it was the only way to make that sort of man understand." 

 Langham sighed and shook his head ruefully. 

 "Well," he said, "I thought all the trouble was over, but it looks to me as though it had just begun. So far as I can see they're going to give the governor a run for his money yet." 

 Clay turned to MacWilliams. 

 "How many of Mendoza's soldiers have we in the mines, Mac?" he asked. 

 "About fifteen hundred," MacWilliams answered.  "But you ought to hear the way they talk of him." 

 "They do, eh?" said Clay, with a smile of satisfaction. "That's good. 'Six hundred slaves who hate their masters.' What do they say about me?" 

 "Oh, they think you're all right. They know you got them their pay and all that. They'd do a lot for you." 

 "Would they fight for me?" asked Clay. 

 MacWilliams looked up and laughed uneasily.  "I don't know," he said. "Why, old man? What do you mean to do?" 

 "Oh, I don't know," Clay answered.  "I was just wondering whether I should like to be President of Olancho." 

 

 

 III 

 The Langhams were to arrive on Friday, and during the week before that day Clay went about with a long slip of paper in his pocket which he would consult earnestly in corners, and upon which he would note down the things that they had left undone. At night he would sit staring at it and turning it over in much concern, and would beg Langham to tell him what he could have meant when he wrote "see Weimer," or "clean brasses," or "S. Q. M." "Why should I see Weimer," he would exclaim, "and which brasses, and what does S. Q. M. stand for, for heaven's sake?" 

 They held a full-dress rehearsal in the bungalow to improve its state of preparation, 

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