vernment funds, which he carried with him in an American leather
valise as a souvenir of his tempestuous administration, was never
afterward recovered.

For a _real_, a boy will show you his grave. It is back of the town
near a little bridge that spans a mangrove swamp. A plain slab of
wood stands at its head. Some one has burned upon the headstone with
a hot iron this inscription:

RAMON ANGEL DE LAS CRUZES

Y MIRAFLORES

PRESIDENTE DE LA REPUBLICA

DE ANCHURIA

QUE SEA SU JUEZ DIOS

It is characteristic of this buoyant people that they pursue no man
beyond the grave. "Let God be his judge!"--Even with the hundred
thousand unfound, though greatly coveted, the hue and cry went no
further than that.

To the stranger or the guest the people of Coralio will relate the
story of the tragic end of their former president; how he strove to
escape from the country with the public funds and also with Dona
Isabel Guilbert, the young American opera singer; and how, being
apprehended by members of the opposing political party in Coralio,
he shot himself through the head rather than give up the funds, and,
in consequence, the Senorita Guilbert. They will relate further
that Dona Isabel, her adventurous bark of fortune shoaled by the
simultaneous loss of her distinguished admirer and the souvenir
hundred thousand, dropped anchor on this stagnant coast, awaiting a
rising tide.

They say, in Coralio, that she found a prompt and prosperous tide
in the form of Frank Goodwin, an American resident of the town, an
investor who had grown wealthy by dealing in the products of the
country--a banana king, a rubber prince, a sarsaparilla, indigo, and
mahogany baron. The Senorita Guilbert, you will be told, married
Senor Goodwin one month after the president's death, thus, in the
very moment when Fortune had ceased to smile, wresting from her a
gift greater than the prize withdrawn.

Of the American, Don Frank Goodwin, and of his wife the natives have
nothing but good to say. Don Frank has lived among them for years,
and has compelled their respect. His lady is easily queen of what
social life the sober coast affords. The wife of the governor of the
district, herself, who was of the proud Castilian family of Monteleon
y Dolorosa de los Santos y Mendez, feels honoured to unfold her
napkin with olive-hued, ringed hands at the table of Senora Goodwin.
Were you to refer (with your northern prejudice