s mail before being assigned to a room.

The man was tall and almost lean. Had Steele entered the cafe at that
moment, he would have rushed over to the seated figure, and grasped a
hand with a feeling that his quest had ended, then, on second sight,
he would have drawn back, incredulous and mystified. This guest
lacked no feature that Robert Saxon possessed. His eyes held the same
trace of the dreamer, though a close scrutiny showed also a hard
glitter--his dreams were different. The hand that held the letter was
marked front and back, though a narrow inspection would have shown the
scar to be a bit more aggravated, more marked with streaked wrinkles
about the palm. He and the American painter were as identical as
models struck from one die in the lines and angles that make face and
figure. Yet, in this man, there was something foreign and alien to
Saxon, a difference of soul-texture. Saxon was a being of flesh, this
man a statue of chilled steel.

The envelope he had just cast upon the table fell face upward, and the
waiting _garcon_ could hardly help observing that it was addressed to
Senor George Carter, care of a steamship agency in the _Rue Scribe_.

As Carter read the letter it had contained, his brows gathered first
in great interest, then in surprise, then in greater interest and
greater surprise.

"There has been a most strange occurrence here," said the writer, who
dated his communication from Puerto Frio, and wrote in Spanish. "Just
before the revolution broke, a man arrived who was called Robert A.
Saxon. He was obviously mistaken for you by the government and was
taken into custody, but released on the interference of his minister.
The likeness was so remarkable that I was myself deceived and
consequently astounded you should make so bold as to return. He,
however, established a clean bill of health and that very fact has
suggested to me an idea which I think will likewise commend itself to
you, _amigo mio_. That I am speaking only from my sincere interest in
you, you need not question when you consider that I have kept you
advised through these years of matters here and have divulged to no
soul your whereabouts. This man left at once, but the talk spread
rapidly in confidential circles than an _Americano_ had come who was
the double of yourself. Some men even contended that it was really
you, and that it was you also who betrayed the plans of Vegas to the
government, but that scandal is not credited. M