from Hyatt the story of the discovery of his 

 manganese mine and that attempt of the San 

 Bias men to run him out, of which Wilcox had 

 spoken. But Hyatt, among his other traits, 

 possesses modesty, that bane of story writers. 

 He told me little except that he had learned 

 of the deposit from rubber hunters and, in 

 order to examine and locate it, he and his 

 partner had deemed it the part of wisdom to 

 land outside of San Bias territory and ap- 

 proach it from the rear. It was not until I 

 met that partner in New York, some time 

 later, that I learned the true facts how the 

 two of them had left their launch with in- 

 structions to pick them up at a certain time 

 at the mouth of a certain creek on the Bay of 

 San Bias, and then had struck out overland, 

 cutting their way as they went. They found 

 the manganese, but they had less luck in find- 

 ing their launch. They waded out waist-deep 

 through mud and mangroves to discover the 

 boat on the horizon, and close at hand some 

 fifty San Bias cayucas drawn up in a semicircle 

 before the mouth of the creek. The occupants 

 of those cayucas had waited long and pa- 

 tiently. It was twilight, the mosquitoes were 

 bad, and there was a suggestion of alligators 



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