With the coming of Alan Massey however a new era began.  Alan was apt to leave transformation of one sort or another in his wake.  It was not merely his money magic though he wielded that magnificently as was his habit and predilection, spent Mexican dollars with a superb disregard of their value which won from the natives a respect akin to awe and wrought miracles wherever the golden flow touched.  But there was more than money magic to Alan Massey’s performance in Vera Cruz.  There was also the magic of his dominating, magnetic personality.  He was a born master and every one high or low who crossed his path recognized his rightful ascendency and hastened to obey his royal will.

His first step was to get the sick man transferred from the filthy hovel in which he found him to clean, comfortable quarters in an ancient adobe palace, screened, airy, spacious.  The second step was to secure the services of two competent and high priced nurses from Mexico City, one an American, the other an English woman, both experienced, intrepid, efficient.  The third step taken simultaneously with the other two was to dismiss the man who masqueraded as a physician though he was nothing in reality but a cheap charlatan fattening himself at the expense of weakness and disease.  The man had been inclined to make trouble at first about his unceremonious discharge.  He had no mind to lose without a protest such a convenient source of unearned increment as those checks represented.  He had intended to get in many another good carouse before the sick man died or got well as nature willed.  But a single interview with Alan Massey sufficed to lay his objections to leaving the case.  In concise and forcible language couched in perfect Spanish Alan had made it clear that if the so-called doctor came near his victim again he would be shot down like a dog and if Carson died he would in any case be tried for man slaughter and hanged on the spot.  The last point had been further punctuated by an expressive gesture on the speaker’s part, pointing to his own throat accompanied by a significant little gurgling sound.  The gesture and the gurgle had been convincing.  The man surrendered the case in some haste.  He did not at all care for the style of conversation indulged in by this tall, unsmiling, green-eyed man.  Consequently he immediately evaporated to all intents and purposes and was seen no more.  The new physician put in charge was a different breed entirely, a man who had the authentic gift and passion for healing which the born doctor always possesses, be he Christian or heathen, gypsy herb mixer or ten thousand dollar specialist.  Alan explained to this man precisely what was required of him, explained in the same forcible, concise, perfect Spanish that had banished the other so completely.  His job was to cure the sick man.  If he succeeded there would be a generous remuneration.  If he failed through no fault of his there would still be fair remuneration though nothing like what would