track from the foot of the mountain enters the plain, crossing a stream
over a little wooden bridge painted green--green, the colour of hope,
being also the colour of the mine.

It was reported in Sulaco that up there "at the mountain" Don Pepe
walked about precipitous paths, girt with a great sword and in a shabby
uniform with tarnished bullion epaulettes of a senior major. Most miners
being Indians, with big wild eyes, addressed him as Taita (father), as
these barefooted people of Costaguana will address anybody who wears
shoes; but it was Basilio, Mr. Gould's own mozo and the head servant
of the Casa, who, in all good faith and from a sense of propriety,
announced him once in the solemn words, "El Senor Gobernador has
arrived."

Don Jose Avellanos, then in the drawing-room, was delighted beyond
measure at the aptness of the title, with which he greeted the old major
banteringly as soon as the latter's soldierly figure appeared in the
doorway. Don Pepe only smiled in his long moustaches, as much as to say,
"You might have found a worse name for an old soldier."

And El Senor Gobernador he had remained, with his small jokes upon
his function and upon his domain, where he affirmed with humorous
exaggeration to Mrs. Gould--

"No two stones could come together anywhere without the Gobernador
hearing the click, senora."

And he would tap his ear with the tip of his forefinger knowingly. Even
when the number of the miners alone rose to over six hundred he seemed
to know each of them individually, all the innumerable Joses, Manuels,