ut
wings could safely pass. Therefore the fugitives could hope to reach
the coast only by one of the routes named.

"Keep the matter quiet, Billy," advised Goodwin. "We don't want
the Ins to know that the president is in flight. I suppose Bob's
information is something of a scoop in the capital as yet. Otherwise
he would not have tried to make his message a confidential one; and
besides, everybody would have heard the news. I'm going around now to
see Dr. Zavalla, and start a man up the trail to cut the telegraph
wire."

As Goodwin rose, Keogh threw his hat upon the grass by the door and
expelled a tremendous sigh.

"What's the trouble, Billy?" asked Goodwin, pausing. "That's the
first time I ever heard you sigh."

"'Tis the last," said Keogh. "With that sorrowful puff of wind I
resign myself to a life of praiseworthy but harassing honesty. What
are tintypes, if you please, to the opportunities of the great
and hilarious class of ganders and geese? Not that I would be a
president, Frank--and the boodle he's got is too big for me to
handle--but in some ways I feel my conscience hurting me for
addicting myself to photographing a nation instead of running away
with it. Frank, did you ever see the 'bundle of muslin' that His
Excellency has wrapped up and carried off?"

"Isabel Guilbert?" said Goodwin, laughing. "No, I never did. From
what I've heard of her, though, I imagine that she wouldn't stick at
anything to carry her point. Don't get romantic, Billy. Sometimes I
begin to fear that there's Irish blood in your ancestry."

"I never saw her either," went on Keogh; "but they say she's got all
the ladies of mythology, sculpture, and fiction reduced to chromos.
They say she can look at a man once, and he'll turn monkey and climb
trees to pick cocoanuts for her. Think of that president man with
Lord knows how many hundreds of thousands of dollars in one hand, and
this muslin siren in the other, galloping down hill on a sympathetic
mule amid songbirds and flowers! And here is Billy Keogh, because he
is virtuous, condemned to the unprofitable swindle of slandering the
faces of missing links on tin for an honest living! 'Tis an injustice
of nature."

"Cheer up," said Goodwin. "You are a pretty poor fox to be envying a
gander. Maybe the enchanting Guilbert will take a fancy to you and
your tintypes after we impoverish her royal escort."

"She could do worse," reflected Keogh; "but she won't. 'Tis not a
tintype gallery