destroy them on their way to
your hands. Keep the money, and spend it as you will. Make your
daughter happy, and, through her, yourself. You have made me happy
through your liberality; don't make me suffer through your privation."

"I tell you what, old man," said Mulrady, rising to his feet, with an
awkward mingling of frankness and shame in his manner and accent, "I
should like to pay that money for Mamie, and let her be a princess, if
it would make her happy. I should like to shut the lantern jaws of
that Don Caesar, who'd be too glad if anything happened to break off
Mamie's match. But I shouldn't touch that capital--unless you'd lend
it to me. If you'll take a note from me, payable if the property ever
becomes yours, I'd thank you. A mortgage on the old house and garden,
and the lands I bought of Don Caesar, outside the mine, will screen
you."

"If that pleases you," said the old man, with a smile, "have your way;
and if I tear up the note, it does not concern you."

It did please the distinguished capitalist of Rough-and-Ready; for the
next few days his face wore a brightened expression, and he seemed to
have recovered his old tranquillity. There was, in fact, a slight
touch of consequence in his manner, the first ostentation he had ever
indulged in, when he was informed one morning at his private office
that Don Caesar Alvarado was in the counting-house, desiring a few
moments' conference. "Tell him to come in," said Mulrady, shortly.
The door opened upon Don Caesar--erect, sallow, and grave. Mulrady had
not seen him since his return from Europe, and even his inexperienced
eyes were struck with the undeniable ease and grace with which the
young Spanish-American had assimilated the style and fashion of an
older civilization. It seemed rather as if he had returned to a
familiar condition than adopted a new one.

"Take a cheer," said Mulrady.

The young man looked at Slinn with quietly persistent significance.

"You can talk all the same," said Mulrady, accepting the significance.
"He's my private secretary."

"It seems that for that reason we might choose another moment for our
conversation," returned Don Caesar, haughtily. "Do I understand you
cannot see me now?"

Mulrady hesitated, he had always revered and recognized a certain
social superiority in Don Ramon Alvarado; somehow his son--a young man
of half his age, and once a possible son-in-law--appeared to claim that
recognition also. He ro