The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 236: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

938 A mixed crowd of idlers squatted about, staring curiously at the body of the dead man. As the presidente came up they arose and fell back re- spectfully. The jefe of barefoot police was al- ready there, obsequiously busy—fuss- ing around the dead man. He saluted as the presidente arrived, and pointed to the body as if he were in that moment discovering it for ‘the first time. Then the jefe beckoned authorita- tively to the two banquerog who had taken it from the river, and they came up, and plunged into their story—gar- rulously—importantly. When they saw it first, they said, it must have been floating in an upright position—like a man walkmng—for only its head was visible, which made them think it only a coconut loose from one of the rafts. But when they looked again, feet stuck up where the head had been, and then they knew it was a body and that it had turned over. They had seen bodies float that way before—in the cholera year—when the river was choked with them. But they knew the law and always obeyed it, so as soon as they saw it was a body and not a coconut, they hooked it and brought it ashore and notified the jefe. And now, would the sevior presidente please pay them for the time they had lost? They could have ferried three loads of sacate from the fields above the barrio in ‘the time they'd lost catching the body and townrg it m! Would the presidente—who was rich —please pay? But the presidente heard no word of all this. Leaning over the dripping body, he studied the dead man’s face—studied it long and critically for it was oddly like the face of.a man he knew—but knew to be alive! Now the government that paid thts presidente trusted him—but at heart he was a rogue, crooked as ‘a dog’s THE ARGOSY. hind leg. Pedro Salazar—the outlaw named in the circular—the outlaw for whose body, dead or alive, the Amer- icanos would pay five thousand pesos, was his bosom friend. Time and again he had sheltered Salazar, when his “pursuers pressed him hard, and time and again Salazar had shared with.the trusted presidente the loot from his raids. Hence it was that the face of the dead: man puzzled the presidente—for it Was the face of Salazar! A singular, striking likeness. Still the presidente stooped — and peered—and m his cunning Oriental mind there flashed a new-born plan, which grew and developed and gripped him.as he looked at the face so like salazar’s. “If it could be done—if it only could!” he breathed— “cinco mul pesos!” | Suddenly he straightened up decis- ively. “Take the body to my house, put it in the shade, and guard it!’ he curtly ordered. 7 “Si, senor,” answered the jefe,-sa- luting again. A’ few small coins quieted the clam- orous banqueros, and the presidente turned abruptly, quit the group, ‘and walked briskly back to his house, which stood at the edge of ‘the bar- rio, i the margin of a vast banana field. It was once the spacious home of a Spaniard—a coconut buyer who had fled the islands in 1898. Its lower story was of-stone and dhobie, thick- walled, damp, and cool. Here the horses, the fowls, and the ‘servants were kept, the fannly occupying the upper floor, a spacious structure with thatched roof and shding windows where scraped shells took the place of elass. Mounting the stairs, the presidente hurried into the big front room—from whence the policeman had called him —and took from his littered table the printed circular. For the second time he scowled and puckered his mouth “S) GComichoo (E@)