LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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