The Young Engineers in Mexico | Page 5

to cheat us. For the rest, all he wants us to do is to work hard as engineers and show him how to get more valuable ore out of his mines. So, no matter what kind of man Don Luis may be, we have nothing to fear from him--not even being cheated out of our pay."
Having settled this in his mind, Tom Reade sank into one of the roomy porch chairs, half closing his eyes. He was soon in danger of being as sound asleep as was Harry Hazelton.
Certainly Reade would have been intensely interested had he been able to render himself invisible and thus to step into one of the rooms of the big, handsome house.
In a room that was half office, half library, Senor Luis Montez was now closeted with another man, whom neither of the engineers had yet met. This man was short, slight of build and nervous of action and gesture--a young man perhaps twenty-six years of age. Carlos Tisco was secretary to Don Luis. Tisco was a graduate of a university at the capital City of Mexico, a doctor of philosophy, no mean chemist, a clever assayer of precious metals and an engineer. In a word Dr. Tisco had been so well trained in many fields of science that it was a wonder that Don Luis should feel the need of employing the two young American engineers.
"You have seen my new engineers, Carlos?" queried Don Luis, almost in a whisper, as the two men, bending forward, faced each other over a flat-top desk.
"Through the window shutters--yes, Don Luis," nodded the secretary, a strange look in his eyes.
"Then what do you think of the Gringo pair, my good Carlos?" pursued Don Luis.
"Gringo" is a word of contempt applied by some Mexicans to Americans.
"I--I hardly like to tell you, Don Luis," replied the younger man, with an air of pretended embarrassment.
"Ah! Then no doubt you feel they are not as clever as they have been rated--my two Gringos," smiled the mine owner. "Rest easy, Carlos. It may be better if they be not too clever."
"It--it is that which I fear, Don Luis," replied the secretary, in a still lower voice. "I have been studying their faces--especially their eyes as they spoke. Don Luis, I much fear that they are very clever young men."
"Ah! Then again that is not bad," laughed the master gayly. "If they be clever, then they will not need so much explanation."
Now the secretary became bolder.
"Don Luis, though you have spent many years in the United States, I fear you do not at all understand some traits of the Gringo character," warned Dr. Tisco. "For example, you want these young men for a special service, and you are willing to pay them generously--lavishly in fact. Has it escaped you, Don Luis, that some of these obstinate, mule-headed Gringos are guilty of an especial form of ingratitude which they term honor?"
"I know that some Gringos make much bombastic use of that term, while other Gringos scoff at the word 'honor,'" replied the mine owner, thoughtfully. "But even suppose that these Gringos have absurdly fanciful ideas of honor? They will never guess for what I really want them. Their work will be done, to my liking, and they will go away from here with never a suspicion of the kind of service they have performed for me."
"Pardon me, Don Luis," murmured Dr. Tisco, "but to me they do not look like such fools. They will suspect; they will even know."
"It matters little what they suspect, if they hold their tongues," replied the mine owner.
"You will have to appeal to their love of money, then," suggested the secretary. "You will have to pay them extremely well. Even then they may balk and refuse."
"Refuse?" repeated Don Luis opening his eyes wide. "Carlos, you do not seem to understand how hopeless it would be for them to refuse. I am master here. None knows better than you that I hold life and death in my hand in these mountains. Do not all men hereabouts obey my orders? Will el gobernador ask any awkward questions if two Gringos should stroll through these mountains and never be heard from again? Who can escape the net that I am able to spread in these mountains? The Gringos refuse me--betray me? Are they such fools as to refuse me when they find that I hold their lives in the palm of my hand?"
"They may even refuse your bait with death as the alternative," persisted the secretary. "Don Luis, you know that there are such foolish men among the Gringos."
"Then let them refuse me," proposed Don Luis, jestingly, though his white teeth shone in a savage smile. "If they are difficult to manage--these two young Gringos--then they will quickly disappear, and other Gringos shall