I wonder if
you've got any nerve."

"You got a deal of some kind to put through?" asked the Texan, with
unexpected shrewdness.

"Are you open to a proposition?" said Thacker.

"What's the use to deny it?" said the Kid. "I got into a little gun
frolic down in Laredo and plugged a white man. There wasn't any
Mexican handy. And I come down to your parrot-and-monkey range just
for to smell the morning-glories and marigolds. Now, do you _sabe_?"

Thacker got up and closed the door.

"Let me see your hand," he said.

He took the Kid's left hand, and examined the back of it closely.

"I can do it," he said excitedly. "Your flesh is as hard as wood and
as healthy as a baby's. It will heal in a week."

"If it's a fist fight you want to back me for," said the Kid, "don't
put your money up yet. Make it gun work, and I'll keep you company.
But no barehanded scrapping, like ladies at a tea-party, for me."

"It's easier than that," said Thacker. "Just step here, will you?"

Through the window he pointed to a two-story white-stuccoed house
with wide galleries rising amid the deep-green tropical foliage on a
wooded hill that sloped gently from the sea.

"In that house," said Thacker, "a fine old Castilian gentleman and
his wife are yearning to gather you into their arms and fill your
pockets with money. Old Santos Urique lives there. He owns half the
gold-mines in the country."

"You haven't been eating loco weed, have you?" asked the Kid.

"Sit down again," said Thacker, "and I'll tell you. Twelve years ago
they lost a kid. No, he didn't die--although most of 'em here do
from drinking the surface water. He was a wild little devil, even
if he wasn't but eight years old. Everybody knows about it. Some
Americans who were through here prospecting for gold had letters to
Senor Urique, and the boy was a favorite with them. They filled his
head with big stories about the States; and about a month after
they left, the kid disappeared, too. He was supposed to have stowed
himself away among the banana bunches on a fruit steamer, and gone
to New Orleans. He was seen once afterward in Texas, it was thought,
but they never heard anything more of him. Old Urique has spent
thousands of dollars having him looked for. The madam was broken up
worst of all. The kid was her life. She wears mourning yet. But they
say she believes he'll come back to her some day, and never gives up
hope. On the back of the boy's left hand was tattooed a fl