Hearts of Three 19

Hearts of Three 19

“But Leoncia?” Francis asked solicitously.

 

“Was born in the saddle, and in the saddle there are few Americanos she

would not weary,” came Enrico’s answer. “It would be well, with your

acquiescence, to swing out the long boat in case the _Dolores_ appears

upon us.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII

 

 

“It’s all right, skipper, it’s all right,” Henry assured the breed

captain, who, standing on the beach with them, seemed loath to say

farewell and pull back to the _Angelique_ adrift half a mile away in the

dead calm which had fallen on Juchitan Inlet.

 

“It is what we call a diversion,” Francis explained. “That is a nice

word—_diversion_. And it is even nicer when you see it work.”

 

“But if it don’t work,” Captain Trefethen protested, “then will it spell

a confounded word, which I may name as _catastrophe_.”

 

“That is what happened to the _Dolores_ when we tangled her propeller,”

Henry laughed. “But we do not know the meaning of that word. We use

_diversion_ instead. The proof that it will work is that we are leaving

Senor Solano’s two sons with you. Alvarado and Martinez know the

passages like a book. They will pilot you out with the first favoring

breeze. The Jefe is not interested in you. He is after us, and when we

take to the hills he’ll be on our trail with every last man of his.”

 

“Don’t you see!” Francis broke in. “The _Angelique_ is trapped. If we

remain on board he will capture us and the _Angelique_ as well. But we

make the diversion of taking to the hills. He pursues us. The

_Angelique_ goes free. And of course he won’t catch us.”

 

“But suppose I do lose the schooner!” the swarthy skipper persisted. “If

she goes on the rocks I will lose her, and the passages are very

perilous.”

 

“Then you will be paid for her, as I’ve told you before,” Francis said,

with a show of rising irritation.

 

“Also are there my numerous expenses——”

 

Francis pulled out a pad and pencil, scribbled a note, and passed it

over, saying:

 

“Present that to Senor Melchor Gonzales at Bocas del Toro. It is for a

thousand gold. He is the banker; he is my agent, and he will pay it to

you.”

 

Captain Trefethen stared incredulously at the scrawled bit of paper.

 

“Oh, he’s good for it,” Henry said.

 

“Yes, sir, I know, sir, that Mr. Francis Morgan is a wealthy gentleman

of renown. But how wealthy is he? Is he as wealthy as I modestly am? I

own the _Angelique_, free of all debt. I own two town lots, unimproved,

in Colon. And I own four water-front lots in Belen that will make me

very wealthy when the Union Fruit Company begins the building of the

warehouses——”

 

“How much, Francis, did your father leave you?” Henry quipped teasingly.

“Or, rather, how many?”

 

Francis shrugged his shoulders as he answered vaguely: “More than I have

fingers and toes.”

 

“Dollars, sir?” queried the captain.

 

Henry shook his head sharply.

 

“Thousands, sir?”

 

Again Henry shook his head.

 

“Millions, sir?”

 

“Now you’re talking,” Henry answered. “Mr. Francis Morgan is rich enough

to buy almost all of the Republic of Panama, with the Canal cut out of

the deal.”

 

The negro-Indian mariner looked his unbelief to Enrico Solano, who

replied:

 

“He is an honorable gentleman. I know. I have cashed his paper, drawn on

Senor Melchor Gonzales at Bocas del Toro, for a thousand pesos. There it

is in the bag there.”

 

He nodded his head up the beach to where Leoncia, in the midst of the

dunnage landed with them, was toying with trying to slip cartridges into

a Winchester rifle. The bag, which the skipper had long since noted, lay

at her feet in the sand.

 

“I do hate to travel strapped,” Francis explained embarrassedly to the

white men of the group. “One never knows when a dollar mayn’t come in

handy. I got caught with a broken machine at Smith River Comers, up New

York way, one night, with nothing but a check book, and, d’you know, I

couldn’t get even a cigarette in the town.”

 

“I trusted a white gentleman in Barbadoes once, who chartered my boat to

go fishing flying fish——” the captain began.

 

“Well, so long, skipper,” Henry shut him off. “You’d better be getting

on board, because we’re going to hike.”

