidente of Sylvanlitlan. 
 
 Morder released the train, and the train 
 took the curve out of the switchyard and 
 was gone. What should he tell that little 
 hawk of a Presidente ? His men were 
 mounting; clanking steel, squeaking leather, 
 chafing bits, restless hoofs efficiency incar- 
 nate. What should be his next command? 
 What? 
 
 Morder wet his lips. And why not ? Why 
 not, for the next command to leave his lips,
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 215 
 
 name the Executive Palace ? Why not seize, not 
 the man who would be ruler, but the man who 
 was ruler ? Morder smiled suavely, waiting 
 for the column to form. 
 
 But Sylvanlitlan was not thrown into revolu- 
 tion that night. A spike in the track may wreck 
 a train. It was a mattress over which the 
 colonel's ambition pitched headlong. The mat- 
 tress was on the back of a peon, and it was 
 doubled and wrapped in a brown blanket. 
 The peon was flanked on either side by a 
 mounted rural guard. They were coming into 
 the city by way of the railroad track. The 
 rural guards touched their caps in salute and 
 were going on with their prisoner. Morder 
 waxed curious. 
 
 " What have you there ? " 
 
 "A thief, my colonel. He says he meant to 
 sell them. But there are no such blankets and 
 mattresses in the mountains, and therefore he 
 is a thief." 
 
 Morder leaned over and took an end of the 
 blanket between his fingers. 
 
 "You are a fool," he said to the rural guard;
 
 216 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 then to the peon: "Where did you find this 
 stuff?" 
 
 The man, sombrero in hand, quaked mis- 
 erably. "At the service of your benevo- 
 lence " 
 
 "Answer my question, animal." 
 
 "With permission, I they were hi the 
 ditch, beside the railroad track." 
 
 "And you meant to sell them? You could 
 not see the initial here in the corner of the 
 blanket, the initial of the sleeping-car concession ? 
 Bah, take the beast on to jail." 
 
 He wheeled, touched a spur to his horse, 
 rode into the train shed, dismounted, and burst 
 into the dispatcher's office. 
 
 "Get San Casimiro. At once, never mind 
 your trains. Send this: 
 
 " 'Jose Gavan, lieutenant commanding can- 
 tonment. 
 
 " 'Stop coast-bound train. Open and search 
 every berth in sleeping car. Personally deliver 
 to me here by morning train Pedro de Las 
 Augustias, escaped prisoner. 
 
 " *MANRIQUE MORDER, Colonel Fifth Dra- 
 goons, Legion of the Andes, Third Army Corps, 
 Federal Armies of the Republic of Sylvanlitlan;
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 217 
 
 Commandant and Inspector General, Federal 
 
 Prisons and Fortresses, Republic of Sylvan- 
 litlan.' "
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 THE coast-bound rumbled on and on 
 across the moon-lit plateau. Softly 
 blurred silhouettes of palm and ma- 
 guey, and clustering columns of the organ cac- 
 tus, and now and then huts of thatch, sped 
 swiftly by if near or moved in stately procession 
 if far away. The monster skimming the roof 
 of a continent had strength for fight or breath 
 for flight. The "old man" in the cab stared at 
 the glistening rail that rushed endlessly under 
 him, and noted the racing landmarks in their 
 quick bursts of speed. Far behind, the city still 
 glowed faintly, and not far ahead an old mili- 
 tary road of the viceroys crossed the track. 
 Ha, here it was, that white streak! 
 
 The "old man" gave her the air, and his 
 steed choked and came panting to a standstill. 
 A huge, slouching figure, with hat pulled down 
 over his eyes, stood in the glare of the head- 
 
 218
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 219 
 
 light. The fellow held by the bridle a splendid 
 mare. The inare was in a pitiful state, head 
 drooping, eyes big in their sockets, and coat 
 all lathered with froth. She had been desper- 
 ately ridden. 
 
 The "old man" turned to his wondering 
 fireman. " Jim, like to go back to town ? It's 
 twenty-odd miles, but good walkin', and five 
 dollars dollars, not bolivars for each mile. 
 And keep hid till your next trip when you git 
 there. Here." 
 
 The boy felt a roll of bills in his hand. He 
 looked again at the man and horse. "All 
 right, Sam, I'm on." Just another fellow Ameri- 
 can who needed getting out of the country 
 mighty quick, he thought. 
 
 "Leave your cap and jumper. And Jim," 
 the engineer warned him, " mind you walk. It's 
 shootin' for your'n if they catch you with that 
 horse." 
 
 :< You think I'm a fool, Sam?" protested the 
 boy. "Well, adios and luck," and without 
 looking back, he struck out on the military road 
 for the city.
 
 220 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "All right, Con," Sam called to the slouching 
 figure. 
 
 It was almost affectionately that Slag cut the 
 jaded mare with his whip, and as she staggered 
 off the track, he patted her flank and told her 
 good-bye. Then he climbed into the cab and 
 put on the fireman's cap and jumper. With 
 his first shovelful in the fire box, the train was 
 again under way. 
 
 "Worth thirty-three thousand dollars an' 
 shovellin' coal," muttered Slag, while the rails 
 pounded and the furnace lighted the scowl on 
 his face. " Worth thirty-three thousand dollars 
 in my inside pocket an' -- shovellin' coal!" 
 It grew to a chant, a stoker's song. "Say" 
 he kicked the door of the fire box shut. - 
 "Don Pedro git on all right?" 
 
 The "old man" grinned through his visage 
 of soot. "I was thinkin'," he yelled into the 
 roar, "as how you'd be askin' that if I didn't 
 up and tell you. . . . Shucks, Con, you 
 know it well enough yourself, yet I got to own 
 it was a superb neat job." 
 
 "Aw," Slag yelled back, "'tain't so much."
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 221 
 
 Sam looked him fondly in the eye. Taking 
 his time, he put an arm over his shoulder and 
 gently bellowed in his ear: "Oh rats!" 
 
 Slag glowered fiercely, which made the "old 
 man" love him the more. It was no use. 
 Slag ruefully descended the battlemented height 
 of Modesty and, on the level, handed the "old 
 man" his sword. High spirits must have 
 capitulated soon in any case. He grasped 
 Sam's hand, and laughed. Geography changed 
 while he laughed. 
 
 '' You hit her right, Sam," he roared. "You 
 sure hit her right, for it was the neatest ever. 
 Somewheres way back in the cactus they come 
 up on my two nags, an' I reckon they're lookin' 
 for Don Pedro round there yet, while all the 
 time he's aboard this here train. You said 
 he was aboard, Sam?" 
 
 "I was meanin' to, Con." 
 
 "Then it's all right. Everything's all " 
 
 " What the " The engineer threw over 
 
 the lever. Signals ahead were set for danger. 
 It was a village, a way station, a telegraph in- 
 strument. The coast-bound never stopped there.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 The train stopped. One lone native dis- 
 patcher with his lantern was visible. Sam 
 leaned out and snatched a yellow telegram from 
 the man's hand. Each letter was laboriously 
 printed in ink. Sam was too mad to quite say 
 what he wanted to say. He waved it speech- 
 lessly at Slag. 
 
 "Now if that ain't railroadin' for you," 
 cackled Slag. "Stoppin' a train for a suit 
 case! Who's 'B. D.'?" 
 
 "Should be *S. D.,' ' superintendente de 
 division.' Wait a minute, I got to confer with 
 this jackass. . . . Now, you, hombrey, 
 burro, que quiere por este, eh ? What you mean 
 by this, putting out a red light for a suit case? 
 Que animal. . . . Oh, Slag, cross your 
 fingers at him, tickle him, kill him kindly, 
 something. I'm all in." 
 
 The dispatcher shrugged his shoulders. He 
 knew nothing of suit cases. The orders came 
 in English, which he did not understand. For 
 that reason he thought they were important, 
 secret, and therefore he had . . . 
 
 "And somebody figgured on just that. Let
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 2<U 
 
 me see those orders." The speaker was 
 Jenkins. " Passel of idiots! No superinten- 
 dent is going to wire a flag station for lost 
 baggage. *B. D.'? That looks a heap to me 
 like it spells 'Blaze Derringer.' And if he 
 wants a suit case off at San Casimiro, why 
 didn't he wire us at San Casimiro? Read 
 it again: 
 
 1 'Passenger left behind at Constanza. Suit 
 case on train to be thrown off at San Casimiro, 
 
 'B. D.'" 
 
 "Well, what does he mean by any such gibber* 
 ish?" 
 
 "He don't mean all he says, that's one thing 
 certain. ' ' Suddenly Jenkins whipped his pencil 
 through a number of words. "And he means 
 a darn sight more'n he says, that's another 
 thing. Now read it! 
 
 "'Passenger on train to be thrown off at San 
 Casimiro.' 
 
 :< Want anything simpler'n that? There's 
 them barracks at San Casimiro." 
 
 "We'll stop her in the cut starting down the 
 hill," said Sam. "Con, give the hombrey a
 
 224 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 bolivar out o' your thirty-three thousand. 
 All right, Cap, we're off. . . . Why, what 
 in thunder?" 
 
 Jenkins was chuckling. It sounded like the 
 hiccough, and hurt him. 
 
 "I I was thinking," Jenkins sputtered, 
 "what we will have to do to poor old Don Peter 
 now." 
 
 At San Casimiro the train was met by soldiers 
 and searched again. The provincial young 
 lieutenant commanding was certain that this 
 meant his promotion to Constanza, where the 
 band played on the Plaza. His demeanour was 
 waggish, patronizing, superior. Others might 
 frave been deceived, but not he. No, not he. 
 He permitted himself gaiety while routing out 
 the passengers in the sleeping coach. They 
 should behold. He found no fugitive Don Pedro 
 among them, and he simulated despair. He 
 patted the tip of his nose with the tip of his 
 sabre hilt. Ha, the drawing room, the upper 
 berth! He winked at the passengers, and 
 looked at Jenkins. Jenkins was expected to 
 quail.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 225 
 
 "Ebony," said Jenkins, "show 'em the 
 drawing room." 
 
 Ebony led the bayonet squad to the drawing 
 room. It was unoccupied. He took down 
 the upper berth. It was empty, even of bed- 
 ding. 
 
 The lieutenant was not so certain of promotion 
 to Constanza. 
 
 "But the mattress, Sefior Conductor, the 
 blankets, they are vanished. Ah, to make room, 
 eh? Where- -" 
 
 "Ebony, you black rascal," said Jenkins, 
 "why don't you tell the General ? I believe I'm 
 tired of questions." 
 
 The lieutenant turned on the negro. He 
 tapped fingers to palm in the gesture of demand- 
 ing money. " Where is the mattress ? Where 
 are the blankets? Why are they not here?" 
 
 " Well, I mean, bi-bien, seenyer if you 
 mus' know, sabe, it was was bedbugs 
 . . . chinches, sabe?" Ebony believed that 
 to speak Spanish was to talk English like a 
 Chinaman. " Jus' chinches, muchos. No bueno 
 for nawthin'."
 
 226 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 The mistaken identity of Don Pedro with 
 chinches fell hard on the lieutenant command- 
 ing. 
 
 Once more under way coastward, the new 
 fireman industriously began to heave coal. He 
 climbed into the tender to heave. He heaved 
 right and left, strewing the right of way. The 
 engineer climbed up and helped him. They 
 uncovered a long, swaddled, padded bundle. 
 
 "All right, Don Pedro," they said to the last 
 of a line of emperors as together they carried 
 the bundle into the cab. " We'll stop again in 
 the woods beyond, and you can go on back to 
 bed." They unwrapped a towel from his 
 mouth. 
 
 "As you wish, gentlemen," said Don Pedro. 
 The hidalgo heart was broken. Don Pedro was 
 cured of conspiracy and revolution. The days 
 of the high Castilian manner were gone. 
 Another, a garish day, was here distinctively 
 an American day. A disfigured cheek, a 
 tandem, a bundle shut up in a berth, a 
 mummy under lumps of coal. . . . And his 
 glorious Bess was of this other day. It was she
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 227 
 
 who had set all this on foot in her poor father's 
 behalf. Nevertheless, the emperor-who-would- 
 have-been smiled faintly as he thought of his 
 glorious Bess. 
 
