it will be because I have more serious work to do. Two
months from to-day there will be a new Government in Olancho and a new
President, and the mines will have a new director. I have tried to be
your friend, Mr. Clay. See how you like me for an enemy. Goodnight,
gentlemen."

"Good-night," said MacWilliams, unmoved. "Please ask your man to close
the gate after you."

When the sound of the hoofs had died away the men still stood in an
uncomfortable silence, with Clay twirling the revolver around his
middle finger. "I'm sorry I had to make a gallery play of that sort,"
he said. "But it was the only way to make that sort of man understand."

Langham sighed and shook his head ruefully.

"Well," he said, "I thought all the trouble was over, but it looks to
me as though it had just begun. So far as I can see they're going to
give the governor a run for his money yet."

Clay turned to MacWilliams.

"How many of Mendoza's soldiers have we in the mines, Mac?" he asked.

"About fifteen hundred," MacWilliams answered. "But you ought to hear
the way they talk of him."

"They do, eh?" said Clay, with a smile of satisfaction. "That's good.
'Six hundred slaves who hate their masters.' What do they say about me?"

"Oh, they think you're all right. They know you got them their pay and
all that. They'd do a lot for you."

"Would they fight for me?" asked Clay.

MacWilliams looked up and laughed uneasily. "I don't know," he said.
"Why, old man? What do you mean to do?"

"Oh, I don't know," Clay answered. "I was just wondering whether I
should like to be President of Olancho."

III

The Langhams were to arrive on Friday, and during the week before that
day Clay went about with a long slip of paper in his pocket which he
would consult earnestly in corners, and upon which he would note down
the things that they had left undone. At night he would sit staring at
it and turning it over in much concern, and would beg Langham to tell
him what he could have meant when he wrote "see Weimer," or "clean
brasses," or "S. Q. M." "Why should I see Weimer," he would exclaim,
"and which brasses, and what does S. Q. M. stand for, for heaven's
sake?"

They held a full-dress rehearsal in the bungalow to improve its state
of preparation, and drilled the servants and talked English to them, so
that they would know what was wanted when the young ladies came. It
was an interesting exercise, and had the three young men been