Brandon of the Engineers

Once he thought he was followed, but when he stopped to look round, the

shadowy figure behind turned into a side street, and he presently found

the man he was in search of in a quiet café. He spent some time

explaining the drawings of the patterns that would be required before Don

Tomas undertook to make the castings, and then languidly leaned back in

his chair. His head had begun to ache again and he felt strangely limp

and tired. The fever was returning, as it did at night, but he roused

himself by and by and set off to visit the doctor.

On his way he passed the casino and, to his surprise, saw Jake coming

down the steps. Dick frowned when they met.

"How did you get in?" he asked. "It's the rule for somebody to put your

name down on your first visit."

"So it seemed," said Jake. "There are, however, ways of getting over such

difficulties, and a dollar goes some distance in this country; much

farther, in fact, than it does in ours."

"It's some consolation to think you've had to pay for your amusement,"

Dick answered sourly.

Jake smiled. "On the contrary, I found it profitable. You make a mistake

that's common with serious folks, by taking it for granted that a

cheerful character marks a fool." He put his hand in his pocket and

brought it out filled with silver coin. "Say, what do you think of this?"

"Put the money back," Dick said sharply, for there was a second-rate

wine-shop not far off and a group of untidy half-breeds lounged about its

front. Jake, however, took out another handful of silver.

"My luck was pretty good; I reckon it says something for me that I knew

when to stop."

He jingled the money as he passed the wine-shop, and Dick, looking back,

thought one of the men inside got up, but nobody seemed to be following

them when they turned into another street. This was the nearest way to

the doctor's, but it was dark and narrow, and Dick did not like its look.

"Keep in the middle," he warned Jake.

They were near the end of the street when two men came out of an arch and

waited for them.

"Have you a match, señor?" one who held a cigarette in his hand asked.

"No," said Dick suspiciously. "Keep back!"

"But it is only a match we want," said the other, and Jake stopped.

"What's the matter with giving him one? Wait till I get my box."

He gave it to the fellow, who struck a match, and after lighting his

cigarette held it so that the faint illumination touched Dick's face.

"Thanks, señor," said the half-breed, who turned to his companion as he

added softly in Castilian: "The other."