rd of the price, and said he could not have taken them if it
had not been that he had just got an order down from the Cerro mines,
and was short of some of the things they had ordered."

"That is all right, Dias."

Harry secured two rooms at the hotel, and they all sat talking far into
the night. "I hope you will get your silver down as comfortably as we
have got the gold."

"I have no fear about doing that, senor. The difficulty will be for me
to know what to do with it. I can never spend so much."

"Oh, nonsense, Dias!"

"I mean it, senor. Maria and I are quite agreed that we don't want any
larger house than we have got; and I know that if we did want a big
one, there would be all sorts of questions as to where I had got the
money from."

"There would be no difficulty in answering that, Dias. You told me how
your friend found five mule-loads of silver in the bats' cave. You have
only got to say that you found yours hidden away, which would be the
truth. Jose is nineteen now, and you will want to provide him with some
good mules, and to put by some money for him when he wants to marry and
settle. I know you spoke very highly of an institution at Lima for the
orphans of natives. You can hand them over some, and when you and Maria
don't want it any longer you can leave them the rest."

Maria cried bitterly in the morning when they said goodbye. "I shall
love you and pray for you always, senors," she sobbed. "I shall never
forget all your kindness."

"We owe you more than you owe us," Harry said. "You have always been
ready to do everything, and you have kept us alive with your merry talk
and good spirits. You may be very sure that we shall never forget you."

Jose was almost equally affected. "You will never come back, senor," he
said, as the tears rolled down his cheeks.

"I may some day, Jose. I think it likely that I shall some day get up a
company to drain that lake in the golden valley. The gold will be more
useful as money than lying there. It must depend partly upon whether
the country is settled. People wi