 "As you wish, gentlemen," he said, smiling 
 even on them a little.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER of Texas, his own 
 thoughts intent on the glorious Bess, 
 would not wait until morning to act 
 on them. While night endured and the official 
 mind was yet in chaos over Don Pedro's escape, 
 the young American might evade the noose of 
 suspicion certain to be cast over him. Mingling 
 with the crowd, he had seen Morder ransack 
 the coast-bound, had witnessed the affair of the 
 mattress and blankets, and later had overheard 
 admiring whispers about Morder's cleverness in 
 ordering the train to be searched again at San 
 Casimiro. Whereupon Derringer had con- 
 cocted that message of his own which intercepted 
 the train at a way station. 
 
 He could do these things, because he was not 
 supposedly connected as yet with the evening's 
 sensational event. By morning, though, the 
 universe would be a trap. Therefore he must 
 
 228
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 229 
 
 keep out of the way of the universe. He had 
 neither Slag nor Jenkins to help him. Those 
 two musketeers of the trio were rounding off 
 the adventure they had bargained for. This 
 other adventure was a new one, and for Der- 
 ringer alone. He never thought of it as adven- 
 ture, but more as though some one near and 
 dear to him were dangerously ill. Yet what 
 could he do? He did not know. He only 
 knew that if they caught him, he could do noth- 
 ing. Bess was oblivious of her peril. At least 
 she must be warned that Morder now believed 
 her to be the custodian of her father's wealth. 
 It was a relief for Derringer to project his 
 faculties on something definite. 
 
 Keeping in the shadows of freight cars, he 
 crossed the deserted switchyards to the adobe 
 wall where he and Don Pedro had left the 
 famous tandem. He mounted, and started off 
 on the same lonely trails by which they had 
 come, except that the home of the Augustias 
 and not the Hospital was now his goal. As he 
 approached from the rear and drew within 
 easy walking distance, he began to feel the need
 
 230 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 of a well. He wanted to drop the tandem in it. 
 That assemblage of junk was become as oner- 
 ous as a stolen mutton; more so, since the 
 coyotes of the cactus plain would not touch it. 
 
 "Case of feeding her to the monkey wrench," 
 he decided, and forthwith began the distribution, 
 variously consigning a backbone, a handle bar, 
 a wheel, a pedal, and the rest to the thorny 
 jungle along the way. 
 
 On foot he stole toward the Augustias home, 
 to sink abruptly behind a maguey. There 
 was a patrol making his round outside the 
 walled gardens. It was the logically idiotic 
 thing for them to do, thought Derringer. If 
 Don Pedro had gained refuge within, the 
 Republic of Sylvanlitlan would keep him in at 
 her pleasure. Or, should he try to get in, the 
 Republic would catch him niftily. As though 
 any sane fugitive could be so arrant an imbecile! 
 
 But and now Derringer theorized with 
 livelier concern if this close guard were 
 Morder's own private game? If Morder were 
 holding the Senorita prisoner until he might 
 call to demand her father's fortune? And
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 231 
 
 in that event, what manner of entreaty would 
 the resolute villain elect ? 
 
 "I'll have to be there to see for myself," 
 thought Derringer. 
 
 Getting there, however, was an item. 
 
 One possible opening into the gardens was 
 unknown to the patrol; and, by a quaint irony, 
 this flaw in the cordon around the treasure was 
 once the hiding place of what had been thought 
 the treasure. Derringer waited until the sentry 
 passed on ; and when the sentry passed again, 
 Derringer lay in the pit alongside the wall where 
 a few nights before they had dug out the chest 
 of Confederate money. 
 
 Between the coming and going of the guard, 
 he burrowed under the wall with his pocket 
 knife and shovelled with his fingers, and this was 
 a long job. When at last his red head, heavy 
 with soil as the fur of a mole, emerged from 
 the earth within the garden, the steel blue of the 
 moonlit wilderness outside was already changing 
 to gray. He filled up his tunnel behind him, 
 scattering leaves over the fresh dirt, and with 
 a grimace at his clothes, he wished for a pump
 
 232 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 and a towel before presenting himself to the 
 chatelaine in her beleaguered castle. He could 
 cover his hands at least, since there were kid 
 gloves in his golf jacket, and a moment later he 
 was rapping on the door of the loggia. 
 
 Some one opened to him stealthily, and a 
 frightened face peered out. It was that invalu- 
 able messenger of the Seiiorita's, her woman 
 who did the marketing. With her first recogni- 
 tion of the smeared and earthy visitor, she 
 hastened him inside, and directly the young man 
 found himself a second time in that large 
 room where the princess of Sylvanlitlan read 
 precise Bostonian books or softly sang trou- 
 badour ballads to the accompaniment of her 
 own guitar. That other time the spacious 
 music room was the seat of judgment, where 
 he and De Marzi had been led by the plump 
 Dona. 
 
 The Dona was asleep now, so the woman 
 informed Derringer, but the Senorita, yes, 
 the Senorita was awake, and awake the poor 
 child had been all through the night, and all 
 night long she had been sending the servants
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 233 
 
 forth to hear what latest news of her father 
 might be passing over the town. 
 
 "And I will take her your card, sefior, as 
 you desire," said the woman, when a door 
 opened and there stood the dainty little Senorita 
 herself. 
 
 A catch of the breath, almost a cry, escaped 
 Derringer. The surprise was of the heart, 
 not the head, and his heart had leaped. She 
 was wholly of old Castile this early in the morn- 
 ing, when the blood races to tint and warm the 
 flesh. Her collar lay open and turned under, 
 and on seeing him she drew a filmy rebosa of 
 shimmering lavender across her bared neck and 
 flung the end over her shoulder. A high comb 
 crowned the brown hair like a coronet, and a 
 silken skirt that touched the ankles revealed 
 her little shoes with their red heels. It all 
 made him feel apologetic, dirt-streaked, and 
 disreputable; and, truth to tell, the distress of 
 her night's vigil vanished from her eyes and 
 gave way to mischief as she took note of him. 
 
 "Oh," she exclaimed, offering her hand in 
 welcome, *"but that is not a good disguise!"
 
 234 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 He grinned feebly. "I am not in disguise, 
 Miss Bess. I've been making mud pies. Why ?" 
 
 "Because," she said, the strain of anxiety 
 settling again on her brow, "because they are 
 arresting every American in Constanza. It 
 seems that two unknown Americans overpow- 
 ered Colonel Morder at the Hospital last night. 
 My faith," she cried, frankly letting him see 
 the grateful light in her eyes, "but I think that 
 you must have had a wonderful time last 
 night!" 
 
 "Indeed, yes," he exclaimed, never under- 
 standing that the maiden was bestowing laurel 
 on him, "for it was sure great." 
 
 She regarded him for a moment under crink- 
 ling brows. "I shall have to find you a hiding 
 place," she announced with matronly decision. 
 
 He bridled at that. He had not come to 
 hide. "If," he began, "I might be led to a 
 wash basin " 
 
 "Yes," she agreed ruthlessly, "to wash your 
 face. And by that time I shall have thought of 
 a place somewhere to " 
 
 "Better think of one for yourself, Miss Bess,
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 235 
 
 because Morder will be looking for you, not me. 
 He found out last night that you Listen, 
 isn't that the knocker on the front door ? Then 
 it's Morder now! Miss Bess, he has come for 
 your father's money. What do you wish me 
 to do?" 
 
 "To to Here, behind these curtains." 
 It hurt, but he obeyed. If he stayed to face the 
 intruder, that would distract her, and not help 
 in the least, and the girl needed her wits. Her 
 evident small opinion of his usefulness gave 
 him a twinge. But small opinions had not 
 disturbed him before, and people usually got over 
 them. She ran to the heavy velvet curtains, and 
 held them parted for him, and he meekly 
 stepped behind. Her eyes raised to his to 
 thank l&m, and then she noticed that the pupils 
 under Jthe freckled eyelids were growing bigger, 
 and she was vaguely disconcerted. 
 
 For his part he saw her brow clear when she 
 perceived that he was not going to be stubborn. 
 Her cheeks were bloodless and the small hand 
 laid on the curtain was clenched tightly, yet 
 when a servant burst into the room crying that
 
 236 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 all out-doors was filled with soldiers and that 
 Colonel Morder was there, she drew a long 
 breath, and the trembling through her slender 
 body ceased, and he heard her quietly bid the 
 servant to ask the Colonel Morder to enter. 
 
 Morder was in full dragoon uniform, and a 
 splendid personage he looked. His plumed 
 helmet in the curve of his arm, a hand on his sabre 
 hilt, he bent from the waist. His deep voice was 
 softened to deprecating apology. On no account 
 could he permit that she be disquieted, and she 
 beheld him there ready to shield her with his 
 own breast and buckler if need be. 
 
 "Gee whiz," muttered Derringer behind his 
 curtains, "that's the way I should have 
 talked!" 
 
 The harsh though eminently shrewd Presi- 
 dente, it seemed, had ordered the house searched. 
 Two jaded horses ridden by her father and one 
 of his American rescuers had been found, 
 abandoned, out on the plateau. The entire 
 region had been scoured. The city had been 
 scoured. Therefore the Presidente was of the 
 opinion that Don Pedro and the American
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 237 
 
 must have stolen back to Don Pedro's own house. 
 The American was no doubt a vicious fellow 
 named Slag, who had bought the two horses at 
 the bullring. Slag had vanished, and with him 
 his associate, an idle young adventurer whom 
 Morder himself happened to know by repu- 
 tation in Texas for a worthless and shoddy 
 gambler. 
 
 "One moment," said the Senorita, and Der- 
 ringer thrilled at something in her voice. "First 
 you tell me, Colonel Morder, that this that 
 these two men rescued my father, and then 
 you slander them. You cannot but perceive, 
 senor, that on one score or the other you must 
 be " 
 
 "Lying, you would say," he assisted her 
 affably. "Oh, well, Senorita, it cannot greatly 
 matter, since they are to be executed " 
 
 ; 'When found," she suggested. 
 
 He bowed, graciously conceding the point. 
 
 "That being the case, Senorita, you must not 
 be too hard on the Presidente for wishing to 
 search the house." 
 
 "The more thanks to you, then, Colonel
 
 238 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 Morder, since you have come to prevent it," 
 and she inclined her head, as though that were 
 all and he would be taking his departure. 
 
 An amused smile flashed under his black 
 moustache. "Ah, dear lady, you should take 
 my meaning better. I can prevent it until you 
 are prepared, which comes to the same thing. 
 For example, we search here on the ground floor 
 first. We find no one, neither your father nor 
 even an American. Then we take the floor 
 above, going up by the front stairway. That 
 leaves all other stairways clear for any one above 
 who might wish at that moment to descend. Or," 
 he went on without change in tone, "as your 
 father is already on this floor oh, do not 
 be alarmed, Seiiorita; you only caught at your 
 breath a little so we will begin on the floor 
 above." 
 
 "Very well, Colonel Morder," she said, 
 steadily meeting his gaze, "as you have now 
 learned from your inferences what you came to 
 learn, why are you waiting? Call in your 
 soldiers, and have an end!" 
 
 He humoured her brave attempt at indiffer-
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 239 
 
 ence. "Alas, Senorita," he pleaded unctuously, 
 "kindly endeavour to understand. According 
 as I order the search, we will find your father 
 within the hour, or we will not find him. But 
 I come first alone, to you, lest I blunder and we 
 do find your father. Ah, Senorita," he ex- 
 claimed earnestly, laying his helmet on the 
 table and coming toward her, "as I look at you, 
 knowing that you must see yourself at times in 
 your mirror, I wonder that you cannot under- 
 stand. But understand now, little temptress, 
 understand now, my alluring princess of Sylvan- 
 litlan, that I have the honour to want your- 
 self!" 
 
 She stared at him, dazed. Then, from the 
 curtains at her back, she heard a low, angry 
 snort. Abruptly the situation changed for her. 
 The struggle was plain on her face; the blood 
 mantling her cheeks, the spasm-like curving of 
 the red lips, the dimpling of the mouth and 
 she laughed outright. 
 
 Morder stopped, rigid, utterly at a loss. His 
 face worked darkly. His suave control was 
 gone. Merely the gross woman-beater was left.
 
