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The Kid raised his left hand slowly and gazed at it curiously.

“That’s it,” said Thacker, reaching behind the official desk for his bottle of smuggled brandy. “You’re not so slow. I can do it. What was I consul at Sandakan for? I never knew till now. In a week I’ll have the eagle bird with the frog-sticker blended in so you’d think you were born with it. I brought a set of the needles and ink just because I was sure you’d drop in some day, Mr. Dalton.”

“Oh, hell,” said the Kid. “I thought I told you my name!”

“All right, ‘Kid,’ then. It won’t be that long. How does Senorito Urique sound, for a change?”

“I never played son any that I remember of,” said the Kid. “If I had any parents to mention they went over the divide about the time I gave my first bleat. What is the plan of your round-up?”

Thacker leaned back against the wall and held his glass up to the light.

“We’ve come now,” said he, “to the question of how far you’re willing to go in a little matter of the sort.”

“I told you why I came down here,” said the Kid simply.

“A good answer,” said the consul. “But you won’t have to go that far. Here’s the scheme. After I get the trademark tattooed on your hand I’ll notify old Urique. In the meantime I’ll furnish you with all of the family history I can find out, so you can be studying up points to talk about. You’ve got the looks, you speak the Spanish, you know the facts, you can tell about Texas, you’ve got the tattoo mark. When I notify them that the rightful heir has returned and is waiting to know whether he will be received and pardoned, what will happen? They’ll simply rush down here and fall on your neck, and the curtain goes down for refreshments and a stroll in the lobby.”

“I’m waiting,” said the Kid. “I haven’t had my saddle off in your camp long, pardner, and I never met you before; but if you intend to let it go at a parental blessing, why, I’m mistaken in my man, that’s all.”

“Thanks,” said the consul. “I haven’t met anybody in a long time that keeps up with an argument as well as you do. The rest of it is simple. If they take you in only for a while it’s long enough. Don’t give ’em time to hunt up the strawberry mark on your left shoulder. Old Urique keeps anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 in his house all the time in a little safe that you could open with a shoe buttoner. Get it. My skill as a tattooer is worth half the boddle. We go halves and catch a tramp steamer for Rio Janeiro. Let the United States go to pieces if it can’t get along without my services. /Que dice, senor/?”

“It sounds to me!” said the Kid, nodding his head. “I’m out for the dust.”

“All right, then,” said Thacker. “You’ll have to keep close until we get the bird on you. You can live in the back room here. I do my own cooking, and I’ll make you as comfortable as a parsimonious Government will allow me.”

Thacker had set the time at a week, but it was two weeks before the design that he patiently tattooed upon the Kid’s hand was to his notion. And then Thacker called a /muchacho/, and dispatched this note to the intended victim:

El Senor Don Santos Urique,
La Casa Blanca,

My Dear Sir:

I beg permission to inform you that there is in my house as a
temporary guest a young man who arrived in Buenas Tierras from the
United States some days ago. Without wishing to excite any hopes
that may not be realized, I think there is a possibility of his
being your long-absent son. It might be well for you to call and
see him. If he is, it is my opinion that his intention was to
return to his home, but upon arriving here, his courage failed him
from doubts as to how he would be received. Your true servant,