Part 9

"You look like a Spaniard, too," he continued. "And you're from Texas. And you can't be more than twenty or twenty-one. I wonder if you've got any nerve."

"You got a deal of some kind to put through?" asked the Texan, with unexpected shrewdness.

"Are you open to a proposition?" said Thacker.

"What's the use to deny it?" said the Kid. "I got into a little gun frolic down in Laredo and plugged a white man. There wasn't any Mexican handy. And I come down to your parrot-and-monkey range just for to smell the morning-glories and marigolds. Now, do you _sabe_?"

Thacker got up and closed the door.

"Let me see your hand," he said.

He took the Kid's left hand, and examined the back of it closely.

"I can do it," he said excitedly. "Your flesh is as hard as wood and as healthy as a baby's. It will heal in a week."

"If it's a fist fight you want to back me for," said the Kid, "don't put your money up yet. Make it gun work, and I'll keep you company. But no barehanded scrapping, like ladies at a tea-party, for me."

"It's easier than that," said Thacker. "Just step here, will you?"

Through the window he pointed to a two-story white-stuccoed house with wide galleries rising amid the deep green tropical foliage on a wooded hill that sloped gently from the sea.

"In that house," said Thacker, "a fine old Castilian gentleman and his wife are yearning to gather you into their arms and fill your pockets with money. Old Santos Urique lives there. He owns half the gold-mines in the country."

"You haven't been eating loco weed, have you?" asked the Kid.

"Sit down again," said Thacker, "and I'll tell you. Twelve years ago they lost a kid. No, he didn't die--although most of 'em here do from drinking the surface water. He was a wild little devil, even if he wasn't but eight years old. Everybody knows about it. Some Americans who were through here prospecting for gold had letters to Señor Urique, and the boy was a favorite with them. They filled his head with big stories about the States; and about a month after they left, the kid disappeared, too. He was supposed to have stowed himself away among the banana bunches on a fruit steamer, and gone to New Orleans. He was seen once afterward in Texas, it was thought, but they never heard anything more of him. Old Urique has spent thousands of dollars having him looked for. The madam was broken up worst of all. The kid was her life. She wears mourning yet. But they say she believes he'll come back to her some day, and never gives up hope. On the back of the boy's left hand was tattooed a flying eagle carrying a spear in his claws. That's old Urique's coat of arms or something that he inherited in Spain."

The Kid raised his left hand slowly and gazed at it curiously.

"That's it," said Thacker, reaching behind the official desk for his bottle of smuggled brandy. "You're not so slow. I can do it. What was I consul at Sandakan for? I never knew till now. In a week I'll have the eagle bird with the frog-sticker blended in so you'd think you were born with it. I brought a set of the needles and ink just because I was sure you'd drop in some day, Mr. Dalton."

"Oh, hell," said the Kid. "I thought I told you."

"All right, 'Kid,' then. It won't be that long. How does Señorito Urique sound, for a change?"

"I never played son any that I remember of," said the Kid. "If I had any parents to mention they went over the divide about the time I gave my first bleat. What is the plan of your round-up?"

Thacker leaned back against the wall and held his glass up to the light.

"We've come now," said he, "to the question of how far you're willing to go in a little matter of the sort."

"I told you why I came down here," said the Kid simply.

"A good answer," said the consul. "But you won't have to go that far. Here's the scheme. After I get the trade-mark tattooed on your hand I'll notify old Urique. In the meantime I'll furnish you with all of the family history I can find out, so you can be studying up points to talk about. You've got the looks, you speak the Spanish, you know the facts, you can tell about Texas, you've got the tattoo mark. When I notify them that the rightful heir has returned and is waiting to know whether he will be received and pardoned, what will happen? They'll simply rush down here and fall on your neck, and the curtain goes down for refreshments and a stroll in the lobby."

"I'm waiting," said the Kid. "I haven't had my saddle off in your camp long, pardner, and I never met you before; but if you intend to let it go at a parental blessing, why, I'm mistaken in my man, that's all."

