"Ah! there you are!" exclaimed the old gentleman, in Spanish. "O you pig!
you dog! you never are here. O Madre de Dios! how I have needed you! There
is no time to lose. Enter at once."

A dyspeptic, worn with work and anxieties, his nervous system shattered,
Garcia was subject to fits of petulance which were ludicrous. In these
rages he called everybody who would bear it pigs, dogs, and other more
unsavory nicknames. Coronado bore it because thus he got his living, and
got it without much labor.

"I want you," gasped Garcia, seizing the young man by the arm and dragging
him into a private room. "I want to speak to you in confidence--in
confidence, mind you, in confidence--about Muñoz."

"I have heard of it," said Coronado, as the old man stopped to catch his
breath.

"Heard of it!" exclaimed Garcia, in such consternation that he turned
yellow, which was his way of turning pale. "Has the news got here? O Madre
de Dios!"

"Yes, I was at our little cousin's this evening. It is an ugly affair."

"And _she_ knows it?" groaned the old man. "O Madre de Dios!"

"She told me of it. She is going there. I did the best I could. She was
about to go overland, in charge of the American, Thurstane. I broke that
up. I persuaded her to go by the isthmus."

"It is of little use," said Garcia, his eyes filmy with despair, as if he