"Those Greasers are sullen, sir," said Seaman Rogers.

"I expected to find them so," Ensign Darrin answered.

They had not gone far when a man astride a winded, foam-flocked
horse rode up the street.

"Do you know that man, sir?" asked Seaman Rogers, in an excited
whisper.

"The bandit, Cosetta!" Dave muttered.

"The same, sir."

But Darrin turned and walked on again, for he saw that the recognition
had been mutual.

Espying the young ensign, Cosetta reined in sharply before a group
of Mexicans, whose glances he directed at Dave Darrin.

"There he goes, the turkey-cock, strutting young officer," cried
Cosetta harshly in his own tongue. "Eye the young Gringo upstart
well. You must know him again, for he is to be a marked man in the
streets of Vera Cruz!"

It was a prediction full of ghastly possibilities for Ensign
Dave Darrin!

CHAPTER XIII

"AFTER THE RASCAL!"

Seaman Rogers led the way briskly to the American consulate.

"The consul is engaged, sir, with the Jefe Politico," explained
a clerk at a desk in an outer office. "Will you wait, or have you
papers that can be left with me?"

"Thank you; I shall he obliged to wait," Dave decided, "since
I was instructed to hand the papers to the consul himself."

He took a chair at a vacant desk, picking up a late issue of a
New Orleans daily paper and scanning the front page.

Seaman Rogers strolled to the entrance, watching the passing crowds
of Mexicans.

"Is there any very late news from Tampico?" Darrin inquired, presently.

"Nothing later than the news received this morning," the clerk
replied.

"The bare details of the dispute there over the insult to the Flag?"
Darrin inquired.

"That is all, sir," the clerk replied.

So Dave turned again to the newspaper. Several things were happening
in the home country that interested him.

"It was half an hour before the _Jefe Politico_, a Mexican official,
corresponding somewhat to a mayor in an American city, passed
through on his way out.

"You will be able to see the consul, now," suggested the clerk,
so Dave rose at once, passing into the inner office, where he
was pleasantly greeted.

Dave laid a sealed packet of papers on the desk before the consul.

"If you have time to wait, pardon me while I glance at the enclosures,"
said the consul.

Ensign Darrin took a seat near a window, while the official went
rapidly through the papers submitted to him.

Some were merely communicat