and neither can you. They have guns there that in
twenty minutes could smash this town into a dust-heap. So you see,
what you hope to do is impossible, absurd! Now," he urged eagerly,
"why don't you give up butting your head into a stone wall, and help
your father and me?"

He stopped, and in evident anxiety waited for the other to speak, but
Roddy only regarded him steadily. After a pause Roddy said: "_I'm_ not
talking. You're the one that's talking. And," he added, "you're
talking too much, too!"

"I'll risk it!" cried Caldwell stoutly. "I've never gone after a man
of sense yet that I couldn't make him see things my way. Now, Senora
Rojas," he went on, "only wants one thing. She wants to get her
husband out of prison. She thinks Vega can do that, that he means to
do it, that I mean to do it. Well--we _don't_."

Roddy's eyes half closed, the lines around his mouth grew taut, and
when he spoke his voice was harsh and had sunk to a whisper.

"I tell you," he said, "you're talking too much!"

But neither in Roddy's face nor voice did Caldwell read the danger
signals.

"It doesn't suit our book," he swept on, "to get him out. Until Vega
is President he must stay where he is. But his wife must not know
that. She believes in _us_. She thinks the Rojas crowd only interferes
with us, and she is sending for you to ask you to urge the Rojas
faction to give us a free hand."

"I see," said Roddy; "and while Vega is trying to be President, Rojas
may die. Have you thought of that?"

"Can we help it?" protested Caldwell. "Did _we_ put him in prison?
We'll have trouble enough keeping ourselves out of San Carlos. Well,"
he demanded, "what are you going to do?"

"At present," said Roddy, "I'm going to call on Madame Rojas."

On their walk to Miramar, Caldwell found it impossible to break down
Roddy's barrier of good nature. He threatened, he bullied, he held
forth open bribes; but Roddy either remained silent or laughed.
Caldwell began to fear that in trying to come to terms with the enemy
he had made a mistake. But still he hoped that in his obstinacy Roddy
was merely stupid; he believed that in treating him as a factor in
affairs they had made him vainglorious, arrogant. He was sure that if
he could convince him of the utter impossibility of taking San Carlos
by assault he would abandon the Rojas crowd and come over to Vega. So
he enlarged upon the difficulty of that enterprise, using it as his
argument in chief. Roddy, i