 240 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Witch, siren, mocker," he cried, ferocity 
 barbing the once purring tones. "It is to 
 laugh, then? It is to laugh!" 
 
 She nodded her head yes and shook her head 
 no, uncertain in the seizure of mirth which was 
 the answer. 
 
 He glowered, and closed his fist, and his look 
 was as magnificently black as a thunder-cloud. 
 "Eh, you are forgetting my dragoons outside. 
 You are forgetting the search." That was his 
 present way to strike a woman. "I go to call 
 them." He started for the door. 
 
 "No," she cried. "No, no!" 
 
 She ran to stop him, and had all but overtaken 
 him, when he turned exultantly. "It is a fair 
 bargain, then!" and his arms reached for her. 
 
 She half screamed, darting backward. 
 
 "Lo, from behind the arras. . . ." And 
 Derringer, self-conscious of his cue and blush- 
 ing, announced himself. At a step he came 
 between the retreating girl and the man, and 
 apologetically levelled a six-shooter at the man's 
 head. 
 
 Morder's chagrin passed with his amazement.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 241 
 
 He tucked his thumbs in his belt, careful, 
 however, to make no motion toward his 
 pistol, and meditatively regarded the dirt- 
 encased and rumpled young American. 
 
 "You ought to be frightened," said Derringer. 
 "It's loaded." 
 
 "Six aces, eh?" suggested Morder. " Ai, 
 dear sir, the pleasure of meeting you again! 
 The exquisite pleasure of a second little game!" 
 He nodded his head affably toward the levelled 
 six-shooter. 
 
 "You are still owing a wee bit on the last 
 one," Derringer reminded him. 
 
 The Colonel's left epaulette raised in a 
 slightly wearied shrug. "Oh, that, yes. We 
 will permit that to go on the present game. 
 Bien, hombre, I am waiting. It is to you the 
 next move." 
 
 The identical thought was troubling Der- 
 ringer already. "I say, Miss Bess." He 
 turned to her in his perplexity. "The Colonel's 
 right, you know. It's a dead-lock." 
 
 She was standing beside him, panting a 
 little, her cheeks still flushed at thought of the
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 proffered indignity. She could make little of 
 what they were saying, yet was thrillingly 
 aware that a duel of cold nerve, a gamblers' 
 duel, was on between these two pleasantly 
 worded men of the world. The air of the 
 room was of that world outside, and seemed 
 electric, so that the cloistered girl tingled to 
 her finger-tips, marvelling at the other sex. 
 
 "A dead-lock?" she murmured. "I do not 
 understand." 
 
 " It's this way," Derringer explained. " Mor- 
 der here would sacredly promise anything 
 rather than have his head blown off. He 
 would promise to annoy you no more, to call 
 off his soldiers, to let me escape anything. 
 But, the only trouble is, he wouldn't keep his 
 promise." 
 
 **Senor!" cried Morder, stern and pompous. 
 "Oblige me, how do you know that?" 
 
 "A man," Derringer retorted drily, "who 
 does not pay his poker debts ! On the other 
 hand, Miss Bess, I might blow off his head 
 anyhow. But where's the good ? The soldiers 
 would be in here the minute after, and keep
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 243 
 
 me from taking you to your father, as I mean to. 
 For the life of me, I I don't know what to 
 do. Try your hand at it, Miss Bess; think of 
 something." 
 
 Together, like two friendless orphans, they 
 confronted their enemy, and the large uniformed 
 personage, their enemy, smiled on them, toler- 
 antly sympathizing with them in their dilemma. 
 
 "Oh, I know!" Involuntarily the girl laid 
 a hand on Derringer's arm. "But first, would 
 you would you trust me ?" 
 
 "Don't be absurd, Miss Bess." 
 
 "I mean very much?" 
 
 He snorted impatiently. 
 
 "Thank you," she said; "then give me that 
 pistol." 
 
 "But suppose he insults you again?" 
 
 "I would have the pistol, wouldn't I?" 
 
 "Yes. And then what, Miss Bess?" 
 
 "You are to go with him to the peniten- 
 tiary Oh, I told you it was to trust me 
 very much. And you heard him say, too, that 
 you were to be shot " 
 
 "Here is the pistol, Miss Bess."
 
 244 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 She gave him her hand, and her eyes filled 
 as she looked at him. Morder watched him 
 closely, to see if he wavered. 
 
 " Dios mio! Senorita," he observed judicially, 
 "I was mistaken. * Shoddy* is not the word."
 
 CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 THE search of the Augustias mansion 
 was achieved, and nothing eventful hap- 
 pened. Derringer of Texas was taken 
 to prison. The troopers and the gold-laced 
 expanse of their Colonel were gone. Whereupon 
 a thing portentous of events did happen. The 
 princess of Sylvanlitlan called for her carriage. 
 
 "There, there, my aunt," she said to a pal- 
 pitating Dona Pepita, "they are not going to 
 shoot him exactly right away. Yes, yes, I 
 know he is a nice boy and it's a pity, if you say 
 so, but Colonel Morder was not impressed with 
 that as an argument, was he? We must find 
 a stronger one, so hurry with your hat no, 
 no, not that, the dark tan and come with 
 me. Your nice boy is occupying Colonel 
 Morder's attention and risking his life to give 
 me this chance, so Auntie, would you wear 
 a gray veil?" 
 
 245
 
 246 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 There was a flagstaff on the modest though 
 respectable dwelling where the Senorita's car- 
 riage stopped first, and above the brass knocker 
 with which her coachman bombarded the door 
 there was a scutcheon emblazoned with an ugly- 
 looking customer in the way of being an Ameri- 
 can eagle. 
 
 The American Minister, whose abode it was, 
 responded in person when the Senorita's card 
 was handed him, and himself assisted the two 
 ladies to alight. He had received the Presidente 
 of Sylvanlitlan in the little flag-draped parlour 
 to which he led them, yet on that occasion he 
 hurried his good wife with no more unction 
 to do the honours than on this occasion. The 
 daughter of a line of emperors! It seemed to 
 the American Minister, and his wife, that they 
 were accredited to a royal court already, and 
 they quaffed naively of the foretaste of promo- 
 tion. Only on second thought did the diplomat 
 reflect that a visit from the Senorita on the 
 morning after her father's escape might render 
 him a persona non grata, that is, a person out 
 of a job; and through quite a series of second
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 247 
 
 thoughts the American Minister was a troubled 
 man. He was troubled no less, and a little 
 bored as well, when he learned the motive of 
 the Senorita's call. 
 
 "Bless us," he said, genially conscious of 
 his cleverness, " if all these wandering scalawags 
 who are my fellow citizens would but confine 
 their need of police regulation to the home 
 market!" 
 
 "Yet surely," protested the Senorita, "you 
 will demand to know what evidence there is 
 against him ? And you will do this, won't you, 
 before they shoot him, rather than afterward?" 
 
 "Oh yes h'm, yes, of course, in view of 
 the fact that they have not quite shot him as 
 yet." 
 
 "Now suppose," continued she, "that there 
 should happen to be no evidence?" 
 
 "No evidence?" exclaimed the diplomat. 
 "And you here, ma'am, interceding for him!" 
 
 "I went so far as to assume," said the girl, 
 artfully turning to the Minister's wife for sup- 
 port, "that you would understand how I could 
 wish no one executed on my father's account."
 
 248 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Why, my dear, of course not!" eagerly 
 cried the Minister's wife; and the Dona chimed 
 in too, seizing her first chance to proclaim that 
 it was a pity and he was such a nice young 
 rascal, for since the night she had caught him 
 fighting on her back porch she could figure to 
 herself no lad more simpdtico than this same 
 Meestah Derrin-geaire. 
 
 The diplomat's finger-tips were complacently 
 pressed together, but at the name they parted 
 and went to alert attention on the arms of his 
 chair. 
 
 " What what was that name, if you please ?" 
 
 "Derringer, Edward Derringer," said the 
 Senorita. 
 
 The Minister darted a look at his wife, and 
 an agitated glance passed between them. Then, 
 awake, alive, and quite the American Minister, 
 he took up the grave affair involving a fellow 
 countryman's life. 
 
 "Naturally, Senorita," he began weightily, 
 "the procedure in a case of this kind is all 
 indicated, even to invoking the armed h'm, 
 well, the supreme recourse. However, as you
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 249 
 
 have so mercifully interested yourself uh, 
 perhaps there is something you would suggest ?" 
 
 "If," she replied, "you will merely let the 
 Presidente know that you wish to review the 
 evidence against Mr. Derringer." 
 
 "Naturally, naturally, that is always the 
 first step, you know." 
 
 "It will be quite enough, sir, and thank you." 
 
 "Enough? Oh, but " 
 
 "I shall do the rest myself," she explained 
 demurely. Then, seeing his incredulous smile: 
 "Oh, I know," she laughed, "but a girl's two 
 feet can move faster than your huge United 
 States of the North, and Mr. Derringer may 
 not be able to wait." 
 
 "Bless us," ejaculated the Minister, "what 
 delightful humbug!" 
 
 "Thank you for the flower, sir, and have I 
 your promise to let the Presidente hear from 
 you within an hour?" 
 
 "You may certainly command my obedience, 
 Senorita." But she accepted this as his promise 
 only after she had won a nod from his wife by 
 the subtle flattery of an appealing glance.
 
 250 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 Alone once more in their little parlour, the 
 American Minister and madame his wife let 
 their thoughts at the name of Derringer fly to 
 words. 
 
 " Oh, Robert dear," cried the lady, running to 
 him, " it is the conspicuous international affair at 
 last ! It is the' limelight lightning' you have been 
 wishing would strike you for so many years! 
 Oh my, there you go, getting posey and non- 
 committal again! With your own wife, too! 
 You should be deeper than that, my dear. And 
 don't you just wish that this will get into the 
 newspapers up home ? All the other things so far 
 simply oh, you know simply fizzled. And 
 you've always been so good to the correspondents, 
 too, signing their passports for a dollar and 
 
 They were both young on the diplomatic 
 ladder, only a little over fifty, and therefore still 
 hopeful, for, of course, the American people 
 could never again be so absurd as to let in a 
 Democratic President, and what with their 
 "influence" constantly being jogged to step 
 over and remind the White House, and their 
 Congressman back home in Iowa, and the
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 251 
 
 second cousin who was Third Assistant Secre- 
 tary 
 
 "Little woman," the American Minister inter- 
 rupted her with benign patience, "you so well 
 speak out what I labour to conceal that to 
 listen to you is a recess, a relaxation, a holiday. 
 And now, dear, as you have finished, I can go 
 back to taciturnity, refreshed and with a stouter 
 heart, having perceived its wisdom anew." 
 
 "Oh, pshaw," she pouted, "you have said 
 all that before, and I don't understand it any 
 better than I did at first. Now where is that 
 cablegram ? Oh, how little did we think that it 
 would prove so important!" 
 
 Together they read the cablegram, and to- 
 gether they conjured up a vista of newspaper 
 headlines, even extra editions, perhaps, as a 
 breathless American public day by day awaited 
 or acclaimed their Minister's next adroit move; 
 and in their dream flashed terse code messages 
 to the Secretary of State, and the Secretary's 
 more terse "Use own judgment" flashing back, 
 and then the battleships and conferences with 
 the admiral, and the strain on the Minister
 
 252 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 making him haggard, and finally the sequel. 
 The sequel would surely be the nomination to 
 Brazil, or at least as good. 
 
 "In his own new yacht," murmured the lady. 
 "Why, but Robert, he must have no end of 
 influence!" 
 
 The American Minister winced. Again his 
 own thought to a dot. 
 
 The cablegram received just that morning 
 did seem providential. Yet it was only from 
 an old Gulf cattleman up in Texas somewhere, 
 who was wandering around the Caribbean 
 like a blooded prince, in search of his boy who 
 was also wandering, the Lord only knew where 
 or like what. 
 
 It had transpired in this manner: The elder 
 Derringer, coming to Galveston with a train- 
 load of prime export stuff, had crossed his boy's 
 trail at the hotel there. He contrived to learn 
 that the boy had struck out again on the Levia- 
 than. The ship was bound for Trinidad and 
 divers way ports, though where the boy was 
 bound did not appear. He had taken his passage 
 after going on board. That was like Eddie,
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 253 
 
 thought the elder Derringer, and more than 
 likely Eddie did not know himself where he 
 was going. But Eddie's father wired home for 
 his yacht, and set forth hi her to ask the captain 
 of the Leviathan where Eddie might be. And 
 that was like Eddies fathers. 
 
