chap you ever saw. He is my own
brother's age and they have grown up together, like twins, I guess. It
would break Ned's heart to have you take him away from us. You won't
now, will you?"

A pitiful smile spread over the pain-racked features, and the man glanced
significantly toward the nurse. She smiled encouragingly upon him, but
he was not misled. After a moment of silence, during which Jessica
anxiously watched his drawn face, he spoke.

"Go, child. Your mission is done. Send a lawyer, quick. Quick. The man I
wronged--the savior of my son! A lawyer, quick. Bring the suit case--the
case! Let none open it but the child. Quick. Quick!"

Higher authority even than her own convinced the nurse that obedience
to his urgency was the only way now to allay the patient's rising
excitement. The accident which had crushed the lower part of his body,
so that his life was but a question of hours, had left his head clear for
the present; and here, indeed, seemed a case for more than surgical
treatment.

Fortunately, the needed "lawyer" was close at hand, waiting with the
reporter and the half-distraught Antonio whose shriek of recognition had
been Luis Garcia's welcome to the hospital. Unceasingly, the manager
had declared that this was the man all three of them were seeking; had
insisted upon returning to the ante-room of the hospital, and avowed that
he would never leave the spot until the "villain" had been apprehended.

"He has misled and cheated me. I, Antonio! He has all my money. He
has the savings of my life, yes. He has all that I did not yet pay,
of the crops so good, to the Senora Trent. More, more. That money--which,
ah, me! He told me, yes, a thousand million times, that I, and not that
New York company, to me alone was the inheritance of Paraiso d'Oro.
My money was to prove it, that inheritance, yes. To me was the power
of attorney, was it not? of Cassius Trent, who was the so good man and
the so poor fool at business."

"Look out, there, neighbor! Speaking of fools and business, you don't
appear to have been so brilliant yourself," corrected Ninian, promptly.

Antonio continued, heedless of the interruption:

"He was the great banker, Garcia, no? What then? Who would so safe keep
the money from that far New York? With the master's wish I gave it
to that bank. And the letters--_Caramba!_ So high, to one's knees,
to one's waist I pile them, the letters! All wrote of his own hand. All
say by-and-by, _manana_,