“I shall send an application to President Santa Anna to have you allowed a measure of liberty,” said Mr. Austin finally.  “You are simply pining away here, Edward, my lad.  You cannot eat, that is, you eat only a little.  I have passed the most tempting and delicate things to you and you always refuse.  No boy of your age would do so unless something were very much wrong with his physical system.  You have lost many pounds, and if this keeps on I do not know what will happen to you.  I shall not ask for more liberty for you, but you must have a doctor at once.”

“I do not want any doctor, Uncle Steve,” said the boy.  “He cannot do me any good, but there is somebody else whom I want.”

“Who is he?”

“A barber.”

“A barber!  Now what good can a barber do you?”

“A great deal.  What I crave most in the world is a hair-cut, and only a barber can do that for me.  My hair has been growing for more than three months, Uncle Steve, and you’ve seen how extremely thick it is.  Now it is so long, too, that it’s falling all about my eyes.  Its weight is oppressing my brain.  I feel a little touch of fever now and then, and I believe it’s this awful hair.”

He ran his fingers through the heavy locks until his head seemed to be surrounded with a defense like the quills of a porcupine.  Beneath the great bush of hair his gray eyes glowed in a pale, thin face.

“There is a lot of it,” said Mr. Austin, surveying him critically, “but it is not usual for anybody in our situation to be worrying about the length and abundance of his hair.”

“I’m sure I’d be a lot better if I could get it cut close.”

“Well, well, if you are taking it so much to heart we’ll see what can be done.  You are ill and wasted, Edward, and when one is in that condition a little thing can affect his spirits.  De Zavala is a friendly sort of young fellow and through him we will send a request to Colonel Sandoval, the commander of the prisons, that you be allowed to have your hair cut.”

“If you please, Uncle Steve,” said Ned gratefully.

Mr. Austin was not wrong in his forecast about Lieutenant de Zavala.  He showed a full measure of sympathy.  Hence a petition to Colonel Martin Sandoval y Dominguez, commander of prisons in the City of Mexico, was drawn up in due form.  It stated that one Edward Fulton, a Texan of tender years, now in detention at the capital, was suffering from the excessive growth of hair upon his head.  The weight and thickness of said hair had heated his brain and destroyed his appetite.  In ordinary cases of physical decline a physician was needed most, but so far as young Edward Fulton was concerned, a barber could render the greatest service.

The petition, duly endorsed and stamped, was forwarded to Colonel Martin Sandoval y Dominguez, and, after being gravely considered by him in the manner befitting a Mexican officer of high rank and pure Spanish descent, received approval.  Then he chose among the barbers one Joaquin Menendez, a dark fellow who was not of pure Spanish descent, and sent him to the prison with de Zavala to accomplish the needed task.