When Hedges saw Merriam his face flushed a dark red.  Then he shouted in his old, bluff way:  “Hello, Merriam.  Glad to see you.  Didn’t expect to find you out here.  Quinby, this is my old friend Merriam, of New York—­Merriam, Mr. Quinby.”

Merriam gave Hedges and then Quinby an ice-cold hand.  “Br-r-r-r!” said Hedges.  “But you’ve got a frapped flipper!  Man, you’re not well.  You’re as yellow as a Chinaman.  Malarial here?  Steer us to a bar if there is such a thing, and let’s take a prophylactic.”

Merriam, still half comatose, led them toward the Hotel Orilla del Mar.

“Quinby and I,” explained Hedges, puffing through the slippery sand, “are looking out along the coast for some investments.  We’ve just come up from Concepcion and Valparaiso and Lima.  The captain of this subsidized ferry boat told us there was some good picking around here in silver mines.  So we got off.  Now, where is that cafe, Merriam?  Oh, in this portable soda water pavilion?”

Leaving Quinby at the bar, Hedges drew Merriam aside.

“Now, what does this mean?” he said, with gruff kindness.  “Are you sulking about that fool row we had?”

“I thought,” stammered Merriam—­“I heard—­they told me you were—­ that I had—­”

“Well, you didn’t, and I’m not,” said Hedges.  “That fool young ambulance surgeon told Wade I was a candidate for a coffin just because I’d got tired and quit breathing.  I laid up in a private hospital for a month; but here I am, kicking as hard as ever.  Wade and I tried to find you, but couldn’t.  Now, Merriam, shake hands and forget it all.  I was as much to blame as you were; and the shot really did me good—­I came out of the hospital as healthy and fit as a cab horse.  Come on; that drink’s waiting.”

“Old man,” said Merriam, brokenly, “I don’t know how to thank you—­I —­well, you know—­”

“Oh, forget it,” boomed Hedges.  “Quinby’ll die of thirst if we don’t join him.”

Bibb was sitting on the shady side of the gallery waiting for the eleven-o’clock breakfast.  Presently Merriam came out and joined him.  His eye was strangely bright.

“Bibb, my boy,” said he, slowly waving his hand, “do you see those mountains and that sea and sky and sunshine?—­they’re mine, Bibbsy —­all mine.”

“You go in,” said Bibb, “and take eight grains of quinine, right away.  It won’t do in this climate for a man to get to thinking he’s Rockefeller, or James O’Neill either.”

Inside, the purser was untying a great roll of newspapers, many of them weeks old, gathered in the lower ports by the Pajaro to be distributed at casual stopping-places.  Thus do the beneficent voyagers scatter news and entertainment among the prisoners of sea and mountains.

Tio Pancho, the hotel proprietor, set his great silver-rimmed anteojos upon his nose and divided the papers into a number of smaller rolls.  A barefooted muchacho dashed in, desiring the post of messenger.