The Desert Trail. Coolidge Dane

but if you can use my poor services in any way I shall be very happy to please you. A room? One of the best! And if you stay a week or more I will give you the lowest rate."

      They passed up the winding stairs and down a long corridor, at the end of which the proprietor showed them into a room, throwing open the outer doors and shutters to let them see the view from the window.

      "Here is a little balcony," he said, stepping outside, "where you can sit and look down on the plaza. We have the band and music when the weather is fine, and you can watch the pretty girls from here. But you have been in Mexico—you know all that!" And he gave Phil a roguish dig.

      "Bien my frien', I am glad to meet you—" He held out his hand in welcome and De Lancey gave his in return. "My name," he continued, "is Juan de Dios Brachamonte y Escalon; but with these Americans that does not go, as you say, so in general they call me Don Juan.

      "There is something about that name—I do not know—that makes the college boys laugh. Perhaps it is that poet, Byron, who wrote so scandalously about us Spaniards, but certainly he knew nothing of our language, for he rimes Don Juan with 'new one' and 'true one'! Still, I read part of that poem and it is, in places, very interesting—yes, very interesting—but 'Don Joo-an'! Hah!"

      He threw up his hand in despair and De Lancey broke into a jollying laugh.

      "Well, Don Juan," he cried, "I'm glad to meet you. My name is Philip De Lancey, and my pardner here is Mr. Hooker. Shake hands with him, Don Juan de Dios! But certainly a man so devoutly named could never descend to reading much of Don Joo-an!"

      "Ah, no," protested Don Juan, rolling his dark eyes and smiling rakishly, "not moch—only the most in-teresting passages!"

      He saluted and disappeared in a roar of laughter, and De Lancey turned triumphantly on his companion, a self-satisfied smile upon his lips.

      "Aha!" he said; "you see? That's what five dollars' worth of booze will do in opening up the way. Here's our old friend Don Juan willing, nay, anxious, to help us all he can—he sees I'm a live wire and wants to keep me around. Pretty soon we'll get him feeling good and he'll tell us all he knows. Don't you never try to make me sign the pledge again, brother—a few shots just gets my intellect to working right and I'm crafty as a fox.

      "Did you notice that coup I made—asking him if he was a Spaniard? There's nothing in the world makes a Spaniard so mad as to take him for a Mexican—on the other hand, nothing makes him your friend for life like recognizing him for a blue-blooded Castilian. Now maybe our old friend Don Juan has got a few drops of Moorish blood in his veins—to put it politely, but—" he raised his tenor voice and improvised—

      "Jest because my hair is curly

       Dat's no reason to call me 'Shine'!"

      "No," agreed Bud, feeling cautiously of the walls, "and jest because you're happy is no reason for singing so loud, neither. These here partitions are made of inch boards, covered with paper—do you get that? Well, then, considering who's probably listening, it strikes me that Mr. Brachamonte is the real thing in Spanish gentlemen; and I've heard that all genuwine Spaniards have their hair curly, jest like a—huh?"

      But De Lancey, made suddenly aware of his indiscretion, was making all kinds of exaggerated signs for silence, and Bud stopped with a slow, good-natured smile.

      "S-s-st!" hissed De Lancey, touching his finger to his lips. "Don't say it—somebody might hear you!"

      "All right," agreed Bud; "and don't you say it, either. I hate to knock, Phil," he added, "but sometimes I think the old man was right when he said you talk too much."

      "Psst!" chided De Lancey, shaking his finger like a Mexican. Tiptoeing softly over to Bud, he whispered in his ear: "S-s-st, I can hear the feller in the next room—shaving himself!"

      Laughing heartily at this joke, they went downstairs for supper.