San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1893-02-23
same wager before from me!

II fear nOtmnS, IHe SdAhple4 al
swered. Il take the bet"'
The other players also placed smaller
sums upon the board upon the even side,
and the trickster tipped the box. The
eleven clay cubes rolled across the stone
with blinking rattle, and the eager eyes
counted quickly. Kulcan had again
won. Chalpa had lost the fruits OF sew
eral years of swindling and usury.
Gilbert had seen that the odd dice had
come from the left and the even ones
from the right end of the dicebox and
formed his conclusions, but he refrained
from announcing his discovery, or rather
his suspicious, and when Chalpa had
made over to Kulcan the sum of his
winnings they withdrew, followed by
the other players, who were delighted
with Kulcans good fortune.
Chalpa, on being left alone, threw
himself upon the floor in a savage frenzy
of rage and despair, and then and there
resolved to kill not only kulcan and Gil
bert. but old Iklapel. for he knew the
secret of the treasure vault and sur
missed how the silver had been obtained.
Although he would have feared to touch
il himself, he realized that Iklapel would
give it willingly to Eric for any purpose,
and he saw all of his hopes and plans
vanish into air with a heart so full OF
bitter hate that he could not rest, but
wandered in the canyon until nearly
dawn. When he came home he had per-
fected a scheme of revenge diabOlical i'll
its ingenuity and hellish in its complete
ness, to which, from that day forth, he
devoted all his thoughts and his tlreless,
sleepless. unresting energies.
But Gilbert did not suspect this feel
ing, although he observed that Chalpa
was endeavoring to gain his liking by
careful attention. but he suspected some
purpose much less serious. However,
he did not allow it to disturb him, and
his thoughts at this time were too full
of work and plans to admit of much else.
More than a year and half hal
passed since his arrival, and in the last
few months he had done much work.
He had thrown a strong dam across the
stream, butt a stone mill, made the ma
chinery for It in the old German method
of wood and silver, and was almost
ready to turn the water into the sluict
way upon the silent wheel. But a few
details remained to perfect the mechan-
ism and astOnish the AtZlans by tn
sight Of Il , river grinding their corn.
He had established the knowledge and
art of gla ing pottery, the making of
candles; he had improved the looms and
added modern devices, perfected their
stills, taught them how to preserve
fruits, smoke their meats, and in hun
bred other ways effected great changes
and found the people eager to adopt
labor saving methods.
But he wished to make still greater
changes. He had found in some of the
strata of the canyon walls iron in great
plenty, and he was so constantly ham
pered by the need of this indispensable
metal that he had begun the erection of
a furnace and ordered the extraction of
a large amount of ore. The supervising
of these operations completely filled his
days with arduous labor. He had com
menced his furnace with modest ideas,
intending to smelt his iron in the crude
manner which Livingstone found the
natives using in Central African sim
pie conical clay furnaces with rude bel
lows, but producing iron of Snch supe-
rior quality that the savages refused to
use the English metal, alleging that it
was rotten. But his ideas had expanded,
and he had erected a stone structure
with a complicated blasting apparatus
that filled him with great hopes as he
watched it nearing completion and made
him eager as boy to see it in full and
perfect operation.
Leila would come to him and find him
so occupied and intent upon his duties
that sometimes he feared she would
think him cold and neglectful, and she
so tenderly fearful of disturbing or an
noying him that the feeling showed in
her face as she lowered about him. AT
these times he would look into her eyes
with such deep, earnest devotion that
she would creep up to him, wind her
arms about his neck, with ardently wor
Shipping eyes and clinging kisses, for 6
few moments and then say demurely
"Oh, must not bother my darling. He
Is so busy, my great minded hero" anC
make a motion as it to leave. The1
they would waste half hour more il
loving dalliance, when she would sud
denly assume an air of stern displeasur,
and bid him to go to work while she at
tended to her duties.
These moments came often, too, dur
ing the summer days, when only his as
sistants in all AtzIan were busy and a
work, and they made the hours of sci
imposed toll shorter and pleasanter.
She took the fOndest interest in every