a hundred yards farther before he came upon a well-beaten road. A little beyond this spot, in the midst of a broad clearing, half hidden by stately royal palms, gleaming white in the moonlight, was a long, low stone house which in this land might almost pass for a mansion.

Pausing, he stood there in the moonlight, staring and irresolute. It had all come to him in a flash.

“The last of the Dons,” he said to himself. Something akin to awe crept into his tone. “I had forgotten.”

“But what now?” he asked himself a moment later. “The jungle or this?”

In the end he chose the castle before him. “Might be a dark place up there somewhere, an abandoned cellar perhaps,” was his final comment.

Having chosen a secluded spot at the side of the trail where he might hang his hammock and spread his canopy to sleep the rest of the night through, he went quickly to rest.

“I have heard that they are friendly, and honorable Spaniards. There are such, plenty of them. I’ll risk it. I—”

At that, with the breeze swaying his hammock, he fell asleep.

The sun was sending its first yellow gleams among the palms when he awoke. For a time, with the damp sweet odor of morning in his nostrils, he lay there thinking.

A strange mission had brought him into the jungle. This strange boy had grown up with little or no knowledge of blood relations. His father and mother were but a dim, indistinct memory. They had passed from his life; he did not know exactly how. No cozy home fireside had gleamed for him. He had gone out into the world with an unanswered longing for some one whom he might think of as a kinsman. Bravely he had fought his way through alone. When Johnny Thompson came into his life and remained there to become his inseparable pal, life had been more joyous. Yet ever there remained a haunting dream that somehow, somewhere in his wild wanderings he would come upon one who bore his name, who could give him the traditions of a family and of a past.

Strangely enough, it had been at the edge of the Central American jungle that he came upon this person of his dreams. While walking upon the coral beach he had met a stately, white-haired old man who had the military bearing of a colonel.

In this old man he had found a friend. Little enough was left of the fortunes which from time to time had come to the venerable southerner. But such as he had he shared unsparingly with the young stranger who had come so recently from the land of his birth; for Colonel Longstreet, as the patriarch styled himself, though now for more than sixty years a resident of Central America, had fought valiantly for a lost cause when the Gray stood embattled against the Blue in that long and terrible struggle, the Civil War.

Broken hearted because of the outcome of the war, he had left his native state of Virginia and had come to Central America. His life had been further embittered by the early death of his wife. His only child, a boy of ten, had been sent back to Virginia while he struggled on, wresting a fortune from the jungle.

Life in Central America is one gamble after another. Longstreet had played in every game. He had always won, in the end to lose again. Fortunes in sugar, bananas and mahogany had been his. Sudden drops in prices, a revolution, the dread Panama disease, had cost him all of these. Now he was playing a last, lone card. Influential friends were endeavoring to secure for him a concession for gathering chicle on broad tracts of Government land.

This was the state of affairs when Pant had made his acquaintance. Hardly had their acquaintance ripened into deep friendship when they made the sudden and startling discovery that Pant was the son of the boy who had been sent back by Colonel Longstreet to Virginia, that Colonel Longstreet was none other than Pant’s grandfather. From that time forth the strange boy, who had longed for so many lonely years for one of kin, became the old man’s devoted slave.

There was need enough at the present time for such devotion.

Fortune had seemed to smile at last. Through the influence of his friends, a concession from the British Government for gathering chicle had come from England to Colonel Longstreet.

“Chicle, as you may know,” the old man had smiled, as he told Pant of it, “is the basis of all good chewing gum. Were it not for the great American game of chewing it wouldn’t be worth a red cent. As it is, with one company importing two million dollars worth a year and other smaller companies competing and yelling for more, there’s a fortune in it. There is a net profit of twenty-five cents a pound on chicle. With proper working, our tract should yield between twenty-five and fifty thousand pounds a year.”

With the writings of agreement had come a map showing the exact boundaries of the Government tract they had leased. To the right and above this tract was shown on the map the holdings of a powerful American organization. To the left were tracts leased by an unprincipled Spaniard named Diaz.

Two days after news of the fortunate concession had gone about the little city, Diaz had appeared in the Colonel’s small office. He offered a ridiculously low price for the concession. His offer was rejected. He was told that the owner meant to work the concession. He shrugged his shoulders and said:

“No get the men.”

The old man had straightened to his full height as he informed the Spaniard that he had men who could be depended upon to go anywhere, to do anything. They had worked with him and knew the honor that lay behind the Longstreet name.

Diaz had begged, entreated, stormed, threatened, then in a rage had left the office.

Two days had passed. On the third day Pant had come to the office only to find the safe looted, the map gone.

“What can we do?” he asked. “We know Diaz has it, but we can’t prove it.”

“We cannot,” the old Colonel had agreed. “Nor is there a chance of getting another before it is too late. The bleeding season for chicle begins with the first rainfall. To begin without a map is to court disaster. With a big and jealous American company on one side of us and a crooked Spaniard on the other, we are between the rocks and the tide. We are sure to encroach upon one or the other. And if we do, it will take all we have to fight their claims. It looks like defeat.” He had cupped his hands and had stared gloomily at the sea.

“Wait,” Pant had said. “Johnny Thompson will help us out. Give us a little time. We’ll find the map. Leave it to us.”

Johnny Thompson, as you already know, could not help. He was not there. Two days before he had gone up the Stann Creek Railway. He had not returned. He was in jail. Pant had been obliged to go it alone. “And now in this short time,” he told himself, “I have located the map here in the heart of the jungle. No, I haven’t got it. That couldn’t be done without bloodshed. But I have its equivalent, I hope.

“A dark place!” he exclaimed. “I must find a spot that is absolutely dark.”

As he sprang from his hammock he paused to listen. Some one was singing. In a clear girlish voice there came the words of a quaint old Spanish song.

As he parted the branches he saw a plump Spanish girl, with a round face and sober brown eyes, tripping barefoot down the path. Balanced on her head was a large stone jar.

“Going for the morning water,” the boy told himself. “How like those old Bible pictures it all is!”

Twenty minutes later he found