The Coast of Adventure

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Dropping his chin upon the stock, he stiffened his arms and held his breath as he squeezed the trigger —Page 327.
By HAROLD BINDLOSS
Author of Prescott of Saskatchewan, Ranching for Sylvia, For the Allinson Honor, The Secret or the Reef, etc.
WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND UNDER THE TITLE A RISKY GAME
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

High on the sun-scorched hillside above the steamy littoral of the Caribbean Sea the Spanish-Indian town of Rio Frio lay sweltering in the heat of afternoon. The flat-topped, white houses surrounding the plaza reflected a dazzling glare, and the heat shimmered mercilessly upon the rough paving-stones. Flakes of plaster had fallen from the buildings; a few of them were mere ruins, relics of a past age; for the town had been built when conquistadores from Spain first plunged into the tropic forest to search for El Dorado. Here and there dilapidated green lattices shaded upper windows, and nearer the ground narrow openings were guarded by rusty iron bars; but some of the houses showed blank outer walls, and the plaza had rather an Eastern than an American look. Spain has set upon the New World the stamp the Moors impressed on her.
At one end of the plaza stood the Café Four Nations, a low, open-sided room, with a row of decaying pillars dividing it from the pavement. It was filled with flies, which stuck in black clusters to the papers hanging from the tarnished lamps and crawled about the dusty tables. The hot air was tainted with aniseed, picadura tobacco, and the curious musky smell which is a characteristic of ancient Spanish towns. On the right-hand side of the square rose the twin towers of the church of San Sebastian. Wide steps led up to the patch of shadow where a leather curtain left uncovered part of the door, and a niche above sheltered an image of the martyr with an arrow in his breast. The figure was well modeled and grimly realistic.