"They speak Spanish here," said the consul. "You'll need an interpreter. If there's anything I can do, why, I'd be delighted. If you're buying fruit lands or looking for a concession of any sort, you'll want somebody who knows the ropes to look out for you." "I speak Spanish," said the Kid, "about nine times better than I do English. Everybody speaks it on the range where I come from. And I'm not in the market for anything." "You speak Spanish?" said Thacker thoughtfully. He regarded the kid absorbedly. "You look like a Spaniard, too," he continued. "And you're from Texas. And you can't be more than twenty or twenty-one. I wonder if you've got any nerve." "You got a deal of some kind to put through?" asked the Texan, with unexpected shrewdness. "Are you open to a proposition?" said Thacker. "What's the use to deny it?" said the Kid. "I got into a little gun frolic down in Laredo and plugged a white man. There wasn't any Mexican handy. And I come down to your parrot-and-monkey range just for to smell the morning-glories and marigolds. Now, do you _sabe_?" Thacker got up and closed the door. "Let me see your hand," he said. He took the Kid's left hand, and examined the back of it closely. "I can do it," he said excitedly. "Your flesh is as hard as wood and as healthy as a baby's. It will heal in a week." "If it's a fist fight you want to back me for," said the Kid, "don't put your money up yet. Make it gun work, and I'll keep you company. But no barehanded scrapping, like ladies at a tea-party, for me." "It's easier than that," said Thacker. "Just step here, will you?" Through the window he pointed to a two-story white-stuccoed house with wide galleries rising amid the deep-green tropical foliage on a wooded hill that sloped gently from the sea. "In that house," said Thacker, "a fine old Castilian gentleman and his wife are yearning to gather you into their arms and fill your pockets with money. Old Santos Urique lives there. He owns half the gold-mines in the country." "You haven't been eating loco weed, have you?" asked the Kid.