 The elder Derringer had missed the Leviathan 
 at Trinidad, and Eddie not being hi Trinidad, 
 he had cabled enquiry of the American Minister 
 in each country at which the Leviathan touched. 
 
 "But don't you tell him I'm looking for him," 
 he cautioned at heavy cost in tolls. "I want 
 to surprise him with this new yacht." 
 
 What was more likely, the elder Derringer 
 wished to see for himself what kind of a boy 
 he had by now. That alone was worth a cruise. 
 God, sir, it was the ultimate cruise of life, the 
 supreme treasure hunt! Old man Derringer 
 did know how to invest in big things. For 
 almost two years he had wondered how the 
 boy was making out on that five-thousand- 
 dollar wager. That was the dial to manhood, 
 or to perdition, which he had placed in the young 
 man's hands. A rollicking sailor might box
 
 254 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 the compass, and then steer straight after all. 
 What was his boy doing? Well, it was worth 
 a cruise. 
 
 'Yes, little woman," said the American 
 Minister, "he ought to bring one more Senator 
 to us, I think." 
 
 "What are you going to do first, Robert?" 
 
 "Oh, cable to the State Department, I 
 suppose." 
 
 "You are? And have them ask you what 
 you have done! No, my dear, you are going 
 this minute to see the Presidente of Sylvanlitlan." 
 
 Already she was plying a velvet pad around 
 his silk tile to bring out the eight perpendicular 
 reflections required of the protocol.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 A PERSON of consequence in Sylvanlitlan 
 was the Presidente, called also the 
 Runt of Sylvanlitlan. But even he, 
 with his beard as black as a pirate's, and on 
 a time a brigand cattle herder in the fast- 
 nesses of the Andes, was not insusceptible to 
 receiving the Senorita de Las Augustias. The 
 little squat tyrant was closeted, indeed, with 
 the American Minister when her card and the 
 Dona Pepita's were handed him by a saddle- 
 hued and sandal-shod orderly. The effect 
 was a hasty repeating of assurances for the 
 Sister Republic of the North, and a rising 
 from his chair, and a bow and extending of 
 the hand, and a feeling expression of regret 
 that his esteemed caller could bide no longer; 
 so that the American Minister was con- 
 strained to depart, though he wanted to 
 say over again, with more polished and im- 
 
 255
 
 256 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 pressive diction, what he had said several times 
 already. 
 
 The ladies of Sylvanlitlan's first family were 
 waiting in the gilded and mirrored audience 
 chamber. They were kept waiting only so 
 long as it takes to shake the hand of an American 
 Minister. A cattle herder who may do one and 
 the other of these two things at the same time 
 has risen a little, and it is a long climb upward 
 from the Andean fastnesses down to the hidalgo 
 exclusiveness of the plateau of Constanza. 
 But an ape-like agility at climbing and the 
 prurient will to climb were descried in the 
 puckering folds between the Runt's eyes. The 
 folds were corrugations wrought by impish 
 craft, though the Presidente had made himself 
 believe, and was still trying to make the outraged 
 exclusiveness of Constanza believe, that he had 
 risen by the sword. So he had, but by other 
 swords than his own, which his guile had 
 tricked to his service, while each sputter of 
 distant musketry griped his bowels with sickly 
 fear. 
 
 The little despot did not know that Beauty,
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 257 
 
 as well as Family, awaited him in his audience 
 chamber, else he would have been more precipi- 
 tate, for Beauty was notoriously his pleasure, 
 and pleasure was his self -paid reward of power. 
 He had never as yet looked on the daughter 
 of his first prisoner of State, and the few of his 
 intimates who had were held by some nebulous 
 instinct of charity from picturing her to the 
 ruthless outlaw. 
 
 His first thought, when he saw her now, was 
 to curse those charitable ones, even as his white 
 teeth smiled out of the black beard and his 
 eyes narrowed on her until they were flecks of 
 lambent steel. He took her hand in greeting, 
 and she quickly averted her head, for it was 
 as though a toad were laid to her flesh. 
 
 "Ah, Senorita," he was saying, "to think 
 that until a moment ago I fancied that no one 
 could be more welcome here this day than your 
 elusive father! How? You are shuddering! 
 Still, as you know, your father is not here." 
 
 "It is because of that happy fact, sefior, that 
 I am here." 
 
 "Which any man, Senorita, and I first,
 
 258 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 would account superb compensation. Yet Don 
 Pedro did treat me shabbily with his leave-taking, 
 and'* The beard parted again in the flash 
 of white teeth. "I have felt it deeply." 
 
 "Evidently, senor, since you persecute a 
 young foreigner for the negligence of your 
 jailors." 
 
 "Lamentable, is it not?" sighed His Ex- 
 cellency. 
 
 ''You mean," cried Dona Pepita, "you mean 
 that you are really going to shoot that poor 
 boy? Oh, oh, you mountain ruffian!" 
 Then instantly the good soul quailed under his 
 frown. 
 
 "The fact is, senora," he said in chilled, 
 even tones, "that I have only just promised 
 an account of the affair to the Minister of 
 the United States of the North. A formality, 
 you understand, to be rid of him, for I do not 
 like meddling, senora. I do not like meddling." 
 
 : 'Yet at the risk of meddling," began the 
 Senorita, when he interposed to assure her that 
 she might risk anything. "Be so good, senor," 
 she said, flushing, "as to spare me until I come
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 259 
 
 for favours. I was only going to ask what you 
 propose to tell the American Minister." 
 
 "Why," he exclaimed, hot now in temper, 
 "the condemned Gringo was seen helping Don 
 Pedro to escape. Is that not enough?" 
 
 "Was seen?" She pressed a gloved finger 
 to her lower lip, steadying her resolution. " Who 
 saw him ?" 
 
 "Colonel Morder saw him." 
 
 "And no one else?" 
 
 " Peste, Senorita, where are you driving ? No, 
 no one saw him but the very clever Morder." 
 
 "WTiere was Colonel Morder at the time?" 
 
 "He was later found bound and gagged." 
 The Presidente was answering his own thoughts 
 more than her. "Bound and gagged," he 
 repeated slowly to himself. 
 
 Holding the gloved finger to her lip, she let the 
 poison work. 
 
 Suddenly he stamped his foot, flung up his 
 arms. "Marvellous intrigante," he cried, "tell 
 me how much did your father pay him ? How 
 much, how much?" 
 
 Mutely she nodded to her aunt, and the Dona
 
 260 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 fumbled in her beaded reticule and handed 
 His Excellency a folded paper. 
 
 As the Presidente read, his jaw dropped lax. 
 He read a second time. 
 
 "Who gave you this, Senorita?" 
 
 " Whose name is signed there?" 
 
 "Morder's. He gave it to you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "For what?" 
 
 "As you see, it is a receipt for a chart or plan 
 which directed him to a buried chest." 
 
 "A buried chest? All your father's hidden 
 fortune, you mean to say, which I which 
 my government had confiscated!" 
 
 "What do you think now," demanded the 
 Senorita, "of your one witness against the 
 young American? Or rather, what will the 
 United States of the North think?" 
 
 The Presidente brushed that aside. "A pest 
 on your Americans," he cried. "And on then* 
 gunboats, too! Dios, am I in my dotage, to let 
 Morder herd me into that corral ? No, Senorita, 
 I'll shoot no Americans to-day." 
 
 "And he goes free?"
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 261 
 
 "As soon as a man may let go a hot branding- 
 iron. But," said the Presidente, sucking in 
 his breath, " I thank you again for compensation, 
 for I may have my little fiesta after all. You 
 have found me a substitute in the obsequies." 
 
 "Wait," she faltered. Morder had forced 
 lier to play his life for one who had saved her 
 father from him. Yet now that it was done, 
 she could not leave it so. " Wait, for you must 
 know that the chest was not my father's at all. 
 It was a sailor's chest, senor, and belonged to a 
 naval officer named Blackburn who commanded 
 a vessel in the Civil War of North America. 
 Captain Blackburn was on the losing side, but 
 he slipped through a blockade and was pursued 
 even into our own Puertocito. My father 
 happened to be in Puertocito at the time, and he 
 really saved the captain and crew, I believe, from 
 falling into the hands of their enemies and from 
 starvation as well. You understand, senor, 
 that Captain Blackburn's money, which his 
 government had given him to pay off the crew, 
 was now only so much paper. My father 
 prevailed on Captain Blackburn to come as his
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 guest to Constanza, and kept him as long as he 
 would stay. When he left, he laughingly con- 
 fided to my father his chest of Confederate 
 money, but my father insisted on regarding it 
 as a trust, so he buried the chest and made out a 
 chart for finding it again. Observe, senor, that 
 it is for this chest and this worthless money that 
 you are going to execute Colonel Morder." 
 
 The Presidente listened graciously. It was 
 a delight to hear her clear voice and its sweet 
 cadences, to watch her richly curved wrist in 
 its gestures, and the animation of her expression. 
 The Presidente, however, wished to execute 
 Morder in any case. Slowly he shook his head. 
 "If you had not already shown yourself so 
 clever, Senorita," he said, "then what you have 
 just told me w^ould seem too ingenious not to 
 believe. I think," he added soothingly, "that 
 I can persuade dear Colonel Morder to be more 
 convincing regarding this chest." 
 
 Poetic justice, and she the vicar of Fate! 
 If the Runt of Sylvanlitlan meant anything, he 
 meant the star-chamber for Colonel Morder. 
 And Morder, failing to surrender a fortune he
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 263 
 
 did not possess, would pass on to execution. 
 He was in his own victim's place. Now the lass 
 who inspires such poesy filches from Olympus, 
 and her compassionate heart is ground and 
 mangled between the marble hearts of the gods. 
 
 That this is the truth slowly entered the girl's 
 soul. To save the wretch who had devised 
 torture and death for her father was, it seemed 
 now, to save her own right to happiness. Were 
 she a pagan, she must have despaired, for one 
 may not contend against the gods. But the 
 maid had been to Boston to school, and out of her 
 stress there came resolve with precision. Invok- 
 ing what despatch she might, she bade the 
 Presidente a very good morning. 
 
 The Presidente watched her, as for that 
 matter no one partial to a sweet and pretty 
 girl could help doing, and studied her thought- 
 fully, until she and the Dona had passed out 
 of his audience chamber. For a moment 
 after she was gone he held the same pose and 
 his eyes held the same look. Then he sum- 
 moned De Marzi. 
 
 De Marzi sauntered in, rolling a cigarette.
 
 264 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Boy," said the Presidente, "you will take 
 at once an order of release for the Gringo that 
 Morder arrested this morning." 
 
 " Ai, thank Your Excellency for that!" ex- 
 claimed De Marzi. "I feared you would 
 lose me a pretty fight." 
 
 "How, you know him then?" 
 
 "Oh no," replied the audacious rascal. 
 "Once he bumped against me on the Plaza, but 
 Your Excellency has kept me so busy that " 
 
 "And busier yet I'll keep you. Save the 
 affair for your leisure, boy, and meantime you 
 may find business even pleasanter. Do you 
 know, for instance, that Don Pedro is now 
 on the high seas?" 
 
 De Marzi manifested the astonishment his 
 chief expected. 
 
 "He must have gone," said the Presidente, 
 "by the way that Morder guarded closest, 
 which was last night's train to Puertocito. The 
 only ship that left Puertocito this morning was 
 the Leviathan, and I have just learned that her 
 captain, Blackburn by name, is an old friend 
 of Don Pedro's. The Leviathan is northward
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 265 
 
 bound, and her next stop being Punta Tem- 
 pestad " 
 
 "But, Your Excellency, that is in Nueva 
 Andalusia, and what with our being almost at 
 war, they would never let me take Don Pedro 
 off the ship." 
 
 "Exactly, so we will let him go. But he has 
 left his fortune behind. And the man who has 
 it Be very attentive now, boy the man 
 who has it is Morder. Not long ago the 
 Senorita gave Morder a chart What made 
 you start then?" 
 