"Thanks," said the consul. "I haven't met anybody in a long time that keeps up with an argument as well as you do. The rest of it is simple. If they take you in only for a while it's long enough. Don't give 'em time to hunt up the strawberry mark on your left shoulder. Old Urique keeps anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 in his house all the time in a little safe that you could open with a shoe buttoner. Get it. My skill as a tattooer is worth half the boodle. We go halves and catch a tramp steamer for Rio Janeiro. Let the United States go to pieces if it can't get along without my services. _Que dice, señor?_"

"It sounds to me!" said the Kid, nodding his head. "I'm out for the dust."

"All right, then," said Thacker. "You'll have to keep close until we get the bird on you. You can live in the back room here. I do my own cooking, and I'll make you as comfortable as a parsimonious Government will allow me."

Thacker had set the time at a week, but it was two weeks before the design that he patiently tattooed upon the Kid's hand was to his notion. And then Thacker called a _muchacho_, and despatched this note to the intended victim:

EL SEÑOR DON SANTOS URIQUE,

LA CASA BLANCA.

_My Dear Sir:_ I beg permission to inform you that there is in my house as a temporary guest a young man who arrived in Buenas Tierras from the United States some days ago. Without wishing to excite any hopes that may not be realized, I think there is a possibility of his being your long-absent son. It might be well for you to call and see him. If he is, it is my opinion that his intention was to return to his home, but upon arriving here, his courage failed him from doubts as to how he would be received.

Your true servant,

THOMPSON THACKER.

Half an hour afterward--quick time for Buenas Tierras--Señor Urique's ancient landau drove to the consul's door, with the barefooted coachman beating and shouting at the team of fat, awkward horses.

A tall man with a white mustache alighted, and assisted to the ground a lady who was dressed and veiled in unrelieved black.

The two hastened inside, and were met by Thacker with his best diplomatic bow. By his desk stood a slender young man with clear-cut, sun-browned features and smoothly brushed black hair.

Señora Urique threw back her heavy veil with a quick gesture. She was past middle age, and her hair was beginning to silver, but her full, proud figure and clear olive skin retained traces of the beauty peculiar to the Basque province. But, once you had seen her eyes, and comprehended the great sadness that was revealed in their deep shadows and hopeless expression, you saw that the woman lived only in some memory.

She bent upon the young man a long look of the most agonized questioning. Then her great black eyes turned, and her gaze rested upon his left hand. And then with a sob, not loud, but seeming to shake the room, she cried "_Hijo mio!_" and caught the Llano Kid to her heart.

III

A month afterward the Kid came to the consulate in response to a message sent by Thacker.

He looked the young Spanish _caballero_. His clothes were imported, and the wiles of the jewelers had not been spent upon him in vain. A more than respectable diamond shone on his finger as he rolled a shuck cigarette.

"What's doing?" asked Thacker.

"Nothing much," said the Kid calmly. "I eat my first iguana steak to-day. They're them big lizards, you _sabe_? I reckon, though, that frijoles and side bacon would do me about as well. Do you care for iguanas, Thacker?"

"No, nor for some other kinds of reptiles," said Thacker.

It was three in the afternoon, and in another hour he would be in his state of beatitude.

"It's time you were making good, sonny," he went on, with an ugly look on his reddened face. "You're not playing up to me square. You've been the prodigal son for four weeks now, and you could have had veal for every meal on a gold dish if you'd wanted it. Now, Mr. Kid, do you think it's right to leave me out so long on a husk diet? What's the trouble? Don't you get your filial eyes on anything that looks like cash in the Casa Blanca? Don't tell me you don't. Everybody knows where old Urique keeps his stuff. It's U. S. currency, too; he don't accept anything else. What's doing? Don't say 'nothing' this time."

"Why, sure," said the Kid, admiring his diamond, "there's plenty of money up there. I'm no judge of collateral in bunches, but I will undertake for to say that I've seen the rise of $50,000 at a time in that tin grub box that my adopted father calls his safe. And he lets me carry the key sometimes just to show me that he knows I'm the real little Francisco that strayed from the herd a long time ago."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked Thacker angrily. "Don't you forget that I can upset your apple cart any day I want to. If old Urique knew you were an impostor, what sort of things would happen to you? Oh, you don't know this country, Mr. Texas Kid. The laws here have got mustard spread between 'em. These people here'd stretch you out like a frog that had been stepped on, and give you about fifty sticks at every corner of the plaza. And they'd wear every stick out, too. What was left of you they'd feed to alligators."

