and front of the material interests, so strong that it depended
on no man's goodwill in the whole length and breadth of the Occidental
Province--that is, on no goodwill which it could not buy ten times
over. But to the little hook-nosed man from Esmeralda, anxious about
the export of hides, the silence of Charles Gould portended a failure.
Evidently this was no time for extending a modest man's business. He
enveloped in a swift mental malediction the whole country, with all
its inhabitants, partisans of Ribiera and Montero alike; and there were
incipient tears in his mute anger at the thought of the innumerable
ox-hides going to waste upon the dreamy expanse of the Campo, with its
single palms rising like ships at sea within the perfect circle of the
horizon, its clumps of heavy timber motionless like solid islands
of leaves above the running waves of grass. There were hides there,
rotting, with no profit to anybody--rotting where they had been dropped
by men called away to attend the urgent necessities of political
revolutions. The practical, mercantile soul of Senor Hirsch rebelled
against all that foolishness, while he was taking a respectful but
disconcerted leave of the might and majesty of the San Tome mine in the
person of Charles Gould. He could not restrain a heart-broken murmur,
wrung out of his very aching heart, as it were.

"It is a great, great foolishness, Don Carlos, all this. The price of
hides in Hamburg is gone up--up. Of course the Ribierist Government will
do away with all that--when it gets established firmly. Meantime--"

He sighed.

"Yes, meantime," repeated Charles Gould, inscrutably.

The other shrugged his shoulders. But he was not ready to go yet. There
was a little matter he would like to mention very much if permitted. It
appeared he had some good friends in Hamburg (he murmured the name
of the firm) who were very anxious to do business, in dynamite, he
explained. A contract for dynamite with the San Tome mine, and then,
perhaps, later on, other mines, which were sure to--The little man from
Esmeralda was ready to enlarge, but Charles interrupted him. It seemed
as though the patience of the Senor Administrador was giving way at
last.

"Senor Hirsch," he said, "I have enough dynamite stored up at the
mountain to send it down crashing into the valley"--his voice rose a
little--"to send half Sulaco into the air if I liked."

Charles Gould smiled at the round, startled eyes of the dealer