Your Old Pard,
BOB BUCKLY,
_Prest. Stockmen's National_.

The major began to tear the note into small pieces and throw them
into his waste basket. He gave a satisfied little chuckle as he did
so.

"Confounded old reckless cowpuncher!" he growled, contentedly, "that
pays him some on account for what he tried to do for me in the
sheriff's office twenty years ago."

XIII

THE FOURTH IN SALVADOR

On a summer's day, while the city was rocking with the din and red
uproar of patriotism, Billy Casparis told me this story.

In his way, Billy is Ulysses, Jr. Like Satan, he comes from going
to and fro upon the earth and walking up and down in it. To-morrow
morning while you are cracking your breakfast egg he may be off with
his little alligator grip to boom a town site in the middle of Lake
Okeechobee or to trade horses with the Patagonians.

We sat at a little, round table, and between us were glasses holding
big lumps of ice, and above us leaned an artificial palm. And
because our scene was set with the properties of the one they
recalled to his mind, Billy was stirred to narrative.

"It reminds me," said he, "of a Fourth I helped to celebrate down in
Salvador. 'Twas while I was running an ice factory down there, after
I unloaded that silver mine I had in Colorado. I had what they
called a 'conditional concession.' They made me put up a thousand
dollars cash forfeit that I would make ice continuously for six
months. If I did that I could draw down my ante. If I failed to do
so the government took the pot. So the inspectors kept dropping in,
trying to catch me without the goods.

"One day when the thermometer was at 110, the clock at half-past
one, and the calendar at July third, two of the little, brown, oily
nosers in red trousers slid in to make an inspection. Now, the
factory hadn't turned out a pound of ice in three weeks, for a
couple of reasons. The Salvador heathen wouldn't buy it; they said
it made things cold they put it in. And I couldn't make any more,
because I was broke. All I was holding on for was to get down my
thousand so I could leave the country. The six months would be up
on the sixth of July.

"Well, I showed 'em all the ice I had. I raised the lid of a darkish
vat, and there was an elegant 100-pound block of ice, beautiful and
convincing to the eye. I was about to close down the lid again when
one of those brunette sleuths flops down on his red knees and lays
a slandero