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"When the Blue Chip was sold and Jim Baggott handed over the money to me I knew it wouldn't be enough; if I was to beat the man at his own game I must be able to match finances as well as wits. I thought then of the Pool of the Lost Souls and the fabulous profits to be made from it. "Three days before Mr. North came to Limasito I took Tia Juana away, and she guided me to the Pool.
Her comrades of a lifetime, the rough, staunch men of Limasito, might well resent the intrusion of a stranger, an alien, into what was evidently to them a family affair; still less would they be able to understand and appreciate the fact that Billie belonged to another world than theirs.
"Whether you're here for health, pleasure, or business there ain't a more up-and-comin' town this side o' the Rio than Limasito," Jim Baggott remarked with the air of publicity-promoter as he "set 'em up" for a plump, white-mustached stranger, who had drawn up to the hotel an hour before in an impressive car, and whose equally impressive array of luggage was even then distributed about the best suite the establishment afforded.
Self-reliant she had shown herself to be, but tender in her pitying care of the injured boy and innocently free from coquetry or cynical suspicion in her frank acceptance of the stranger. There had been open amusement in her tone at his suggestion of danger to her from any in Limasito, and genuine love and pride when she spoke of her father and his calling.
How did he know where to search?" Thode hesitated. "I found a map of its location, but I had scarcely got my hands upon it when I was struck down from behind and the paper stolen." Willa uttered a startled exclamation, but he continued, unheeding. "Someone found me, hours later, lying unconscious and carried me into Limasito, where your good friend, Jim Baggott, took care of me.
There were still moments of homesickness, and crises of unrest when she would gladly have forsworn the stifling hot-house existence and gone back to the joyous freedom of Limasito days, had it not been for her secret project. That alone held her to her course and would so hold her until her purpose was achieved.
Your friend, Jim Baggott, is flourishing, the crowd that bought out the Blue Chip are bringing new life to Limasito but I have hurt you again. I am sorry." Willa had winced uncontrollably, but she recovered herself and smiled. "And Mr. Thode?" She voiced her query blandly, and Wiley flushed. "I have seen nothing of him," he responded.
The young petroleum engineer had pictured a ten-year-old boom town in the Mexican oil belt as a wilderness of rough shacks and board sidewalks, with possibly a dancehall or two and an open-air movie as the only attractions, and the thriving little city had proved a welcome surprise. "Limasito," he mused. "That means 'Little Lemon. Wonder who tacked that name to this burg?
"I met him first out in Oklahoma two years ago, and I've run across him more than once since, and I don't mind telling you candidly that each meeting has given me less pleasure. I didn't expect to encounter him down here, and I guess Limasito is big enough to hold us both, but if he wants to see me after to-day he knows where to find me." The older man nodded, slowly. "I reckoned as much.
She seemed of too fair a type for a native daughter, in spite of her dark hair, and that, together with her violet-blue eyes, gave more than a hint of Irish ancestry. What could bring a girl of her sort to a boom town below the border? So absorbed was the young engineer in his cogitations that he had reached the outskirts of Limasito before he awoke from his reverie.
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