keep the oath he has taken."

CHAPTER XVII.

EVIL INFLUENCE.

It was a pleasant dinner hour at the home of Warren Hatch when Frank met
Mrs. Hatch, who proved to be a strangely modest, motherly sort of woman.
Merry decided that she had been a country girl, and that the change in
fortune that had lifted her from humbleness to her present position as
the wife of a very wealthy man had not changed her character in the
least.

Mendoza was exceedingly agreeable at table. He was not forward, but
seemed to take just the proper interest and proper part in the flow of
conversation, and not once during the meal was he offensive in the
slightest degree. But for his first unpleasant impression of the fellow,
Merry might have fancied him quite a decent chap.

The Mexican was very frank in stating his desire to learn everything
possible about American methods of business while he remained in New
York, and he asked a few questions of Mr. Hatch, but never pressed a
point when the gentleman seemed reticent over it.

"I don't presume you are looking for a business opening here?"
questioned Hatch. "Why, Americans have their eyes on Mexico, which they
say is very rich and offers innumerable opportunities for the man of
brains, business, and capital. You have fine plantations, splendid
ranches, and some of the richest mines in the world. Are you going to
let Americans open up all your mines and work them?"

"Oh, no," laughed Carlos. "Americans have not all our mines, by any
means. Many Americans have obtained mines in my country to which they
have no legal right. For instance, there were the great Santa Maria
Mines, which were secured and operated by a syndicate of Americans. They
thought they had a claim to those mines that could not be disputed, and
they laughed at any one that suggested the possibility of trouble over
them. One day a man by the name of Casaria came along and told them that
the property was his, and that they must either pay him well for the
privilege of working them, or get out. They told him to go away. He
went. Then he began proceedings against them, and in less than a year
they were ousted and compelled to abandon every building they had
constructed, every piece of machinery they had put in, and all that.
Casaria had beaten them, and he turned round and leased his property to
another company that pays him well for the privilege of working it. The
same thing is likely to happen to other Americans in Mex