"I might as well tell you now, pardner," said the Kid, sliding down low on his steamer chair, "that things are going to stay just as they are. They're about right now."

"What do you mean?" asked Thacker, rattling the bottom of his glass on his desk.

"The scheme's off," said the Kid. "And whenever you have the pleasure of speaking to me address me as Don Francisco Urique. I'll guarantee I'll answer to it. We'll let Colonel Urique keep his money. His little tin safe is as good as the time-locker in the First National Bank of Laredo as far as you and me are concerned."

"You're going to throw me down, then, are you?" said the consul.

"Sure," said the Kid cheerfully. "Throw you down. That's it. And now I'll tell you why. The first night I was up at the colonel's house they introduced me to a bedroom. No blankets on the floor--a real room, with a bed and things in it. And before I was asleep, in comes this artificial mother of mine and tucks in the covers. 'Panchito,' she says, 'my little lost one, God has brought you back to me. I bless his name forever.' It was that, or some truck like that, she said. And down comes a drop or two of rain and hits me on the nose. And all that stuck by me, Mr. Thacker. And it's been that way ever since. And it's got to stay that way. Don't you think that it's for what's in it for me, either, that I say so. If you have any such ideas, keep 'em to yourself. I haven't had much truck with women in my life, and no mothers to speak of, but here's a lady that we've got to keep fooled. Once she stood it; twice she won't. I'm a low-down wolf, and the devil may have sent me on this trail instead of God, but I'll travel it to the end. And now, don't forget that I'm Don Francisco Urique whenever you happen to mention my name."

"I'll expose you to-day, you--you double-dyed traitor," stammered Thacker.

The Kid arose and, without violence, took Thacker by the throat with a hand of steel, and shoved him slowly into a corner. Then he drew from under his left arm his pearl-handled .45 and poked the cold muzzle of it against the consul's mouth.

"I told you why I come here," he said, with his old freezing smile. "If I leave here, you'll be the reason. Never forget it, pardner. Now, what is my name?"

"Er--Don Francisco Urique," gasped Thacker.

From outside came a sound of wheels, and the shouting of some one, and the sharp thwacks of a wooden whipstock upon the backs of fat horses.

The Kid put up his gun, and walked toward the door. But he turned again and came back to the trembling Thacker, and held up his left hand with its back toward the consul.

"There's one more reason," he said slowly, "why things have got to stand as they are. The fellow I killed in Laredo had one of them same pictures on his left hand."

Outside, the ancient landau of Don Santos Urique rattled to the door. The coachman ceased his bellowing. Señora Urique, in a voluminous gay gown of white lace and flying ribbons, leaned forward with a happy look in her great soft eyes.

"Are you within, dear son?" she called, in the rippling Castilian.

"_Madre mio, yo vengo_ [mother, I come]," answered the young Don Francisco Urique.

AN OLD-TIME SINGER

BY FRANK L. STANTON

I don't want any hymnbook when the Methodists is nigh, A-linin' out the ol' ones that went thrillin' to the sky In the ol' campmeetin' seasons, when 'twuz "Glory hallelu!" An' "Brother, rise an' tell us what the Lord has done fer you!"

Fer I know them songs so perfect that when I git the swing O' the tune they want to go to I kin shet my eyes an' sing! "On Jordan's stormy banks," an' ol' "Amazin' Grace"--they seem So nat'ral, I'm like some one that's singin' in a dream!

Oh, when it comes to them ol' songs I allus does my part; An' I've got the ol'-time Bible down, as you might say, "by heart!" When the preacher says the fust word in the givin' of his text I smile with satisfaction, kaze I know what's comin' next!

The wife says: "That's amazin'!" an' the preacher says--says he, With lots o' meanin' in his voice, an' lookin' queer at me "Sence you know more o' the Bible than the best o' us kin teach, Don't you think you orter practice what you're payin' us to preach?"

Well, _that_ gits me in a _corner_--an' I sorter raise my eyes An' the tune about them titles to the "mansions in the skies"! I want the benediction then--I'm ready to depart! But when it comes to singin'--well, I've got the hymns by heart!

