“You must have observed,” the doctor continued, “that fugitives are caught for the simple reason they go into a new country as strangers, and strangers are always objects of suspicion. Strangers always are called upon to give an account of themselves; strangers always have to explain why they have come. Now all these difficulties are obviated if only you can take up the life and personality of some one else. You are Lee, you go home to see your father. Nothing could be simpler. Well, yes, I admit that there is a risk, but----” “But,” said Vickers, “there is also a Nellie. I told you, didn’t I, Doctor, that it is a name I am fond of?” “It is a risk,” Nuñez went on, “but to stay here is a certainty.” “To go back,” murmured Vickers, “to a real home, even if it belongs to another man, and a father, and above all an affectionate cousin----” “Order your horse,” said Nuñez, “and I’ll take care of your guests, and of the police, and of Rosita, and Cortez, and all the other follies you have committed.” “And of Ascencion,” Vickers added. “She is worth all the rest, the nice old hag. Well, I’ll try it, Doctor, on your advice. By the way, thank you for not asking why I don’t go home under my own name.” The doctor smiled. “We learn not to ask that question of our visitors,” he said; and then at Vickers’s request he went and routed out a small boy and gave orders to bring the _patron’s_ mare at once to the front of the house. When he returned to the bedroom, Vickers had changed into his riding clothes, and was stuffing a pair of saddle-bags. “I want you, Nuñez,” he said, “to take anything you have a fancy for in the house, and give the rest to Ascencion. There’s a check for her, and here’s another for all I have in the bank. It will more than pay my bills. If not, write me to an address I will send. Be kind to Ascencion. She won’t like my going off like this, without saying good-by, but I don’t dare. She will have hysterics, as sure as Fate. Tell her I love her fond. Good-by, Doctor.” The last Nuñez saw of him was a long leg quickly drawn over the window-sill. The night, fortunately, was fair, for the rainy season had not regularly set in. As Vickers rode, he thought neither of the dangers he had left behind nor of the risk before him. It seemed as if the fierce homesickness of the last five years had suddenly broken out now and that his face was for the first time turned northward. He could not believe that within a week he would see the tops of New York’s tall buildings rise over the horizon like an immense castle set on a hill. He reached the sea at four o’clock; at sunrise the vessel sailed. Then only, as he saw the gray water opening out between him and the shore, he felt an emotion of gratitude to the country that had sheltered him and which he never expected to see again. Chapter III