"Hey! What's that the crazy galoot's after saying?" The question came from a thickset man, of about middle age, upon whose upper lip bristled a fringe of reddish hair. His eyes were blue, narrow and evil, and his face was scarred in half a dozen places. "Why, Hickey, my amigo, he says that the place is haunted," laughed Ramon. The man addressed as Hickey turned to his two companions, one of whom was a tall, lanky chap, with straggly black hair, and bristly, unshaven chin. The other was a short, fat, rather good-natured looking little man, whose truculent chin, however, gave the lie to his incessant smile. Somehow, you felt, after a lengthy inspection of this latter, that he was by no means the amiable personage his fixed smile seemed to indicate. Small wonder, considering that his smile was fixed upon his face by reason of an old knife wound, which, in severing some facial muscles, had drawn up the corners of his mouth into a perpetual grin. "Hullo! Here's Rafter and Con Divver!" exclaimed the bristly-moustached one. "Well, fellows, what d'ye think of this here country?" "All right, as fur as we've gone," grunted the lanky man, "but I'm itching to git across the border and git my paws on some of that gold." "Ye're right, Rafter," agreed the man with the perpetual smile, "that's what we're after. I ain't made a good haul since we cleaned out the safe of that asphalt company in Venezuela." "Well, gentlemen," smiled Ramon, in his most ingratiating manner, "you will have ample opportunity shortly. I happen to know that one of the first things that General Madero intends to do is to move upon the mines of the robber Americanos, and get some of their gringo gold." "Hooray! That's the talk," grunted Jim Hickey, who, like his mates, styled himself "soldier of fortune." But, alas! that high-sounding title in his case, as in many others, was simply a polite way of disguising his true calling, to-wit, that of an unscrupulous adventurer, whose object was to line his own pockets. A fashion has arisen of late of writing about soldiers of fortune as if they were noble, Quixotic persons. Those with whom the author has come in contact, however, have, without exception, been mercenary and cold-blooded men, to whom the name highway robber could be applied with far more justice than the higher sounding term. Such men were Jim Hickey and his two companions, who had flocked like buzzards to the border at the first word of trouble. "Waal, thar's that greaser of yours still cuttin' up didoes," drawled Divver. "What's ther matter with ther coyote, anyhow? Say, Ramon, ain't that the main station of yer subway, yonder in ther rock pile?" He pointed to the hollow altar, in which crouched Pete and the professor. They had heard every word of this conversation, of course, and its effect upon them may be imagined.