pretended to understand
this Gringo pair."

"Are they, in the end, going to trick me, Carlos?"

"Who can say?" demanded Dr. Tisco, with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Of course, they both know that it will be but a short cut to
suicide if they attempt to fool you."

"Their deaths will cause me no anxiety, Carlos, either before
or after the sale," murmured Montez. "In fact, my good Carlos--"

"Say it," leered Dr. Tisco, as his employer paused.

"I may as well say it, for you have guessed it, Carlos. Yes,
I will say it. Even if this Gringo pair appear honestly to aid
me in making the sale--and even if I do make the sale and receive
the money--this Gringo pair must die. We know how to arrange
that, eh, my staunch Carlos?"

Dr. Tisco shrugged his shoulders.

"Of course, we can put them out of the way, at any time, with
secrecy and dispatch, Don Luis. But what will be the use--provided
they help you to get the American money into your hands? To be
sure, the new buyers will soon find that they have a worthless
mine on their hands, but that may happen with the finest mine.
The new buyers will never be able to prove that you brought all
of your pretty-looking ore from another mine. You can depend
upon the secrecy of the people from whom you have been buying
the baiting ore for _El Sombrero_."

"Ah, but there is another side to that, Carlos. If Senores Reade
and Hazelton serve us, and then go safely back to the United States,
they can swear that they found and knew _El Sombrero_ to be worthless.
Then their evidence, flanked by the sudden running-out of _El
Sombrero_, will make a case that the new American buyers could
take into court."

"Let them take it into court," proposed the secretary, contemptuously.
"The governor of Bonista rules the judges of the courts of the
state of Bonista with an iron hand. Rest assured that, if the
Americans were to take their claims into the courts of this state,
the judges would decide for you, and that would be the end of
the matter. And do you believe, Don Luis, that, after Senores
Reade and Hazelton once get alive out of Bonista, any consideration
would tempt them to come back here to testify? They have sampled
your power,"

"Yet why do you object, Carlos, to having the Gringo pair put
out of the way?"

"I do not care anything about their lives," Tisco declared, coolly.
"It is only on general business principles that it seems to me
unwise to have human lives taken when