r the Valencia
Mining Company. Valencia is the capital of Olancho, one of those
little republics down there."

"Do you--are you interested in that company?" asked Miss Langham,
seating herself before the fire and holding out her hands toward it.
"Does Mr. Clay know that you are?"

"Yes--I am interested in it," Mr. Langham replied, studying the cards
before him, "but I don't think Clay knows it--nobody knows it yet,
except the president and the other officers." He lifted a card and put
it down again in some indecision. "It's generally supposed to be
operated by a company, but all the stock is owned by one man. As a
matter of fact, my dear children," exclaimed Mr. Langham, as he placed
a deuce of clubs upon a deuce of spades with a smile of content, "the
Valencia Mining Company is your beloved father."

"Oh," said Miss Langham, as she looked steadily into the fire.

Hope tapped her lips gently with the back of her hand to hide the fact
that she was sleepy, and nudged her father's elbow. "You shouldn't
have put the deuce there," she said, "you should have used it to build
with on the ace."

II

A year before Mrs. Porter's dinner a tramp steamer on her way to the
capital of Brazil had steered so close to the shores of Olancho that
her solitary passenger could look into the caverns the waves had
tunnelled in the limestone cliffs along the coast. The solitary
passenger was Robert Clay, and he made a guess that the white palisades
which fringed the base of the mountains along the shore had been forced
up above the level of the sea many years before by some volcanic
action. Olancho, as many people know, is situated on the northeastern
coast of South America, and its shores are washed by the main
equatorial current. From the deck of a passing vessel you can obtain
but little idea of Olancho or of the abundance and tropical beauty
which lies hidden away behind the rampart of mountains on her shore.
You can see only their desolate dark-green front, and the white caves
at their base, into which the waves rush with an echoing roar, and in
and out of which fly continually thousands of frightened bats.

The mining engineer on the rail of the tramp steamer observed this
peculiar formation of the coast with listless interest, until he noted,
when the vessel stood some thirty miles north of the harbor of
Valencia, that the limestone formation had disappeared, and that the
waves now beat against the base of the mountai