tion, and as though Hope were one of those who must be convinced.
"If we had cut the opening on the first level, there was the danger of
the whole thing sinking in, so we had to begin to clear away at the top
and work down. That's why I ordered the bucket-trolley. As it turned
out, we saved money by it."

Hope nodded her head slightly. "That's what I told father when Ted
wrote us about it," she said; "but you haven't done it at Mount
Washington."

"Oh, but it's like this, Miss--" Kirkland replied, eagerly. "It's
because Washington is a solider foundation. We can cut openings all
over it and they won't cave, but this hill is most all rubbish; it's
the poorest stuff in the mines."

Hope nodded her head again and crowded her pony on after the moving
group, but her sister and King did not follow. King looked at her and
smiled. "Hope is very enthusiastic," he said. "Where did she pick it
up?"

"Oh, she and father used to go over it in his study last winter after
Ted came down here," Miss Langham answered, with a touch of impatience
in her tone. "Isn't there some place where we can go to get out of
this heat?"

Weimer, the Consul, heard her and led her back to Kirkland's bungalow,
that hung like an eagle's nest from a projecting cliff. From its porch
they could look down the valley over the greater part of the mines, and
beyond to where the Caribbean Sea lay flashing in the heat.

"I saw very few Americans down there, Weimer," said King. "I thought
Clay had imported a lot of them."

"About three hundred altogether, wild Irishmen and negroes," said the
Consul; "but we use the native soldiers chiefly. They can stand the
climate better, and, besides," he added, "they act as a reserve in case
of trouble. They are Mendoza's men, and Clay is trying to win them
away from him."

"I don't understand," said King.

Weimer looked around him and waited until Kirkland's servant had
deposited a tray full of bottles and glasses on a table near them, and
had departed. "The talk is," he said, "that Alvarez means to proclaim
a dictatorship in his own favor before the spring elections. You've
heard of that, haven't you?" King shook his head.

"Oh, tell us about it," said Miss Langham; "I should so like to be in
plots and conspiracies."

"Well, they're rather common down here," continued the Consul, "but
this one ought to interest you especially, Miss Langham, because it is
a woman who is at the head of it. Madame Alv