hosen the hour of midnight for running the Federal blockade outside,
and he had already given the order to cast off, when a horseman in a
cape overcoat rode to the edge of the wharf.

"Wait there!" the horseman trumpeted through his hand.

It was the first word Murguia had ever heard from his future tyrant, and
even then the cool tone of authority nettled him. But he reflected that
here might be a passenger, and a passenger through the blockade usually
meant five hundred dollars in gold. He ordered the plank held for a
moment.

"They tell me--whoa, Demijohn!--you are going to Tampico?" hallooed the
same voice.

"Yes," Murguia answered, and was going to name his price, when without
more ado the cavalier rode across, dismounted on the deck, and tossed
his bridle to the first sailor.

"Ca-rai!" sneered the astonished Mexican, "one would think you'd just
reached your own barnyard, senor."

"My own barnyard?" echoed the stranger bitterly. "I haven't seen my own
barnyard, or anything that is mine, during these four years past. But
you were about to start?"

"Not so fast, senor. Fare in advance, seven hundred dollars." Murguia
looked for the haggling to come next, but somehow the sniff he heard was
not promising.

"Usurer, viper, blanketed thief, benevolent old rascal," the trooper
enumerated as courteously as "Senor Don" or "Your Mercy," "you don't
surprise me a bit, not when you charge us three thousand dollars gold
for freight on a trunk of quinine!"

"G-g-get back on your horse! G-get off this boat!"

But the intruder calmly drew off his great coat, and Murguia saw the
butts of pistols at his waist. Yet they had no reference to the removal
of the cape. The latter was a simple act of making oneself at home.

"I reckon," said the newcomer cheerily, "there's no question of fare.
Here, I've got a pass."

By a lantern Murguia read the paper handed him. It was signed:
"Jefferson Davis, President C. S. A." Therein Mr. Anastasio Murguia or
any other blockade runner was required on demand of the bearer, Lieut.
Col. Jno. D. Driscoll, to transport the said Driscoll to that part
outside the Confederacy which might happen to be the blockade runner's
destination.

The peevish old man scowled, hesitated. He read the order again,
hesitated again, and at last handed it back, his mind made up.

"Have the goodness, senor, to remove yourself from my boat."

But the lieutenant colonel placidly inquired, "Carry any government