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balderdash must form part of the price he had to pay for being left
unmolested, the obligation of uttering balderdash personally was by
no means included in the bargain. He drew the line there. To these
provincial autocrats, before whom the peaceable population of
all classes had been accustomed to tremble, the reserve of that
English-looking engineer caused an uneasiness which swung to and fro
between cringing and truculence. Gradually all of them discovered that,
no matter what party was in power, that man remained in most effective
touch with the higher authorities in Sta. Marta.

This was a fact, and it accounted perfectly for the Goulds being by
no means so wealthy as the engineer-in-chief on the new railway could
legitimately suppose. Following the advice of Don Jose Avellanos,
who was a man of good counsel (though rendered timid by his horrible
experiences of Guzman Bento's time), Charles Gould had kept clear of the
capital; but in the current gossip of the foreign residents there he
was known (with a good deal of seriousness underlying the irony) by the
nickname of "King of Sulaco." An advocate of the Costaguana Bar, a
man of reputed ability and good character, member of the distinguished
Moraga family possessing extensive estates in the Sulaco Valley, was
pointed out to strangers, with a shade of mystery and respect, as
the agent of the San Tome mine--"political, you know." He was tall,
black-whiskered, and discreet. It was known that he had easy access to
ministers, and that the numerous Costaguana generals were always anxious
to dine at his house. Presidents granted him audience with facility. He
corresponded actively with his maternal uncle, Don Jose Avellanos;
but his letters--unless those expressing formally his dutiful
affection--were seldom entrusted to the Costaguana Post Office. There
the envelopes are opened, indiscriminately, with the frankness of a
brazen and childish impudence characteristic of some Spanish-American
Governments. But it must be noted that at about the time of the
re-opening of the San Tome mine the muleteer who had been employed by
Charles Gould in his preliminary travels on the Campo added his small
train of animals to the thin stream of traffic carried over the mountain
passes between the Sta. Marta upland and the Valley of Sulaco. There
are no travellers by that arduous and unsafe route unless under very
exceptional circumstances, and the state of inland trade did not visibly
require additional transport facilities; but the man seemed to find his
account in it. A few packages were always found for him whenever he
took the road. Very brown and wooden, in goatskin breeches with the
hair outside, he sat near the tail of his own smart mule, his great hat
turned against the sun, an expression of blissful vacancy on his long
face, humming day after day a love-song in a plaintive key, or, without
a change of expression, letting out a yell at his small tropilla in
front. A round little guitar hung high up on his back; and there was a

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