d change.

"No trouble at all," smiled Merry; "and it is worth preserving as a
curiosity, if nothing more. At any time you may have it. By preserving
it and holding it ready for you on demand I may save myself from
suspicion some future time when somebody shall try to convince you that
the document is really valuable."

Frank had settled that point.

"Now, Felipe, my lad," he smiled, "let me warn you to look out for that
man Hagan, through whom you came to this trouble. But for Hagan you
would not have resorted to certain measures to frighten me, I fancy. You
have found him a bad adviser. Had you succeeded in getting money out of
me, Hagan would have obtained the lion's share. That was his game."

"Senor Hagan escaped from the fire?" questioned the boy.

"Oh, yes, he got out all right."

"But not Senor Lazaro?"

"I think Senor Lazaro ended his career right there. After the engines
came, at a time when the building was wrapped in flames, he appeared at
an upper window. The smoke cleared for a moment, and the glare of the
fire showed him plainly. He seemed to look straight down at me with
hatred in his black eyes. Then he whirled and rushed back from the
window, as if seeking some means of escape. A few moments later the old
building collapsed and fell. His bones must be buried in the ruins."

"For you, Senor Frank, I am glad," declared the Mexican boy. "He did
hate you with terrible hatred, and he would have ruined you. The work of
it he had begun."

"Yes, the snake! I heard his boast that he was the reincarnated spirit
of Porfias del Norte, whom he would avenge. The man talked like a
maniac, for at the last moment he even asserted that he was Del Norte
himself."

"For you it is good he did not escape," said Felipe.

"Had he escaped from the fire, the detectives would have nabbed him. The
confession we overheard him make was enough to give him a good, long
time behind the bars, for he boasted that, in his plot to ruin my plans,
he poisoned Watson Scott and bribed Warren Hatch's automobile driver to
wreck the machine in hopes of killing Hatch. Sudbury Bragg would have
fallen next. That Scott stands a chance of recovering comes wholly
through his remarkable stamina and fine physical condition. That Hatch
was not killed is a marvel. Alvarez Lazaro was a human fiend, for, in
order to injure me, he was willing to murder innocent men--he even
attempted to murder two of them."

"Even I of him was afraid," confess