Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/194

 a quick dash to the Rio, and farewell to the dons of the blue Pacific.'

"That was his poetry. Whenever he was stung into radical action he always talked in circus type. But he had a scheme back of it all that caused my sapphire eyes to bulge out and touch the walls of the tent. I asked him if we were to invade a lunatic asylum that we must indulge in such opera bouffe. I even doubted if Murphy and his friends would submit to being rescued by such legerdemain.

"‘I've thought it all over, and it's our only way,' replied Tib. 'The relatives of the decedent would go without fire-water a week if those sons of Uncle Sam would only escape into the open and give the bereaved family a chance to shoot them up. Why, look! They are doing real work out-of-doors, and I don't doubt but what their guards are yearning for them to make a break for liberty. If they did they would never get ten miles from Quelta. So, my way is the only way, my bosom the only haven of refuge.'

"The upshot of it all was I hustled back to El Paso, where we had some green-room effects of a new opera stored, and as fleet-footed as possible I hiked back to Chihuahua, accompanied by two big trunks. Meanwhile, Tib had sent our bill-poster to Quelta to hang up a few valentines, advertising the coming of the show, and incidentally to slip