oner.
Get it. My skill as a tattooer is worth half the boddle. We go
halves and catch a tramp steamer for Rio Janeiro. Let the United
States go to pieces if it can't get along without my services. _Que
dice, senor?_"

"It sounds to me!" said the Kid, nodding his head. "I'm out for the
dust."

"All right, then," said Thacker. "You'll have to keep close until
we get the bird on you. You can live in the back room here. I do
my own cooking, and I'll make you as comfortable as a parsimonious
Government will allow me."

Thacker had set the time at a week, but it was two weeks before the
design that he patiently tattooed upon the Kid's hand was to his
notion. And then Thacker called a _muchacho_, and dispatched this
note to the intended victim:

EL SENOR DON SANTOS URIQUE,
La Casa Blanca,

MY DEAR SIR:

I beg permission to inform you that there is in my house as
a temporary guest a young man who arrived in Buenas Tierras
from the United States some days ago. Without wishing to
excite any hopes that may not be realized, I think there is
a possibility of his being your long-absent son. It might be
well for you to call and see him. If he is, it is my opinion
that his intention was to return to his home, but upon
arriving here, his courage failed him from doubts as to how
he would be received. Your true servant,

THOMPSON THACKER.

Half an hour afterward--quick time for Buenas Tierras--Senor
Urique's ancient landau drove to the consul's door, with the
barefooted coachman beating and shouting at the team of fat, awkward
horses.

A tall man with a white moustache alighted, and assisted to the
ground a lady who was dressed and veiled in unrelieved black.

The two hastened inside, and were met by Thacker with his best
diplomatic bow. By his desk stood a slender young man with
clear-cut, sun-browned features and smoothly brushed black hair.

Senora Urique threw back her black veil with a quick gesture. She
was past middle age, and her hair was beginning to silver, but her
full, proud figure and clear olive skin retained traces of the
beauty peculiar to the Basque province. But, once you had seen her
eyes, and comprehended the great sadness that was revealed in their
deep shadows and hopeless expression, you saw that the woman lived
only in some memory.

She bent upon the young man a long look of the most agonized
questioning. Then her great black eyes turned, and her gaze r