Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/21

 I've columns of infantry, heavy artillery, troops of cavalry, a little drummer-boy, a Red Cross society, and the Private's Farewell to His Aged Mother. It's the most economical method of transporting field-forces in the world.'

"Then, after he had spoken several more pieces, Jones saw the illumination, and his hard-baked face cracked into various smiles. 'If they'll only come by night,' he murmured.

"You see, we carted the picture-machine around to amuse the audience between the acts of 'The Dear Gazelle,' and almost all of the pictures were war-scenes. Fortunately it had escaped injury in the explosion, and only needed to be dried out to be in fighting trim.

"But the rest of us hadn't come down to Central America to build up republics, and we were in a fair way to mutiny. Hanscom had just killed a tarantula, and was now writing a weepy letter to his old mother in Utica, New York. Mazie was sobbing that she did not see any chance of freezing her digits with Guatemala ice, and the rest of the bunch were swearing, or snivelling, as the sex demanded, when Tiberius visited us.

"'Children,' said he, kindly, 'List. Why weep? We've arrived here. The boat is busted. We can't leave till another comes. It seems two factions are sparring for the strangle-hold on this for-