white
dress of the tropics and a hat of fine Manila straw, a young man who
would not send up his card, but in very Mexican Spanish asked for Miss
Ray. Ignacio sent a boy for Mrs. Brent, who came down to reconnoitre,
and the youth reiterated his request.

"An old friend" was all he would say in response to her demand for his
name and purpose. She put him off, saying Miss Ray was still too far
from well to see anybody, bade him call next day when Dr. Frank and her
husband, she knew, would probably be there, duly notified them, and
Frank met and received the caller when he came and sent him away in
short order.

"The man is a crank," said he, "and I shall have him watched." The
colonel asked that one or two of the soldier police guard should be sent
to the house to look after the stranger. A corporal came from the
company barrack around on the Calle Real, and it was after nightfall
when next the "old friend" rang the bell and was permitted by Ignacio to
enter.

But the instant the corporal started forward to look at him the caller
bounded back into outer darkness. He was tall, sinewy, speedy, and had a
twenty-yard start before the little guardsman, stout and burly, could
squeeze into the street. Then the latter's shouts up the San Luis only
served to startle the sentries, to spur the runner, and to excite and
agitate Maidie.

Dr. Frank was disgusted when he tried her pulse and temperature half an
hour later and said things to the corporal not strictly authorized by
the regulations. The episode was unfortunate, yet might soon have been
forgotten but for one hapless circumstance. Despite her announcement,
something had overcome Miss Perkins's sense of injury, for she had
stepped from a carriage directly in front of the house at the moment of
the occurrence, was a witness to all that took place, and the first one
to extract from the corporal his version of the affair and his theory as
to what lay behind it. In another moment she was driving away towards
the Nozaleda, the direction taken by the fugitive, fast as her coachman
could whip his ponies, the original purpose of her call abandoned.

As in duty bound, both Mrs. Brent and Dr. Frank had told Sandy of this
odd affair. Mrs. Brent described the stranger as tall, slender, sallow,
with big cavernous dark eyes that had a wild look to them, and a
scraggly, fuzzy beard all over his face, as though he hadn't shaved for
long weeks. His hands--of course, she had particularly