Dick took a turn across the deck with his hands in his pockets, deep in thought. “How long have you been out of the country?” he asked a moment later. “More than a year and a half.” “Then you must have changed in appearance!” Dick exclaimed; “you can’t look just the same as you did. Why not disguise yourself as much as you can, and you go ashore alone and try to pass the officers undetected; and I will follow later with your wife and baggage.” “I believe I could do that!” Comacho answered, his face brightening. “I have raised a little beard since I went away and I am stouter. I think I can slip past the officers into the city, and in the city my father’s friends will help me.” “You can take my big ulster and steamer cap; they will nearly cover you up,” Dick said. “Besides, they will expect to see you with a wife and child; your going alone will help to fool them.” “And you will bring my wife and baby ashore? and the baggage, the six trunks? O señor, señor, you know not how much you do for me! Take them to the Hotel Veracruzana, and this evening bring them to the railway station. The train starts for Mexico city at nine, and I will meet you in the station--unless, indeed, I am in prison.” Under the influence of Dick’s energy the Mexican was becoming quite bold. The tears were gone now, and in the big ulster and peaked steamer cap his own mother would hardly have recognized him. “You must explain everything to your wife,” Dick cautioned him, “for you know she cannot understand me. And impress it upon her that she is not to say one word to anybody till I have her safely landed in the hotel.” In a minute more Comacho was in one of the small boats, under a curved canvas awning like the cover of a prairie wagon, on his way to the mole. Anxiously Dick watched and saw him land, saw him ascend the stone steps, and saw him go under the big stone arch that leads from the Custom House into the city. He had passed the officers without recognition, and was safely landed in Vera Cruz. Up to this time Dick had thought very little about himself in the matter. Comacho had been his companion for ten or eleven days, and when he was in trouble Dick was glad to help him. But the comical position in which he had put himself began to make itself evident when the Mexican’s trunks were hoisted out of the hold. “It’s one of the funniest things I ever saw--this part of it,” he said to himself, while the baggage was coming up. “Here’s a young reporter leaves New York a single man, and remains single all the way to Vera Cruz, with just the one trunk he started with. Then he lands at Vera Cruz with rather a pretty wife to whom he can’t say a word because he doesn’t understand her language, and a dear, sweet, little baby that he doesn’t even know the name of, and six more strapping big trunks. I wonder whether I’m going to have adventures like this all through Mexico? I’m beginning well, at any rate.