 "It was I think there is a flea in Your 
 Excellency's audience chamber." 
 
 "Possibly, and a second one will send you 
 hopping. Therefore," resumed the Presidente, 
 "Morder becomes more important to us than 
 Don Pedro." 
 
 "Ho," cried the young officer, "the next 
 commandant, with the title of colonel, is to be 
 De Marzi, now major." 
 
 The Presidente scowled indulgently on his 
 favourite. "You are forgetting the present 
 incumbent," he said.
 
 266 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 "Oh no. Arrest him to-night. Shoot him 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "Boy, boy, he has too many friends." 
 
 "Shoot his friends." 
 
 "And you know that their revolution is all but 
 started already. Now lay your brain to your 
 ears a moment. One very clever Morder is a 
 thief of confiscated goods, eh ? Bueno, there 
 you have the less reason for touching him." 
 
 "Break me if see! I'd shoot him the 
 faster." 
 
 His Excellency smiled. He often thought 
 aloud before the young firebrand. It gratified 
 him to bewilder hot-headed daring, and see 
 what he lacked pay tribute to his tortuous 
 guile. 
 
 "Eh, you would? And yet, when a man 
 has plunder to divide, his friends do wax very 
 peevish at any hint of losing him." 
 
 De Marzi flung his cigarette to the floor. 
 "By many little saintlets," he cried, "it looks 
 to me like Your Excellency is up a tree ! " 
 
 " However, young senor, if your man decamps 
 with the loot, and you catch him but,"
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 267 
 
 laughed the Runt, "I am not running a Latin 
 American school for presidents." 
 
 "If you catch him?" pleaded De Marzi. 
 
 "Blockhead, his friends would be glad if you 
 did shoot him." 
 
 The younger rascal brightened. The office 
 of commandant was growing nearer. 
 
 "Morder," pursued the other, "will probably 
 flee from Constanza to-night." 
 
 "The imbecile! How do you know he will ?" 
 
 "Because the Senorita means to warn him. 
 That little was easy to see in her snapping brown 
 eyes when she left here a moment ago." 
 
 "The Senorita! uh, presto, I am to intercept 
 Morder then?" 
 
 "And bring his plunder back with you. 
 Bring to me the millions he found in that 
 chest. Look here, boy, what manner of faces 
 are those you are making? If it's another 
 flea " 
 
 "No, no, Your Excellency, it's the same one." 
 
 "Huh, I envy the devil," said the Presidente, 
 "when you break in his door! You mouthful 
 of pepper, aren't you afraid even of me ?
 
 268 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 Hold a moment. There is another matter, 
 another treasure that Don Pedro left behind. 
 She," added the Presidente, "was just here." 
 
 "She?" De Marzi repeated in consternation. 
 
 "Of course. But you do not know her, then ? 
 I mean the Senorita. And," said the Runt of 
 Sylvanlitlan, while in De Marzi's black eyes hate 
 of him grew and grew, "I want her. Now at 
 last we are getting to your instructions, boy. 
 Having looked into my eyes, she knows her 
 peril. Naturally, also, she wishes to go to her 
 father, and she will go at the first chance, by the 
 most likely way to escape. She will take the old 
 military road to the frontier, and once in Nueva 
 Andalusia, she will meet the Leviathan at 
 Punta Tempestad." 
 
 The hate in De Marzi's look took on the cast 
 of despair. Involuntarily a cry of admiration 
 for the man's consummate cunning escaped 
 him. 
 
 "In conclusion," said His Excellency, "as 
 the same reasoning will occur to Morder, he will 
 travel the same way, and there, boy, you have 
 a double opportunity,"
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 269 
 
 "To bring them both back," ruefully muttered 
 the young man. 
 
 "You go," said the Presidente, "a colonel. 
 You return a brigadier, if " 
 
 "If," cried De Marzi, shrugging his shoulders, 
 eagerly opening his arms to Fate, "if I bring 
 them both back!" 
 
 "Oh," said His Excellency, "I will not trouble 
 you too much about Morder. He might resist, 
 you know, and then Well, make sure to bring 
 all he carries, and surest of all, the other 
 prize."
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 
 
 YOUR play is luck," said Morder in cha- 
 grin and wonderment. " You stake your 
 life on a woman's word, and sweet 
 saints! you win." 
 
 Blaze Derringer of Texas replied simply that 
 it had not been a gamble at all, and took leave 
 of his host, concluding what had been a half- 
 day's stay in the fusilados row of the Constanza 
 penitentiary. 
 
 In constant adoration of the wonderful girl 
 who had achieved his release, Derringer hailed 
 the first public hack on the Paseo, made straight 
 for his hotel, there applied water and change 
 of raiment, regained the sense of being well 
 groomed, and betook himself joyously to the 
 mansion of the Augustias. 
 
 The Presidente, for his own slant purposes, 
 had called off the sentry at the gate, so that 
 Derringer met no obstacle there. Yet not easily, 
 
 270
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 271 
 
 nor at all, did he find the girl within. It was 
 Aunt Pepita who received him. 
 
 The placid Dona beamed on him fondly. 
 He had just escaped the shadow of death, and 
 to her mind that gave any good woman the right 
 to mother him. It would be a heartless shame 
 if he were not coddled and cossetted. Derringer 
 received it all in a mild astonishment, and not 
 without a fugitive relish. With an odd twitching 
 of heart strings, he realized that he liked being 
 mothered. Suddenly, and not in impudent 
 mischief either, he leaned over and kissed the 
 rosy Dona on the cheek. 
 
 She blinked, recovering from the salute, and 
 seemed of a mind to box his ears. 
 
 "When I am all confusion, too," she said, 
 "making ready to leave to-night! Just for 
 that," she added, "I am going to take you with 
 us." 
 
 "To make real sure," returned the young 
 man, "maybe I'd better do it again." 
 
 "Poor boy," she said, "do you think I could 
 leave you behind for those wicked monsters to 
 shoot ? No, no, it is all arranged. Bess
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 you have met my niece ? Well," said the 
 Dona, "I fear Bess has what she calls a New 
 England conscience, as though there were not 
 woe enough in this world, the saints do know. 
 Think of it and oh, how careful she is to 
 make it very plain to me ! you may get your- 
 self fusilladed afterward if you choose. After- 
 ward, senor, but not now. Oh no! not now. 
 My little lady forbids it. And though you 
 risked your life for pay and Don Pedro has no 
 doubt paid you, yet she feels that the debt is not 
 settled. There is nothing for it but that she 
 must help you out of Sylvanlitlan." 
 
 Derringer flushed to his red hair, yet would 
 not make the denial that the Dona, and possibly 
 Bess also, obviously wanted. He said nothing 
 of refusing Don Pedro's pay. But, though a 
 thoroughbred like Bess would save a spotted 
 Hottentot if nobility obliged, he thought it 
 rather rubbing it in to despise him as a mercenary 
 in the lists. Even those Swiss guards on the 
 steps at Versailles have their monument. 
 
 "Think of it." The Dona was curiously 
 insistent. "Think, she resents yarur doing it
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 273 
 
 for money." Not Jenkins's doing it, not even 
 old Slag, deep-dyed in mercenary adventuring. 
 But he was blind to her help, and she, provoked 
 at the stupidity of men, would help him no- 
 further. She drowned pity, and let him yearn 
 in vain to see Miss Bess. 
 
 " My niece is very busy arranging for our 
 departure," she said, "and she wished me ta 
 tell you what you were to do." 
 
 That w r as galling. He had come to take 
 Bess to her father. And here she was, tucking 
 him under her wing like a friendless waif. 
 
 "First," said the Dona, "can you drive four 
 horses?" 
 
 He tried hard to be docile. "I've herded 
 them by the hundred," he replied. 
 
 " I mean horses to a diligencia to a stage 
 coach ! " They were going, she explained, by the 
 old stage route to Punta Tempestad, where they 
 would be out of Sylvanlitlan and free to take 
 ship for any haven on the globe ; where, indeed, 
 they hoped to meet Bess's father. Turbulence 
 had kept railroads out of Sylvanlitlan until a 
 few years past, and the Senorita's majordomo-
 
 274 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 had picked out and bought one of the old stage 
 coaches that needed only dusting and axle 
 grease. Their two spans of carriage horses 
 would be hitched to the coach, and they might 
 take their own coachman, but as Derringer was 
 to go with them, and he could drive . . . 
 
 "By all means," said Derringer, "please let 
 me be coachman." 
 
 He was replacing a servant. Moreover, he 
 could conceive of no peril on the way to promote 
 him to a man's work. But he accepted like a 
 sportsman. He had brought on himself Bess's 
 rating of him. His irresponsible, wildly reckless 
 and dawdling past had done that. WeD and 
 good, there was the fiddler to pay; and your 
 genuine sportsman pays his losses. Besides, no 
 downright gentleman could pay less than cheer- 
 fully for the beautiful soul who was Dona Pepita. 
 
 At dusk that afternoon he returned, bringing 
 his luggage in a hack, to find the old stage 
 coach and four already at the Augustias gate. 
 With scant elation he climbed to the box, took 
 the lines, and waited. The Senorita's house- 
 hold were bringing forth chests, trunks, baskets,
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 275 
 
 and loading them on top or filling the boot. 
 There were the capacious portmanteaus of our 
 grandfathers, and lastly, the swagger little 
 suit case with which the Princess of Sylvanlitlan 
 returned from school in Boston. Inside the 
 coach were billows of shawls and pillows and 
 rugs and bear robes and skins of mountain lions ; 
 and ever and anon a flurried servant came run- 
 ning to add one more to the heap, lest the 
 Dona or Senorita be frozen to death going 
 over the divide. The travellers were taking 
 with them what intimate belongings they might, 
 for they pictured quite well the day following, 
 when the Runt would step in and confiscate the 
 mansion and gardens of the first Don Pedro. 
 The w T omen servants sniffled like heart-broken 
 children as they hurried out with bundles and 
 bags, and the men were hardly in better case. 
 Except the Senorita's maid and that reliable 
 creature who did the household marketing, they 
 were all to be left behind, though had there 
 been more stage coaches, the Senorita in the 
 moment of farewell would have taken every 
 last soul of them with her.
 
 276 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 That moment arrived. The servants could 
 think of nothing more to bring, and were 
 scolding one another through their tears, 
 demanding if this thing or that thing had not 
 been forgotten, when the Dona and Bess 
 appeared in the great doorway of the house and 
 came slowly down the walk. The poor Dona's 
 face was buried in her hands, and her ample 
 shoulders rose and fell with her sobbing. At 
 the gate she stopped and looked back, faltering, 
 but the girFs hand at her elbow gently urged 
 her on. The servants whimpered aloud, and 
 Bess, though her lashes were wet, half smiled 
 and told her aunt to mind the step. Derringer's 
 impulse was to leap down and get them comfort- 
 ably fixed inside, but he dreaded what might 
 seem intrusion, and stayed where he was. He 
 noted that Bess did not look back at the home 
 she was leaving, and that she pressed her 
 handkerchief to her trembling lip even as 
 she rallied them all. He felt that her grief 
 was of a different quality. Her eyes lifted to 
 the driver's seat, and he knew with a thrill 
 that they lighted with pleased recognition.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 277 
 
 Woman's graciousness had never equalled that, 
 he was sure, and it was mortal hard to feel 
 himself a stranger in her moment of sorrow. 
 It is certain that this was the cruellest moment 
 the boy had known in Sylvanlitlan. 
 
 In the instant that the wheels were clear of 
 the hovering household, he broke the tension 
 of agony with a crack of his long whip and they 
 were off. He could do her that kindness, at 
 least. 
 
 Up the Paseo of Palms they rattled briskly, 
 passing the Hospital on one side and the castel- 
 lated towers of the prison on the other, to the 
 church at the end. Then, swerving into a wide 
 white road across the cactus plateau toward the 
 black silhouette of mountains, the old diligence 
 rumbled and lumbered along to the snap and 
 hiss of the Texan's whip. The Dona had 
 directed him already how to find the road. She 
 and Bess and the two women with them had 
 travelled it often going to one of Don Pedro's 
 haciendas near the coast. Twice or three 
 times that night Derringer had to stop at a fork, 
 and the marketing woman would open the door
 
 278 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 and point out the main highway for him. 
 Otherwise he had no sign of his passengers the 
 whole night long. From much experience they 
 knew how to compose themselves for such rest 
 mid jolts as a stage coach affords. 
 
 It was the old military road built by the 
 viceroys to endure as long as Spain meant to 
 hold the province, which was a longer time 
 than the province endured Spain. Derringer 
 blessed the viceroys for their road, and was glad 
 that Bess's ancestor, the first Don Pedro, had 
 let them stay long enough to finish it for her. 
 Where the highway rounded the shoulder of a 
 mountain at a staggering height, the viceroys 
 had made it wide. Where it slanted down 
 toward the sea, they had softened the grade 
 by patient winding turns. Through forests of 
 mahogany, where night was a blanket between 
 man and his stars, horses and wheels yet found 
 rock ballast in the soggy stretches. By their 
 road the viceroys smote rebellion swiftly, and 
 never a cannon mired. It was Spain that had 
 mired. 
 
 The cool air off the sierras was a tonic and
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 279 
 
 zest to manhood, with yet a languorous caress 
 in the breeze that touched the cheek. From the 
 heights Derringer gazed over the silent bigness 
 of the world. He was in a long reverie. " What 
 one little darn fool I've been!" A bracing 
 draught from the peaks got into his lungs. 
 "I wonder if I'd have the dizzy impertinence 
 to try to amount to something. . . . I I 
 wish she was sitting here by me." Then, 
 through the fearsome forest: "But what could 
 I say to her important ?. Me ? 
 
 . . . Humph!" He bitterly perceived that 
 he would say nothing important. He was very 
 hard on himself in the fearsome forest. Pulp 
 for character, pith for backbone, bootless adven- 
 ture for achievement, and eleven dollars and 
 thirty-five cents for property well, no, not 
 if he cared much for her, he wouldn't. But he'd 
 be game, by the Lord! He'd try to be some- 
 thing, anyway. Still, it was going to be very, 
 very lonesome. 
 
 And then, coming out of the forest upon the 
 plain, he discovered that the world was gray 
 a very old, wise, immutable world. Yet even
 
 280 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 now the rosy spears of day were prodding 
 her back again to the lively jig of Youth. 
 Whereupon the door of the coach opened, and 
 Miss Bess called up to ask if he would like some 
 breakfast. 
 
 He reined in the horses and jumped down. 
 She was just stepping out upon the road. In 
 her arms there nestled an enormous wicker 
 hamper. "Good morning," she said over the 
 hamper. "I'm coming up with you, and we'll 
 both have breakfast. Aunt Pepita is asleep yet. 
 Thank you. Oh my, do be careful! There 
 are plates in there." 
 
 He swung the hamper in front of the driver's 
 seat. She followed, almost before he could 
 lend a hand, and then he was beside her, and 
 they were jogging along again. Peering into 
 the hamper, she spread the feast on the seat 
 between them; snowy linen, and fruit of 
 rich colours, and sandwiches, and tortillas, 
 and . 
 
 "Pie!" Her eyes sparkled. "I learned how 
 at school, you know, and it makes us so different 
 from the rest of Sylvanlitlan. Won't you "
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 281 
 
 "Thanks, I think I'll try a slice of that 
 pineapple," said the Texan. 
 
 He took the lines in one hand, and kept her 
 company at breakfast with the other. He 
 caught his breath whenever he looked at her. 
 
 "Why, what's the matter?" she demanded 
 at last. 
 
 Matter! There were roses in her cheeks, the 
 dawn in her eyes, paradise on her lips. Added 
 to all of which, there was one of those gauzy 
 white veils over her Leghorn hat and bunched 
 under her chin, and the devastation of the 
 witching picture in its witchery of frame was 
 complete. 
 
 "Uh," replied Derringer. "Yes, the top 
 slice, please." 
 
 So they travelled on and on, up a little hill, 
 and down again, and halfway round another 
 little hill, and into a shady wood, where the 
 branches interlaced overhead, and dazzling 
 birds were up for the day and very noisy about 
 it, and a python yards and yards long rustled 
 away through the brush, and vines clung to the 
 trees, and blossoms peeped from the vines, and
 
 282 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 every breath was the perfume of flowering life; 
 and he could not keep his eyes from her face, and 
 in all the world he had never known there could 
 be such sweet companionship for mortal man, 
 and . 
 
 It is necessary to state that there in the road 
 ahead was Colonel Manrique Morder on a big 
 gray horse, waiting for them.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 
 
 AAIN they were like two bewildered chil- 
 dren confronting their familiar bogie- 
 man. And like that other time in the 
 Senorita's music room, the bogie-man plainly 
 thought them delightful, for he was smiling on 
 them in the same exasperating, benign man- 
 ner, as though he quite approved of their run- 
 ning away on top of a stage coach and eating 
 tarts and jams and pickles with their fingers 
 while they did it. 
 
 Derringer could not swear with Bess there 
 beside him. ''Wouldn't your Aunt Pepita say 
 'Drat the man,' or something like that?" he 
 muttered instead. "Whoa!" 
 
 He drew up sharply, for the big gray was 
 wedged half across the road. "Look here, 
 Colonel, what seems to be the trouble so early 
 in the morning?" 
 
 The Colonel grunted deep in his chest, 
 
 283
 
 284 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 and went on swelling with ponderous affability 
 in the Seiiorita's honour. He flung the scarlet 
 facing of his military cape over his shoulder, 
 swept low his cap, and when he spoke, his voice 
 was lowered to its deepest and most flattering 
 cadence. 
 
 Would she accept a thousand apologies for the 
 interruption ? How, one would be sufficient ? 
 Ah, but she must condone his desire for 
 peace of mind, since peace of mind could never 
 be his if he did not thank her for her message 
 of warning. He had received it the afternoon 
 before, in time to save him from the Runt of 
 Sylvanlitlan. And, the Colonel went on, letting 
 his deep tones soften in especial emphasis, 
 and, most blessed boon of all, her message had 
 thus endowed him with this divine chance to 
 join his flight with her own. 
 
 Derringer sat up straight. The girl beside 
 him grew rigid. 
 
 Suavely Morder proceeded. He had followed 
 them throughout the night, he said; then had 
 passed them by trails under cover of the wood. 
 The frontier was yet several hours distant,
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 285 
 
 and the Presidente's choicest ruffians might 
 waylay them at any turn. The Colonel begged 
 her, therefore, to accept his nearer escort. 
 The obvious arrangement, he perceived, was 
 for him to drive, while his young American 
 friend served as outrider on the gray horse. 
 His young American friend would thus con- 
 siderately draw the fire of any Presidential 
 ambush. 
 
 " Well, I'll be " began Derringer, and 
 
 stopped, for Bess was laughing at him. That 
 made him writhe angrily. Nevertheless, her 
 mirth was near to panic. She recognized the 
 situation as identical with that of the morning 
 before in her music room. Though in flight, 
 Morder was still intent on the heiress. It was 
 the same scene with different scenery. Her 
 sole dependence was the red-haired Texan 
 beside her. She glanced at him covertly, and 
 noted with amusement the refreshing readiness 
 for trouble in his eyes. 
 
 "Possibly," she said lightly, though her voice 
 trembled, " Mr. Derringer might even yet be po- 
 lite enough to resent being driven from my side."
 
 286 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 Derringer roused himself joyously. He wanted 
 but that. "Clear the road," he burst forth, 
 shaking out the lines. Morder leaned from his 
 
 saddle, and caught the leader's bridle. He held 
 up an imploring, deprecating hand. He begged 
 one word more. For the Senorita's good, he 
 would impose his will, his resolve to protect her. 
 
 "Now that will be about enough," yelled 
 Derringer, snatching up the whip. "Get out 
 of the way!" 
 
 Morder braced himself against the horses, 
 and held them, blandly smiling and blandly 
 shaking his head. 
 
 His intent was plain. As by a flash of light- 
 ning, they saw in him the abductor. A wave 
 of red swept over the girl, and she hid her 
 face in her hands. Derringer's pistols were 
 on the seat, under his hands. But he feared 
 to risk either his own marksmanship or 
 Morder's. He might miss. And if Morder 
 missed, he might hit the girl. It was another 
 deadlock. But to give way was to surrender 
 Bess to him. Rather than that, it would be 
 necessary to risk marksmanship, everything.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 287 
 
 "See here, Colonel," Derringer protested 
 fretfully, "this pussy-in-the-corner business 
 every day gets tiresome. But I'll play it just 
 this once more. Now seriously, Colonel/' and 
 his voice sobered to deadly earnestness, "do 
 you mean that it's my first move?" 
 
 Morder shrugged his shoulders. "Yes," he 
 said, "it is to you the first move, senor." 
 
 Derringer took the word regretfully. He 
 gave Bess the lines. His left hand flattened on 
 the seat and closed over the revolver there. In 
 his right he held the long whip, and swung it 
 over his head. The tired horses put back their 
 ears, quivering. Morder tightened his grip on 
 the leader's bridle, and braced himself for the 
 shock. But the whip, circling backward, fell 
 inert across the top of the coach. From the 
 opened window of the coach the Dona was 
 calling, anxiously, imperiously. Derringer did 
 not understand at first. He thought she had 
 stepped from the coach. He could not leave 
 her behind. 
 
 "Come down to me this instant," she cried. 
 " You will be hurt. This Morder will hurt you."
 
 288 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 The good soul had awakened, and one 
 frightened glance at the ponderous equestrian 
 menace was enough. She ordered Derringer 
 to come down to her at once. She ordered 
 Morder not to hurt him. 
 
 Derringer himself was the first to laugh. 
 
 But then Morder laughed. More than that, 
 bowing low over the saddle to the agitated face 
 at the window, he uttered profuse assurances 
 that he would not hurt the little man. 
 
 And then Bess laughed a fluttering, touch- 
 and-go mirth as her nerves slipped from their 
 high tension. Morder laughed louder, and there 
 was a nasty, stinging inflection of mockery in it. 
 Derringer felt himself vaguely smarting under 
 ridicule. His own nerves were pretty tightly 
 strung by now, and ready to screech in any key. 
 The pistol was still under his left hand. Morder 
 was off guard, and here was his chance. But 
 pistols were not deadly enough. His eyes 
 glittered vengefully. 
 
 "Quick, Bess," he hissed, "slip me one of 
 those pies!" 
 
 There was a sudden plunge of the horses, a
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 289 
 
 lurch and swerve, like a stage in a Wild West 
 show pursued by Indians, and as they flashed 
 past Morder's sardonic, grinning visage, Der- 
 ringer hurled at the visage what was in his hand. 
 
 "Now laugh!" he shrieked. 
 
 Bess clung to the swaying coach, and looked 
 back. 
 
 " Oh," she cried, " oh, even if he does kill us 
 now, we are even, we are even!" 
 
 She turned to the happy, red-haired Texan 
 beside her, and the fun dancing in her eyes 
 leaped to an ecstasy of adoration. Her arm, 
 along the back of the seat, lifted of itself. She 
 almost flung it about his neck. "No!" she 
 panted in alarm, blushing furiously. She looked 
 back again. 
 
 "If you could only look, too," she cried, 
 while Derringer sawed on the reins. "His horse 
 is prancing all over the road, and he's he's 
 wiping the custard out of his eyes." 
 
 "Lemon custard, Bess ?" 
 
 "Yes, yes." 
 
 "Ouch, what a successful pie!" 
 
 "Poor, proud fool," she mused, a little of
 
 290 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 pity in her laughter, "he'd rather you had 
 killed him. What, why, look, look, he's 
 coming! He's coming after us!" 
 
 Derringer darted a look behind. " Yes 
 no. No, he's not. It's his horse. The scared 
 brute is raving crazy." Only in time he swung 
 the coach to the roadside, and let the runaway 
 clatter past. 
 
 Morder was bent back over the haunches, 
 his weight against the bit, his spurred heels 
 kicking savagely into the animal's flanks. 
 
 "What's the idiot about?" cried Derringer. 
 "He's crazier than his horse. Now what " 
 
 There was something a dusky crouching 
 figure of a man with a lariat in the road 
 ahead. The great gray horse planted his fore- 
 feet together, and Morder shot over his head 
 to the ground. Instantly other men, tawny, 
 uniformed, sandalled fellows, soldiers of the 
 Republic, came springing from the wood. 
 
 Derringer jerked his horses to a halt, and he 
 and Bess gazed spellbound, while Dona Pepita 
 and the two serving women let their shrieks 
 rise to heaven. In the might of his rage,
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 291 
 
 Morder was struggling to his feet. He brushed 
 men from him on right and left. He was like a 
 wounded lion in a pack of wolves. 
 
 "The man's game!" Derringer cried exult- 
 antly. "Look, Bess, isn't he game? Isn't he 
 game?" He stirred restlessly, uncertain. 
 
 Her hand clutched his arm. He turned from 
 the glorious fight of a man for his life to the 
 girl, and in the deathly white of her face he 
 forgot all else. 
 
 " The Presidente has sent them," she moaned. 
 "The Presidente has sent them!" 
 
 She might not, while men snarled and yelped 
 to tear out the life of a fellow man, tell him that 
 this was her rebuke from the gods, but he saw 
 in her face the fateful horror there, and under- 
 stood instinctively. 
 
 "No," she cried, throwing both arms fiercely 
 and tightly about his neck, "I did not mean 
 that you- -No, no!" 
 
 Yet with a yell of joy he was over the wheel, 
 and making a dash of it straight for the fray.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 
 
 THE feeling of her arms about bin neck, 
 the cling of them, stayed with him as he 
 dashed into the broil, and he swung his 
 own arms, because they ached to catch up adver- 
 saries and joyously hurl them over the moon. 
 And he could do it. There was no doubt about 
 that. He was a young fellow in love. Divine 
 might was ablaze in his soul and sinews at touch 
 of the loved one, and he was the peer of demi- 
 gods. Moreover, she was watching him. Re- 
 member that. Now you will understand. This 
 is purely biological. Romance is the exactest 
 science. Note the incontinent overcharge of 
 steam that pertains to a demigod in battle. 
 Note the explosion, like a boiler, and the frag- 
 mentary downpour of foeman. No micro- 
 scope, nor telescope, nor scales and mathematics 
 are needed only what is left in your veins of 
 Youth! 
 
 M
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 293 
 
 The girl on the box of the coach incoherently 
 saw the red hair blow perpendicular in the 
 breeze made by his running. She saw that 
 touch of colour mingle agitatedly in the blur 
 of the melee. 
 
 " Please, please, my aunt," she cried, "do 
 stop screaming! Yes, yes, he may be shot, 
 
 but " her little fists were tightly clenched, 
 
 "but he is a man." 
 
 The shooting sporadic, panicky was sky- 
 ward. It was a manifestation of the will to 
 shoot, an acting out of the theory that here was 
 the time and place for shooting. Only, the 
 assassins were hampered in the manner there- 
 of. On the fringe of the pack they yelled 
 to the hounds at the centre to fall away from 
 the range of fire; and being unheard, unheeded, 
 they clawed in to bring down the quarry with 
 their own ten fingers. Half blinded by blood 
 from a split forehead, Morder used his revolver 
 as a flail, and clogged his foot-room with fallen 
 bodies. Derringer pierced a trail to him. 
 
 The boy's first inspiration was Quixotic: to 
 help the under dog, a very dog that had bitten
 
 294 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 him, and would again, perhaps. But inspira- 
 tion gave way to the seasonably practical. Two 
 were better than one against the ambush meant 
 for them both. Two divided the hopelessness 
 of it by half; or, if you prefer, doubled the zero 
 of hope. Either way, it was the arithmetic of 
 despair allowing always, of course, for the 
 ecstasy of blows. And the blows! 
 
 It was thus that old man Derringer found 
 his boy. 
 
 The old cattleman had wondered, it may be 
 recalled, what sort of boy he had by now; had 
 wondered so greatly, that he was combing the 
 seas in search of that boy. And now when he 
 found the lad, he was not surprised to find him 
 dealing out trouble. But for all that a thrill 
 shot through the cockles of his heart to behold 
 him at it; at it so beautifully. Old man Der- 
 ringer's Comanche-like whoop was as much 
 a cry of the soul to take his boy to his arms 
 as to snatch him from peril. 
 
 "Fightin', eh? Fightin' again, eh?" he 
 roared, taking a hand.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 295 
 
 He was not the only one who took a hand. 
 There were others with him four sailors off the 
 Derringer yacht, and Jenkins, and Slag, and 
 Don Pedro de Las Augustias; quite the 
 capacity of Derringer's biggest touring-car. 
 But wait! 
 
 It must be mentioned that events had so 
 linked themselves, one to the other, that it 
 would have been the most improbable thing 
 in the world had old man Derringer happened 
 at that moment to arrive at any other spot on 
 the globe than at just this one spot in South 
 America. 
 
 He had failed to discover the wanderer in 
 Trinidad. Wiring first to many American Min- 
 isters, he had then turned his yacht northward, 
 still on the scent of the Leviathan; and he had 
 passed Puertocito by in order to overtake the 
 Leviathan at her next stop, which was Punta 
 Tempestad. There, sure enough, he did find 
 the Leviathan, and boarding her in haste, he 
 found not only her captain, Ben Blackburn, 
 but Jenkins, and Slag, and Don Pedro; and all 
 four of them made for him a colourful narrative
 
 296 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 concerning his debonair son and heir that 
 churned the very breath of him into a swirling 
 tempest of impatience. The trouble was, they 
 could not complete the story for him. The boy 
 had stayed behind in Sylvanlitlan to cap the 
 climax himself. The climax would probably 
 be the execution of a red-haired lad. Don 
 Pedro reminded old man Derringer that he, too, 
 had a child back, there, and despite all that his 
 friend Blackburn might say, he was resolved to 
 return for her at once. 
 
 There followed an invitation. "Captain Ben 
 has to be gettin' along with his tub," said old 
 
 man Derringer, "but " and he pointed 
 
 to his yacht, white and glistening; and also, on 
 her deck he pointed to an automobile of tre- 
 mendous horse-power. 
 
 Within an hour the monster car was gorging 
 itself on a diet of distance, across the frontier 
 and over into Sylvanlitlan. They stopped 
 sooner than they expected, for their destination 
 had advanced to meet them. Ahead, on the 
 driver's seat of a halted stage coach, Don Pedro 
 beheld his daughter. The others swept from
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 297 
 
 the car to straighten out the fiery little battle 
 at the roadside, but Don Pedro rejoined his 
 daughter. 
 
 Those of the army of Sylvanlitlan melted 
 away from the honey of conflict like flies before 
 a palmetto-leaf fan. The Americans, offended 
 and hurt at the brevity of the sport, pursued 
 them hopefully into the wood, taking revolver 
 pot-shots as they ran. 
 
 Young Derringer, in the first unencumbered 
 moment, turned grinning to his dad, and to- 
 gether they went panting and crashing after the 
 vanishing bravoes. Young Derringer, however, 
 did not go far. An emptying sense of something 
 forgotten held him. He remembered, hurried 
 back to the road, and looked for the coach. 
 But she, Bess, was not on the box. The 
 driver's seat was empty, and the wearied horses 
 stood dejectedly. He was in time, though, to 
 see a gaily uniformed figure, a figure of cat-like 
 agility, break from the edge of the wood and 
 spring to the coach, catching up lines and 
 whip and heading the horses back toward 
 Constanza.
 
 298 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 As the lash cracked and the horses plunged, 
 Derringer heard screams within the coach. 
 The man on the box was De Marzi. The 
 jaunty rascal was snatching one prize at least, 
 the prize, out of the sorry mess he had made of 
 the Presidente's business. Bess, so Derringer 
 immediately supposed, was inside the coach 
 with her aunt, and now the coach was receding 
 in its own dust-cloud, and the screams were 
 growing faint. Meantime, Derringer was at 
 his father's automobile, cranking, swearing, 
 cranking. Abruptly, as at a signal shot, vibra- 
 tory life seized on the vitals of the thing. Der- 
 ringer jumped aboard, jammed the clutch, and 
 bellied low to the chase. Over the back, unseen 
 and unheard, a man tumbled into the car as it 
 started, and crouched there, his eyes straining 
 fixedly on the dust-cloud ahead. 
 
 Around a curve in the highway, halfway up a 
 little hill, with the old creaking stage coach not a 
 hundred explosions ahead, it was then that the 
 monster automobile gasped and went as dead as 
 a rusted machine shop. Derringer urged her, 
 urged her at each point of persuasion, but vainly.
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 299 
 
 In his first muttered invocation of hell about the 
 matter, he was aware of a body thumping to the 
 road beside the car, and then of a man pounding 
 up the road after the coach as fast as a pon- 
 derous man might pound. The man was his 
 unsuspected passenger. He looked, and recog- 
 nized, from his back, that it was Morder. 
 
 Morder gained on the laboriously moving 
 coach, overtook the coach, climbed by the strap, 
 clambered over the top ; after which there seemed 
 to be some confusion, ending with Morder and 
 De Marzi toppling headlong to the roadside, 
 locked tightly each in the other's arms. When 
 they struck the ground, one of the two bruised 
 his head, relaxed, and was limp. His antag- 
 onist rolled from him, got to his knees, and felt 
 for his knife, while the women in the coach 
 screamed anew. 
 
 Derringer was there before the murder was 
 could be done. The senseless man was Morder. 
 The other, with knife and eager to end it, 
 was De Marzi. 
 
 When De Marzi turned and saw who had 
 caught his wrist, he forgave the interruption,
 
 300 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 forgot the pleasure of stabbing his arch enemy, 
 and his dark, devilishly handsome face lighted 
 with welcome. 
 
 "Oh, the gran' fight!" he cried affectionately. 
 "For wheech I have so long wait', ai, ai, the 
 gran' fight!" 
 
 No response of cordiality mellowed the 
 hard fixedness in the American's expression. 
 Contact with this Pandar, though the contact 
 of blows, was loathsome to him. The 
 indignity offered to Bess was unthinkable. 
 Derringer could not conceive of a man with that 
 stench in him continuing to live. 
 
 "Why you look so?" faltered De Marzi. 
 Qualms got into the madcap Lucifer despite 
 himself. It was as though the affair were set- 
 tled already; were inexorably predestined. Of 
 course, he laughed at himself immediately. The 
 American who was Fate had not even a weapon. 
 De Marzi's mirth was blithe and gay. "Ai, by 
 Jurge, you still like the fists, eh?" He twirled 
 his dagger in air; caught it by the haft. His was 
 a child's happiness in cruelty tearing legs 
 from a fly, running a pin through a captured
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 301 
 
 toad. In anticipation he thrust for the bowels, 
 ripping upward. His laughter tripped over 
 delight. He drew back the clenched knife, 
 threw his left forearm before his eyes, and rushed 
 in, giving the stroke. ... A block of 
 granite seemed to rise and crush his chin back 
 into his brain, and the light went out for him. 
 Derringer stood, nursing the knuckles of his 
 fist. 
 
 From the coach there stepped, not the Senorita 
 nor yet the Dona Pepita, but that loyal and 
 guileful woman who did the marketing, and 
 behind her the Senorita's maid. 
 
 "Oh," excitedly laughed the woman who did 
 the marketing, " did you not know, Don Eduardo, 
 that the Senorita, she is back there with the 
 senor, her papa, and with them Dona Pepita 
 also, all three so happy together, they take a 
 walk in the woods ; and while we two in the coach, 
 we are so miserable being carried away to the 
 Senor Presidente that we scream and scream, 
 so that Major De Marzi, he thinks he has the 
 Senorita certainly. Oh!" she rattled on, "I am 
 so sorry, Don Eduardo, you waste a so gallant
 
 302 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 rescue on us poor servants, for a rescue so ele- 
 gant is befitting only for ladies, but I will 
 explain to the Senorita that you meant it for 
 her so." 
 
 'You need not bother," said Derringer. 
 "These two burglars are only stunned. What 
 shall we do with them?" 
 
 The woman had knelt beside one; was 
 kneeling beside the other, feeling for heart- 
 beats. She looked up. "The favour, Senor 
 but your automobile, what " 
 
 "No gasolene, that's all," said Derringer. 
 "But there are extra cans of it here. Why ?" 
 
 "The favour, then," the woman pleaded in a 
 furtive whine, "to return in the automobile to 
 the Senorita and the others. We," she added, 
 "this girl and I, will follow shortly in the coach. 
 I can drive that little distance." 
 
 Derringer pointed to the two senseless men. 
 "You mean," he said, "that you are going to 
 kill them?" 
 
 "Oh, no, senor!" the woman laughed easily. 
 " They plotted the blackest harm to my darling, 
 the nina Bess, but no, senor, I will not harm
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 303 
 
 them. I wish but to give them the chance to 
 save themselves." 
 
 Derringer was still suspicious. "Very well, 
 then, I will stay and watch you." 
 
 'You will interfere ?" protested the woman. 
 
 "No; not if you are telling the truth. If you 
 leave those two men in a way to save themselves, 
 I shall not interfere." 
 
 'You sacredly promise?" 
 
 "On my word of honour." 
 
 "Then, Don Eduardo," said the woman, 
 "watch, for you may be amused." 
 
 More than once, though, he all but stopped 
 her. Aided by the girl, she dragged the two 
 bodies from the road, left them on their backs, 
 a few feet apart, and began binding them with 
 ropes and straps that she found in the coach. 
 Obviously, she intended to leave them there to 
 die of starvation and thirst. But she shook her 
 head at that, and brought provisions from the 
 coach, including several bottles of wine, and laid 
 them near her victims. 
 
 "But why tie them down?" protested Der- 
 ringer. " They can't eat, tied down like that."
 
 304 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 " Wait but a minute, but only a minute, senor," 
 the woman whined. 
 
 She stretched out their arms as though they 
 were laid on a crucifix, and she drove stakes 
 and strapped their wrists to the stakes, and then 
 it was that Derringer really appreciated human 
 ingenuity. By working one hand from the 
 wrist and using his fingers, Morder might un- 
 buckle the strap that bound De Marzi's wrist; 
 after which, De Marzi could release himself. 
 Vice versa, De Marzi might perform the same 
 service for Morder. But it was quite impossible 
 for either man to do that thing for himself. 
 
 "The poor caballeros!" sighed the woman 
 with humility. "I will revive them; a little 
 brandy to the brow, and a drop between the 
 lips so. Their eyelids begin to flutter. When 
 they are quite revived," she said, "we will go, 
 for we have not the time to wait and see that 
 which will happen."
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 
 
 THE Derringer yacht turned up her nose 
 to the stars and dipped it in the warm 
 bosom of the wave, and so kept the scent 
 northward across the Caribbean. Lifting to the 
 swell, as though skimming by wings, and breast- 
 ing down again long, slender, white, buoyant, 
 she was like a pilgrim of hope. 
 
 "Chief," young Derringer spoke earnestly to 
 his father on the quarter-deck, bridging his legs 
 from his wicker chair to the rail, "I shouldn't 
 have left you for so long." A curving sweep 
 of his hand fore and aft indicated the yacht 
 "I I really am distressed at this extrava- 
 gance." 
 
 The old man gravely took it under considera- 
 tion. There was something wholesome and 
 satisfying in bandying chaff man to man with 
 your own son. He was still relishing the treat 
 he had given himself in surprising the boy with 
 
 305
 
 306 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 his exquisite plaything for man and boy, the 
 beautiful new yacht. "Really, Eddie ?" meekly 
 queried the old man. 
 
 4 * Must have taken a heap of odd change, 
 dad," remorselessly pursued Eddie, getting up 
 and going to the rail. Old man Derringer winked 
 to himself, for Eddie was gazing forward, to a 
 certain stateroom door that opened on the deck. 
 The stateroom was the owner's own cabin, and 
 the occupant of the stateroom now was the 
 owner's guest of honour, the princess of Sylvan- 
 litlan. She and her aunt and her father and 
 her father's rescuers were bountifully enjoy- 
 ing old man Derringer's hospitality between 
 the ports of Punta Tempestad and Derringer, 
 Texas. "Odd change," repeated Eddie, bor- 
 ing it in. 
 
 "Seems to me, Eddie," gently drawled the old 
 man, "we had a sort o' bet two years ago about 
 that very thing." 
 
 "Time's not up, yet," protested the boy. 
 "Got a few days left, you know." 
 
 * 'Bout how much o' the five thousand can 
 you show so far?"
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 307 
 
 "Eleven dollars and fifteen cents," said 
 Eddie. "Maybe," he added hopefully, "you'd 
 like to play a few hands of freeze-out on the 
 way up." 
 
 The old man did not smile. There was a 
 twinkling flash under the rusted eye-lashes, that 
 was all. Eleven dollars to win five thousand! 
 The boy, he realized, had been taking just such 
 odds wherever and whenever they offered. 
 That was the manner of boy the wire-fibred old 
 Texan was beginning to know as his own. He 
 started to reply, when the boy interrupted. 
 
 "No, dad," he said. "I won't play. You 
 might well, you know, might try to let me 
 
 win. And besides " He stopped, again 
 
 gazing forward. Besides, the game would rob 
 him of possible chances of talk with her. A 
 birthright was a trifle compared with such 
 chances. Absent-mindedly he strolled off for- 
 ward, passing the door of the owner's cabin, 
 and old man Derringer was left alone to con- 
 template the stars. 
 
 He was not, however, left so for long. There 
 came to him one of his guests, Don Pedro de
 
 308 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 Las Augustias. There was something on Don 
 Pedro's mind, and he came to speak it all out. 
 
 "Senor," he began, and though he was all 
 that was courteous, even deferential, yet there 
 was a note of haughty belligerency in his digni- 
 fied tones, "sen or, I think you will agree with 
 me that it may be as unfair, even as ungenerous, 
 in a creditor to decline to accept payment of a 
 debt as for a debtor to refuse to tender such 
 payment. Do you not that is, under certain 
 circumstances, senor?" 
 
 "Bless me, Don Peter," exclaimed old man 
 Derringer, "is that a Castilian riddle?'* 
 
 "Not at all, my friend, not at all. Your 
 son " 
 
 "Beg your pardon and all that, Don Peter," 
 the Texan broke in warningly, "but that boy o' 
 mine, you know, is his own man. He's been 
 learnin' how to be for the past two years. By 
 the way, maybe you've happened to notice him 
 learnin' some?" 
 
 "Nevertheless, I hoped that perhaps your 
 influence " 
 
 "There, mind you, he's enough chip off the
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 309 
 
 old block to be an old block himself. But any- 
 how," Derringer conceded, seeing how troubled 
 the stately Don Pedro was, "anyhow, let's hear 
 what's the matter." 
 
 "These three," said Don Pedro, "the man 
 Slag, the man Jenkins, and Don Eduardo, your 
 son, entered into an agreement with me whereby 
 they were to effect my release from prison for 
 a stated sum of money, one hundred thousand 
 dollars, to be divided equally among them." 
 
 "Well, well?" said the Texan, his shaggy 
 brows bunching together. 
 
 "Ah so, the work was performed, a marvel- 
 lous feat, senor, as you hear me repeat. The 
 man Slag, the man Jenkins, they each con- 
 siderately take their share of the agreed money. 
 But Don Eduardo, your son, senor ah," 
 said the courtly hidalgo with a grimace, "I 
 dreadfully feared the young caballero wanted 
 to fight, senor, when I so boldly tendered him 
 his share." 
 
 The shaggy brows smoothed themselves out. 
 " Go on, go on," said the old man jovially. 
 
 "Go on? Why, there there is nothing
 
 310 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 further. Here is the check, if you you could 
 prevail on your son its acceptance/* 
 
 "And," laughed the elder Derringer, "have 
 him want to fight me, sir? Now by the way, 
 Don Peter, you're not knowin' prob'bly that 
 when the boy refused that there "he leaned 
 over and with his finger touched the figures on 
 the check "he was actually refusing how 
 much you suppose? Five hundred thousand; 
 a half-million dollars, sir!" 
 
 "Eh, senor," Don Pedro rallied him smilingly, 
 "what of Castilian riddles now? Is yours an 
 American one?" 
 
 "Maybe Texan, I don't know," returned 
 Derringer, a little impatiently. "But, anyway, 
 about two years ago I put up five thousand dol- 
 lars for a young spendthrift of my acquaintance 
 to learn the world with. Then the little rascal 
 wanted to bet me he'd bring that much back 
 with him when the two years were up. Of 
 course, I bet him. I'd do anything to get 
 some sense of responsibility into his improvident 
 red head. The odds were way ag'inst him; so 
 I just naturally tried to balance off the odds
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 311 
 
 by agreein' to tack two ciphers on to the five 
 thousand in case he won. Tack 'em on for 
 yourself, Don Peter, and see what they make. 
 Five hundred thousand, eh ? And what does 
 he do ? lie comes back with eleven dollars and 
 fifteen cents, me furnishing the transportation. 
 Well, I don't know, eleven-fifteen ain't so bad 
 for Eddie. Yet, just the same, that check o' 
 yours there made out in his name would instantly 
 grow into a half-million. All he'd need would 
 be to own it for a half-minute, long enough to 
 let me see it. Still, as you say," chuckled the 
 old man, "he won't take it, will he?" 
 
 Don Pedro sighed, yet his chest was swelling. 
 "The days of the grandees may be gone," he 
 murmured, " but do you know, senor, I am happy 
 to be alive this day. . . . Of course," he 
 went on, "you who are so proud of him, you will 
 not permit that he lose. You will pretend for 
 a time, and laugh, and then give him the half- 
 million. Is it not so?" 
 
 For a moment the old Texan looked at his 
 guest through half-shut lids. "Don't you think 
 it," he said at last. "Why, Don Peter, I'd as
 
 312 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 soon think of accusin' him o' playin' the baby 
 act." 
 
 Don Pedro toyed with the check in his hand. 
 "The lad has earned it," he said wistfully. "If 
 only he would accept as a gift. It is not pay- 
 ment. For what he has done, there is nothing 
 I can give that would repay." 
 
 "Hold on there," drawled old man Derringer. 
 "Don't go to bein' too discouraged all of a sud- 
 den about not bein' able to repay. You might 
 have a chance yet, providin' my old eyes see 
 what they see. Look here a minute." He took 
 from his pocket a promissory note, with the 
 word " cancelled" written across the face. It 
 was the note that Blaze Derringer had given 
 Slag, to hold Slag to their adventure in the 
 rescue of Don Pedro. The jailbreaker had sur- 
 rendered the note to the elder Derringer, though 
 it was cancelled automatically when Don Pedro 
 paid Slag the consideration stated therein. Don 
 Pedro studied the paper long and earnestly. 
 For a time he was hopelessly puzzled. Why 
 should a young man, a stranger, hypothe- 
 cate a large sum of money to insure his, Don
 
 BLAZE DERRINGER 313 
 
 Pedro's, release from prison? Then slowly, 
 very slowly, his brow began to clear. 
 
 "Bless me!" he sighed. "I think my eyes 
 also are now opening." 
 
 Old man Derringer jumped to his feet. "Use 
 them, then," he whispered excitedly, pointing 
 into the yacht's half-lighted saloon. "Look, 
 there they are now!" 
 
 Both old fellows stared. Within the salon, 
 beside the open piano, were a boy and a girl. Her 
 hands held, caressed, one of his. His face was 
 turned from her, and an agony of renunciation, 
 or what in a lover's phantasy he mistook for 
 renunciation, was written in every line. "Bess, 
 Bess," he was saying, "don't you under- 
 stand, dear ? It's because I think too much of 
 you so much, dear heart, that I'm afraid for 
 you afraid!" 
 
 "And I?" she sobbed, thrillingly indignant. 
 "I want what I want, and I take the risk. . . 
 Oh, my dear, I love you so!" and she flung an 
 arm around his neck, and drew his head down 
 and put her cheek to his. 
 
 Don Pedro folded the check, and replaced it
 
 314 BLAZE DERRINGER 
 
 in his pocket. He sighed heavily. " My chance 
 to repay, you were saying? But, senor, this 
 
 is is usury, sir! 
 
 " Jehosaphat, Don Peter!" cried old man 
 Derringer. "Why, you weren't reckonin' the 
 young rascal would let you off cheap, were 
 you?" 
 
 THE END
 
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