BREITMANN IN POLITICS

SHOWING HOW MR. HIRAM TWINE "PLAYED OFF" ON SMITH

BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND

VIDE LICET: Dere vas a fillage Whose vode alone vouldt pe Apout enoof to elegdt a man, Und gife a mayority; So de von who couldt scoop dis seddlement Vould make a pully hit; Boot dough dey vere Deutschers, von und all, Dey all go von on Schmit.

Now it happenet to gome to bass Dat in dis liddle town De Deutsch vas all exshpegdin Dat Mishder Schmit coom down, His brinciples to fore-setzen Und his ideés to deach, (Dat is, fix oop de brifate pargains) Und telifer a pooblic sbeech.

Now Twine vas a gyrotwistive cuss, Ash blainly ish peen shown, Und vas alfays an out-findin Votefer might pe known; Und mit some of his circumswindles He fix de matter so Dat he'd pe himself at dis meetin And see how dings vas go.

Oh shtrangely in dis leben De dings kits vorked apout! Oh voonderly Fortuna Makes toorn us insite out! Oh sinkular de luck-wheel rolls! Dis liddle meeding dere Fixt Twine _ad perpendiculum_-- Shoost suit him to a hair!

Now it hoppenit on dis efenin De Deutschers, von und all, Vere avaitin mit impatience De openin of de ball; Und de shates of nite vere fallin Und de shdars begin to plink, Und dey vish dat Schmit vouldt hoorry, For 'dvas dime to dake a trink.

Dey hear some hoofs a-dramplin, Und dey saw, und dinked dey knowed, Der bretty greature coomin, On his horse along de road; Und ash he ride town in-ward De likeness vas so plain Dey donnered out, "Hooray for Schmit!" Enough to make it rain.

Der Twine vas shtart like plazes; Boot oopshtarted too his wit, Und he dinks, "Great Turnips! what if I Could bass for Colonel Schmit? Gaul dern my heels! _I'll do it_, Und go the total swine! Oh, Soap-balls! what a chance!" said dis Dissembulatin Twine.

Den 'twas "Willkomm! willkomm, Mishder Schmit!" Ringsroom on efery site; Und "First-rate! How dy-do yourself?" Der Hiram Twine replied. Dey ashk him, "Come und dake a trink?" But dey find it mighdy queer Ven Twine informs dem none boot hogs Vould trink dat shtinkin bier;

Dat all lager vas nodings boot boison; Und ash for Sherman wein, He dinks it vas erfounden Exshbressly for Sherman schwein; Dat he himself vas a demperanceler-- Dat he gloria in de name; Und atfise dem all, for tecency's sake, To go und do de same.

Dese bemarks among de Deutschers Vere apout ash vell receife Ash a cats in a game of den-bins, Ash you may of coorse peliefe: De heat of de reception Vent down a dootzen tegrees, Und in place of hurraws dere vas only heardt De rooslin of de drees.

Und so in solemn stille Dey scorched him to de hall, Vhere he maket de oradion Vitch vas so moosh to blease dem all; Und dis vay he pegin it: "Pefore I furder go, I vish dat my obinions You puddin-het Dootch should know.

"Und ere I norate to you, I think it only fair We should oonderstand each other Prezactly, chunk and square. Dere are boints on vhich ve tisagree, And I will plank de facts-- I don't go round slanganderin My friendts pehind deir packs.

"So I beg you dake it easy If on de raw I touch, Vhen I say I can't apide de sound Of your groontin, shi-shing Dutch. Should I in the Legisladure As your slumgullion shtand, I'll have a bill forbidding Dutch Troo all dis 'versal land.

"Should a husband talk it to his frau, To deat' he should pe led; If a mutter breat' it to her shild, I'd bunch her in de head; Und I'm sure dat none vill atfocate Ids use in public schools, Oonless dey're peastly, nashdy, prutal, Sauerkraut-eaten vools."

Here Mishder Twine, to gadder breat, Shoost make a liddle pause, Und see sechs hundert gapin eyes, Sechs hundert shdarin chaws, Dey shtanden erstarrt like frozen; Von faindly dried to hiss; Und von set: "Ish it shleeps I'm treamin? Gottausend! vat ish dis?"

