like him. There
existed--might Mateo point out--a doubt.

Ezekiel regarded Mateo with a certain grim appreciation. "Wa'al, is
there anybody here who looks like Johnson?"

Again there were the difficulty of ascertaining perfectly how the Senor
Johnson looked. If the Senor Johnson was Americano, doubtless there
were other Americanos who had resembled him. It was possible. The Senor
Corwin had doubtless observed for a little space a caballero who was
here, as it were, in the instant of the appearance of Senor Johnson?
Possibly there was a resemblance, and yet--

Corwin had certainly noticed this resemblance, but it did not suit his
cautious intellect to fall in with any prevailing scepticism of his
host. Satisfied in his mind that Mateo was concealing something from
him, and equally satisfied that he would sooner or later find it out,
he grinned diabolically in the face of that worthy man, and sought the
meditation of his miraculous couch. When he had departed, the sceptic
turned to his wife:

"This animal has been sniffing at the trail."

"Truly--but Mother of God--where is the discretion of our friend. If he
will continue to haunt the pueblo like a lovesick chicken, he will get
his neck wrung yet."

Following out an ingenious idea of his own, Ezekiel called the next day
on the Demorests, and in some occult fashion obtained an invitation to
stay under their hospitable roof during his sojourn in Buenaventura.
Perfectly aware that he owed this courtesy more to Joan than to her
husband, it is probable that his grim enjoyment was not diminished by
the fact; while Joan, for reasons of her own, preferred the constraint
which the presence of another visitor put upon Demorest's uxoriousness.
Of late, too, there were times when Dona Rosita's naive intelligence,
which was not unlike the embarrassing perceptions of a bright and
half-spoiled child, was in her way, and she would willingly have
shared the young lady's company with her husband had Demorest shown any
sympathy for the girl. It was in the faint hope that Ezekiel might in
some way beguile Rosita's wandering attention that she had invited him.
The only difficulty lay in his uncouthness, and in presenting to the
heiress of the Picos a man who had been formerly her own servant. Had
she attempted to conceal that fact she was satisfied that Ezekiel's
independence and natural predilection for embarrassing situations would
have inevitably revealed it. She had even gone so