besides, everybody would have heard the news. I'm going around now
to see Dr. Zavalla, and start a man up the trail to cut the telegraph
wire."

As Goodwin rose, Keogh threw his hat upon the grass by the door and
expelled a tremendous sigh.

"What's the trouble, Billy?" asked Goodwin, pausing. "That's the
first time I heard you sigh."

"'Tis the last," said Keogh. "With that sorrowful puff of wind
I resign myself to a life of praiseworthy but harassing honesty.
What are tintypes, if you please, to the opportunities of the great
and hilarious class of ganders and geese? Not that I would be a
president, Frank--and the boodle he's got is too big for me to handle
--but in some ways I feel my conscience hurting me for addicting
myself to photographing a nation instead of running away with it.
Frank, did you ever see the 'bundle of muslin' that His Excellency
has wrapped up and carried off?"

"Isabel Guilbert?" said Goodwin, laughing. "No, I never did. From
what I've heard of her, though, I imagine that she wouldn't stick at
anything to carry her point. Don't get romantic, Billy. Sometimes
I begin to fear that there's Irish blood in your ancestry."

"I never saw her either," went on Keogh; "but they say she's got all
the ladies of mythology, sculpture, and fiction reduced to chromos.
They say she can look at a man once, and he'll turn monkey and climb
trees to pick coconuts for her. Think of that president man with
Lord know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars in one hand,