here who have kept
the old traditions alive by going out into the streets and shooting up
the city hall every now and then, but they've mostly got shot
themselves for their pains,--which hasn't done the princess any good.
I studied the situation, and the more I thought of her getting done in
this way, the madder I got. So I made up my mind she should have her
old throne back. She said she didn't want it, but that was only
because she didn't want me to get mixed up in it. At first it did look
like a kind of dubious enterprise, but I prowled around and then I
discovered a trump card. Up in the hills there is a bunch of wild
Indians who have always balked at a republic, mostly because the
republic tried to clean them out just to keep the army in practice.

"But the Chief, the Grand Mogul and priest of them all, is this same
man Stubbs doesn't like--the same who, for some devilish reason of his
own chose this particular time to sail for South America. But he isn't
a bad lot, this Valverde, though he _is_ a queer one. He speaks
English like a native and has ways that at times make me think he is
half American. But he isn't--he is a heathen clear to his backbone,
with a heathen heart and a heathen temper. When he takes a dislike to
a man he's going to make it hot for him some day or other. It seems
that he is particularly sore against the government now because of a
certain expedition sent up there a little over a year ago, and because
of the loss of a heathen idol which----"

"What?" broke in Wilson, half rising from his chair. "Is this----"

"The priest, they all call him. Mention the priest down there and they
knew whom you mean."

"Go on," said Wilson, breathing a bit more rapidly.

"Do you know him? Maybe you caught a glimpse of him that day you were
at the house. He was there."

"No, I don't know him," answered Wilson, "but--but I have heard of
him. It seems that he is everywhere."

"He is a queer one. He can get from one place to another more quickly
and with less noise than anyone I ever met. He's a bit uncanny that
way as well as other ways. However, as I said, he's been square with
me and it didn't take us long to get together on a proposition for
combining our interests; I to furnish guns, ammunition, and as many
men as possible, he to fix up a deal with the old party, do the
scheming, and furnish a few hundred Indians. I've had the boat all
ready for a long while, and Stubbs, one of Dad's old skippers, out