Brace felt relieved.  After all, his position in regard to the Alcalde’s sister would not be compromised; he might even be able to extend some protection over her; and it would be a magnanimous revenge if he could even offer it to Miss Keene.

“I see you don’t swear anybody to secrecy,” he said, with a laugh; “shall I speak to Crosby, or will you?”

“Not yet; he’ll only see something to laugh at.  And Banks and Martinez would quarrel at once, and go back on each other.  No; my idea is to let some outsider do for Todos Santos what Perkins did for Quinquinambo.  Do you take?”

His long, thin, dyspeptic face lit up with a certain small political cunning and shrewdness that struck Brace with a half-respect.

“I say, Winslow; you’d have made a first-class caucus leader in San Francisco.”

Winslow smiled complacently.  “There’s something better to play on here than ward politics,” he replied.  “There’s a material here that—­like the mine and the soil—­ain’t half developed.  I reckon I can show Banks something that beats lobbying and log-rolling for contracts.  I’ve let you into this thing to show you a sample of my prospecting.  Keep it to yourself if you want it to pay.  Dat’s me, George!  Good-by!  I’ll be out to the office to-morrow!”

He turned back towards his brother politicians with an expression of satisfied conceit that Brace for a moment envied.  The latter even lingered on the veranda, as if he would have asked Winslow another question; but, looking at his watch, he suddenly recollected himself, and, mounting his horse, cantered down towards the plaza.

The hour of siesta was not yet over, and the streets were still deserted—­probably the reason why the politicians of Todos Santos had chosen that hour for their half secret meeting.  At the corner of the plaza he dismounted and led his horse to the public hitching-post—­gnawn and nibbled by the teeth of generations of mustangs—­and turned into the narrow lane flanked by the walls of the Alcalde’s garden.  Halfway down he stopped before a slight breach in the upper part of the adobe barrier, and looked cautiously around.  The long, shadowed vista of the lane was unobstructed by any moving figure as far as the yellow light of the empty square beyond.  With a quick leap he gained the top of the wall and disappeared on the other aide.

CHAPTER III.

International courtesies.

The garden over whose wall Brace had mysteriously vanished was apparently as deserted as the lane and plaza without.  But its solitude was one of graceful shadow and restful loveliness.  A tropical luxuriance, that had perpetuated itself year after year, until it was half suffocated in its own overgrowth and strangled with its own beauty, spread over a variegated expanse of starry flowers, shimmering leaves, and slender inextricable branches, pierced here and there by towering rigid cactus spikes or the curved plumes of palms.  The repose of ages lay in its hushed groves, its drooping vines, its lifeless creepers; the dry dust of its decaying leaves and branches mingled with the living perfumes like the spiced embalmings of a forgotten past.