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 and hurricanes and pineapples that ye eat comes from there.”

“That sounds to me!” said the Kid, at last betraying interest. “What’ll the expressage be to take me out there with you?”

“Twenty-four dollars,” said Captain Boone; “grub and transportation. Second cabin. I haven’t got a first cabin.”

“You’ve got my company,” said the Kid, pulling out a buckskin bag.

With three hundred dollars he had gone to Laredo for his regular “blowout.” The duel in Valdos’s had cut short his season of hilarity, but it had left him with nearly $200 for aid in the flight that it had made necessary.

“All right, buddy,” said the captain. “I hope your ma won’t blame me for this little childish escapade of yours.” He beckoned to one of the boat’s crew. “Let Sanchez lift you out to the skiff so you won’t get your feet wet.”

Thacker, the United States consul at Buenas Tierras, was not yet drunk. It was only eleven o’clock; and he never arrived at his desired state of beatitude—a state wherein he sang ancient maudlin vaudeville songs and pelted his screaming parrot with banana peels—until the middle of the afternoon. So, when he looked up from his hammock at the sound of a slight cough, and saw the Kid standing in the door of the consulate, he was still in a condition to extend the hospitality and