Why did not they come or at least communicate with him? he asked himself again and again. He could bear the suspense no longer. He would communicate with them. The telephone occurred to him first of all as the most rapid means but, of course, there was no service to Las Palmas. Nor was it possible to send a telegram. A letter was the only thing he could think of; but when they called for the letter they would also come for him. So there was in reality no way of communicating with them after all. In desperation, he went to the owner of the hotel and told him what was on his mind. “If they knew you were coming and wanted you at Las Palmas, they would have been here,” the latter said. “What do you expect to do there, anyway? My advice would be to go back home, if you asked me. You will be better off there.” “Good Heavens! This is beginning to look like a conspiracy of some kind,” David started, but checked himself. Again the visions of past experiences loomed up before him. He would endure almost anything rather than take a single chance of spoiling this new and greatest of all ventures. So he turned and walked away. “I know what I’ll do,” he decided. “I’ll see the American Consul. He will fix me up.” Just as he turned to enter the doorway beneath the shield that served as the guiding sign to the consul’s office he almost collided with Rogers coming out. They exchanged greetings and each went his way. After waiting a few minutes in the anteroom he was admitted to the official’s presence and briefly explained his mission. The consul listened impatiently for a minute and then interrupted the recital. “You will never get on there,” he said. “It is no place for an American without practical experience. Las Palmas is a particularly bad place and Rice is a terrible person--they call him the viper.” David was boiling within, but said nothing, so the official continued: “The ranch is a new one, just being opened up. No one but the natives and Indians can do the clean-up work that is in progress now. You would die in a little while if you tried it. I will fix up your passport and you start back on the next boat.” “I see,” said David simply, without betraying his feeling. “Thank you for your offer but I cannot accept it just now for I am certainly not going back home. I came to stay.” “Stay and you will be sorry.” “That’s up to me. And if Mr. Rogers comes to see you again, give him a passport. I intend to see to it that he leaves the country on the next boat.” The air in the street lacked the cooling quality necessary to restore David’s ruffled temper. Heat-waves rose from the flag-stones and smote him in the face and the slight eddies that whirled around the corners could have come out of the mouth of a furnace--they were so stifling.