His face grew a trifle grim, but Appleby was glancing out towards the saffron glare of sunset on the ocean’s rim. “I want to live in the open, and see what the life men lead outside your cities is like,” he said. “There is nobody to worry about me, and I don’t mind the risks. Can you suggest anything with a chance of dollars in it a little outside the beaten track?” “You speak Spanish?” “I was born at Gibraltar, and lived in Spain until I was ten years old.” “Well,” said Harding, “as it happens, I can suggest something that might suit you, though I would rather, in spite of what you told me, have found you a business opportunity. The men who play the game will want good nerves, but there are dollars in it for the right ones. It’s running arms to Cuba.” A little gleam crept into Appleby’s eyes, and he flung up his head. “I think,” he said quietly, “that is the very thing I would have wished for.” “Then,” said Harding, “I’ll give you a letter to some friends of mine in Texas.” He went away by and by, and Appleby decided that the cost of his saloon passage had been a good investment. Still, he wondered what Harding could have to do with such a risky business as he surmised the smuggling of arms into Cuba must be, until he strolled round the deck with his daughter in the moonlight that evening. “I think you have made a useful friend to‐day,” she said. Appleby looked at her with a little astonishment, and the girl smiled when he said, “I don’t understand.” “I mean Cyrus P. Harding. There are quite a number of men with dollars anxious to be on good terms with him.” “What have I done to please him?” “You wouldn’t come to Glenwood,” and the girl laughed again. “No, I don’t mean that exactly, but I need not explain. Cyrus P. Harding never did a mean thing in his life, you see.” Appleby smiled at her. “So one would surmise. In my country we rather believe in heredity.” “Pshaw!” said the girl. “There really isn’t much in compliments when they’re served out all round. But if you are going to Cuba I may see you there.” “Will you be in Cuba?” Nettie Harding nodded. “My father has no end of dollars there—in tobacco and sugar.” “I wonder if one could ask what induced Mr. Harding to invest money in such an unsettled country as Cuba is just now?” Nettie Harding looked up at him confidentially. “It’s a thing I wouldn’t tell everybody, and if I did I shouldn’t be believed,” she said. “Well, Cyrus Harding can see ever so far ahead, and I never knew him mistaken yet. Some day something will happen in Cuba that will give us an excuse for turning the Spaniards out and straightening things up. They need it.” “But if the thing doesn’t happen?” Nettie Harding laughed. “Then I shouldn’t wonder if he and a few other men made it.”