of mind. With an effort surprising in one so
slight he drew himself back into the window again. There must be another
way. It was positively not on the cards for him to be fooled in this
stupid manner. He could see his car standing near the corral and the sight
urged him to greater efforts.

He paced angrily up and down the floor. It was a very solid floor. As far
as he was concerned it might be regarded as an invincible floor. If he had
a pick, perhaps--Pachuca's eyes brightened, and a roguish look came into
them. He had been thinking as he often did in English, being practically
bi-lingual, and the word suggested something to him. Why not pick the
lock? He felt eagerly in his pocket for his knife--left, alas, in the
pocket of his leather coat in the machine. Still, there might be one
somewhere about. In the desk, perhaps. The saints would help a good
Spaniard, undoubtedly. Pachuca was not unduly religious, and he could not
recall at the moment any saint renowned for picking locks, so he let it go
at that and began to hunt. Some sort of tool might be found in the desk.

The desk yielded pencils, pens, erasers, and other harmless implements
without number, but nothing even remotely resembling a knife. Pachuca
slammed the drawers angrily and resumed his tramping. The night was
getting on and he was apparently no nearer freedom than when the girl had
left him. He cursed volubly and disgustedly.

"I suppose if I had the shoulders of that abominable Scott I could break
the door!" he muttered. "On the other hand," he mused, grimly, "if I had
had his brains I would not be here. It was a foolish business--trying to
confiscate American property. It rarely pays." Pachuca, like the famous
Mr. Pecksniff, believed in keeping up appearances even with one's self.
His attempt was confiscation distinctly and not robbery. "It was talking
with the American girl that day on the train that put it into my head. She
would talk about her brother and his mine. Juan Pachuca, when will you
learn to let women alone? Every time a woman comes upon the scene
something disagreeable happens--and usually to you."

He paused by the window and surveyed it distastefully. "If I have to go
out by that window, I will--but I do not like it. If I could bribe someone
to put up a ladder! But they are all asleep--the lazy fools."

He glanced at the shakedown which Mrs. Van Zandt had sent over by Miller,
the idea of a rope ladder made of sheets having floated