above it, rose the sea-following range of the Cordilleras. In front
the sea was spread, a smiling jailer, but even more incorruptible
than the frowning mountains. The waves swished along the smooth
beach; the parrots screamed in the orange and ceiba-trees; the palms
waved their limber fronds foolishly like an awkward chorus at the
prima donna's cue to enter.

Suddenly the town was full of excitement. A native boy dashed down
a grass-grown street, shrieking: "~Busca el Senor~ Goodwin. ~Ha
venido un telegrafo por el!~"

The word passed quickly. Telegrams do not come to any one in
Coralio. The cry for Senor Goodwin was taken up by a dozen officious
voices. The main street running parallel to the beach became
populated with those who desired to expedite the delivery of the
dispatch. Knots of women with complexions varying from palest olive
to deepest brown gathered at street corners and plaintively carolled:
"~Un telegrafo por Senor~ Goodwin!" The ~comandante~, Don Senor
el Coronel Encarnacion Rios, who was loyal to the Ins and suspected
Goodwin's devotion to the Outs, hissed: "Aha!" and wrote in his
secret memorandum book the accusive fact that Senor Goodwin had on
that momentous date received a telegram.

In the midst of the hullabaloo a man stepped to the door of a small
wooden building and looked out. Above the door was a sign that read
"Keogh and Clancy"--a nomenclature that seemed not to be indigenous
to that tropical soil. The man in the door was Billy Keogh, scout
of fortune and progress and latter-day rover of the Spanish Main.
Tintypes and photographs were the weapons with which Keogh and Clancy
were at that time assailing the hopeless shores. Outside the shop