se of the tattered crouched figure, and could it be that it had been
hunchbacked?

With an excited cry he dropped the wrench from his hand and sprang out
into the street. Cart and vender were gone, but in the gutter lay a
crushed, greasy mess which had been a tomale. It was still smoking and
as Dan stirred it with his foot, he saw that a wisp of sodden paper clung
to it.

Seizing it, he smoothed it out and read the two jerkily penciled words:

"Manana. Jose."

CHAPTER XX

WINNIE MASON STANDS BY

"I say, hello there! Wait a minute, Kearn!" Winnie Mason called as he
brought his roadster to a halt with a sudden grinding of brakes. It
was two days later and a cutting east wind skirled about the driveway
of the Park, rattling the naked branches of the trees like the
fleshless arms of a legion of skeletons.

The tall figure on the path waited, but his face was averted and there
was a listless, dispirited droop to his whole form which was not lost
upon the quick, sympathetic gaze of his friend.

"I'll back her up. . . Now get in, old man, and we'll take a little
spin. Jolly glad I ran across you, but what brings you out on a
blustering rotten afternoon like this? You're not very fit yet, you
know, after that bout of fever you had in Mexico, in spite of the
lacing you managed to give Starr Wiley."

"I came to try and walk off a brace of blue devils that have been
camping on my trail," Thode explained, climbing into the car with
manifest reluctance. "You won't find me very good company, Win, but
you've brought it on yourself."

"What's the matter, anyhow?" the other demanded. "It's not like you to
load up with a grouch. Has one of those blasted oil wells sprung a
leak?"

Thode shrugged.

"I wouldn't care if every gusher in Mexico went up in smoke!" he
affirmed, drearily. "I've had a nasty stab in the back, the kind of
thing a man doesn't get over in a hurry, that's all. Don't let's talk
about it."

"You're not the only one. I say, you'll keep this to yourself, of
course, but I've got to tell some one, and you were her friend down
there. She told me about that magnificent ride of yours for the troops
at the time of the raid, and she just about thought you were ace high.
She's such a plucky little thing herself, confound it? That's what
makes it so devilish hard, now."

"What are you talking about?" Thode looked up with the first gleam of
interest he had shown. "Not Miss Murdaugh?"

Wi