is owned by one man. As a matter of fact, my dear children,''
exclaimed Mr. Langham, as he placed a deuce of clubs upon a deuce
of spades with a smile of content, ``the Valencia Mining Company
is your beloved father.''

``Oh,'' said Miss Langham, as she looked steadily into the fire.

Hope tapped her lips gently with the back of her hand to hide the
fact that she was sleepy, and nudged her father's elbow. ``You
shouldn't have put the deuce there,'' she said, ``you should have
used it to build with on the ace.''



II

A year before Mrs. Porter's dinner a tramp steamer on her way to
the capital of Brazil had steered so close to the shores of
Olancho that her solitary passenger could look into the caverns
the waves had tunnelled in the limestone cliffs along the coast.
The solitary passenger was Robert Clay, and he made a guess that
the white palisades which fringed the base of the mountains along
the shore had been forced up above the level of the sea many
years before by some volcanic action. Olancho, as many people
know, is situated on the northeastern coast of South America, and
its shores are washed by the main equatorial current. From the
deck of a passing vessel you can obtain but little idea of
Olancho or of the abundance and tropical beauty which lies hidden
away behind the rampart of mountains on her shore. You can see
only their desolate dark-green front, and the white caves at