 

And for Captain Trefethen, staring at the backs of his departing

passengers, remained naught but to obey. Helping to shove the boat off,

he climbed in, took the steering sweep, and directed his course toward

the _Angelique_. Glancing back from time to time, he saw the party on

the beach shoulder the baggage and disappear into the dense green wall

of vegetation.

 

* * * * *

 

They came out upon an inchoate clearing, and saw gangs of peons at work

chopping down and grubbing out the roots of the virgin tropic forest so

that rubber trees for the manufacture of automobile tires might be

planted to replace it. Leoncia, beside her father, walked in the lead.

Her brothers, Ricardo and Alesandro, in the middle, were burdened with

the dunnage, as were Francis and Henry, who brought up the rear. And

this strange procession was met by a slender, straight-backed,

hidalgo-appearing, elderly gentleman, who leaped his horse across

tree-trunks and stump-holes in order to gain to them.

 

He was off his horse, at sight of Enrico, sombrero in hand in

recognition of Leoncia, his hand extended to Enrico in greeting of

ancient friendship, his lips wording words and his eyes expressing

admiration to Enrico’s daughter.

 

The talk was in rapid-fire Spanish, and the request for horses preferred

and qualifiedly granted, ere the introduction of the two Morgans took

place. The haciendado’s horse, after the Latin fashion, was immediately

Leoncia’s, and, without ado, he shortened the stirrups and placed her

astride in the saddle. A murrain, he explained, had swept his plantation

of riding animals; but his chief overseer still possessed a

fair-conditioned one which was Enrico’s as soon as it could be procured.

 

His handshake to Henry and Francis was hearty as well as dignified, as

he took two full minutes ornately to state that any friend of his dear

friend Enrico was his friend. When Enrico asked the haciendado about the

trails up toward the Cordilleras and mentioned oil, Francis pricked up

his ears.

 

“Don’t tell me, Senor,” he began, “that they have located oil in

Panama?”

 

“They have,” the haciendado nodded gravely. “We knew of the oil ooze,

and had known of it for generations. But it was the Hermosillo Company

that sent its Gringo engineers in secretly and then bought up the land.

They say it is a great field. But I know nothing of oil myself. They

have many wells, and have bored much, and so much oil have they that it

is running away over the landscape. They say they cannot choke it

entirely down, such is the volume and pressure. What they need is the

pipe-line to ocean-carriage, which they have begun to build. In the

meantime it flows away down the canyons, an utter loss of incredible

proportion.”

 

“Have they built any tanks?” Francis demanded, his mind running eagerly

on Tampico Petroleum, to which most of his own fortune was pledged, and

of which, despite the rising stock-market, he had heard nothing since

his departure from New York.

 

The haciendado shook his head.

 

“Transportation,” he explained. “The freight from tide-water to the

gushers by mule-back has been prohibitive. But they have impounded much

of it. They have lakes of oil, great reservoirs in the hollows of the

hills, earthen-dammed, and still they cannot choke down the flow, and

still the precious substance flows down the canyons.”

 

“Have they roofed these reservoirs?” Francis inquired, remembering a

disastrous fire in the early days of Tampico Petroleum.

 

“No, Senor.”

 

Francis shook his head disapprovingly.

 

“They should be roofed,” he said. “A match from the drunken or

revengeful hand of any peon could set the whole works off. It’s poor

business, poor business.”

 

“But I am not the Hermosillo,” the haciendado said.

 

“For the Hermosillo Company, I meant, Senor,” Francis explained. “I am

an oil-man. I have paid through the nose to the tune of hundreds of

thousands for similar accidents or crimes. One never knows just how they

happen. What one does know is that they do happen——”

 

What more Francis might have said about the expediency of protecting oil

reservoirs from stupid or wilful peons, was never to be known; for, at

the moment, the chief overseer of the plantation, stick in hand, rode

up, half his interest devoted to the newcomers, the other half to the

squad of peons working close at hand.

 

“Senor Ramirez, will you favor me by dismounting,” his employer, the

haciendado, politely addressed him, at the same time introducing him to

the strangers as soon as he had dismounted.

 

“The animal is yours, friend Enrico,” the haciendado said. “If it dies,

please return at your easy convenience the saddle and gear. And if your

convenience be not easy, please do not remember that there is to be any

return, save ever and always, of your love for me. I regret that you and

your party cannot now partake of my hospitality. But the Jefe is a

bloodhound, I know. We shall do our best to send him astray.”