Twine keptet von eye on de vindow, Boot poldly went ahet: "Of your oder shtinkin hobits No vordt needt hier pe set. Shtop goozlin bier--shtop shmokin bipes-- Shtop rootin in de mire; Und shoost _un-Dutchify_ yourselfs: Dat's all dat I require."

Und _denn_ dere coomed a shindy, Ash if de shky hat trop: "Trow him mit ecks, py doonder! Go shlog him on de kop! Hei! Shoot him mit a powie-knifes; Go for him, ganz and gar! Shoost tar him mit some fedders! Led's fedder him mit tar!"

Sooch a teufel's row of furie Vas nefer oop-kickt before: Soom roosh to on-climb de blatform-- Soom hoory to fasten te toor: Von veller vired his refolfer, Boot de pullet missed her mark: She coot de cort of de shandelier: It vell, und de hall vas tark!

Oh, vell was it for Hiram Twine Dat nimply he couldt shoomp; Und vell dat he light on a misthauf, Und nefer feel de boomp; Und vell for him dat his goot cray horse Shtood sattled shoost outside; Und vell dat in an augenblick He vas off on a teufel's ride.

Bang! bang! de sharp pistolen shots Vent pipin py his ear, Boot he tortled oop de barrick road Like any mountain deer: Dey trowed der Hiram Twine mit shteins, But dey only could be-mark Von climpse of his vhite obercoadt, Und a clotterin in de tark.

So dey all versembled togeder, Ein ander to sprechen mit, Und allow dat sooch a rede Dey nefer exshpegd from Schmit-- Dat he vas a foorst-glass plackguard, And so pig a Lump ash ran; So, _nemine contradicente_, Dey vented for Breitmann.

Und 'twas annerthalb yar dereafter Before der Schmit vas know Vot maket dis rural fillage Go pack oopon him so; Und he schvored at de Dootch more schlimmer Ash Hiram Twine had tone. _Nota bene_: He tid it in earnesht, Vhile der Hiram's vas pusiness fun.

Boot vhen Breitmann heard de shdory, How de fillage hat peen dricked, He shvore bei Leib und Leben He'd rader hafe been licked Dan be helped bei sooch shumgoozlin; Und 'twas petter to pe a schwein Dan a schwindlin honeyfooglin shnake, Like dat lyin Yankee Twine.

Und pegot so heafy disgoosted Mit de boledicks of dis land, Dat his friendts couldn't barely keep him From trowin oop his hand, Vhen he helt shtraidt flush, mit an ace in his poot; Vich phrase ish all de same, In de science of de pokerology, Ash if he got de game.

So Breitmann cot elegtet, Py vollowin de vay Dey manage de elegdions Unto dis fery day; Vitch shows de Deutsch _Dummehrlichkeit_, Also de Yankee "wit": Das ist Abenteuer How Breitmann lick der Schmit.

LOVE SONG

BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND

Overe mine lofe a sugar-powl, De fery shmallest loomp Vouldt shveet de seas from bole to bole, Und make de shildren shoomp. Und if she vere a clofer-fieldt, I'd bet mine only pence, It vouldn't pe no dime at all Pefore I'd shoomp de fence.

Her heafenly foice it drill me so, It really seems to hoort; She ish de holiest anamile Dat roons oopon de dirt. De re'nbow rises ven she sings, De sonn shine ven she dalk, De angels crow und flop deir vings Ven she goes out to valk.

So livin vhite--so carnadine-- Mine lofe's gomblexion glow; It's shoost like abendcarmosine Rich gleamin on de shnow. Her soul makes plooshes in her sheek, As sommer reds de wein, Or sonlight sends a fire-life troo An blank karfunkelstein.

De ueberschwengliche idées Dis lofe put in my mind, Vould make a foostrate philosoph Of any human kind. 'Tis shuderned sweet on eart' to meet An himmlisch-hoellisch qual, Und treat mit whiles to kümmel schnapps De Shoenheitsideál.

CONTENTMENT

"_Man wants but little here below_"

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES