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 Any of the following titles can be bought of your bookseller at the price you paid for this volume Alternative, The. By George Barr McCutcheon. Angel of Forgiveness, The. By Rosa N. Carey. Angel of Pain, The. By E. F. Benson. Annals of Ann, The. By Kate Trimble Sharber. Battle Ground, The. By Ellen Glasgow. Beau Brocade. By Baroness Orczy. Beechy. By Bettina Von Hutten. Bella Donna. 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