“Did you have to put it in the professor’s care?”
“No, he wanted it, but I told him I could take care of it. I left it in my valise.”
“But somebody may go through your valise.”
“I don’t think so. Besides, the money is under a false bottom in the valise. You can’t open it unless you touch a spring on the side.”
“I see. That’s a handy thing. Well, let us be going, or it will be time to return before we’ve seen anything at all.”
“I don’t care when I get back, Markel. I can tell the professor that my friends kept me all night.”
“Of course you can. Say, would you like to see a real out-and-out cock fight? There is going to be one to-night, in the rear of the Horn of Gold saloon. The hotel keeper was telling me about it. He put up five bolivars on one of the birds. All the best sports in town will be there.”
“All right, let’s go—unless there’s a bull fight on somewhere,” answered Hockley.
“No bull fight to-night, Hockley. But that cock fight will be a cooler, I can assure you. One of the birds belongs to a Spanish millionaire, and the other to one of the native generals in the army. We will strike some high-toned people at the fight sure.”
The prospect of going to a place where he would meet the “dead game” sports of Caracas pleased Hockley, and he already fancied how he would “blow” about the affair when he got back among his old cronies at home. “I’ll meet the bon-tons,” he said to himself. “It’s a good deal better than going to see a dried-up old coffee plantation.”