Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/253

 the head of navigation leading to Iquitos on the upper Amazon, and freight was then being carted from Oroya to the Cerro diggings, some fifty miles, by llamas and mules.

"When we bobbed into the spirited debate, Tib, of course, must expand and peddle out a little wholesome advice to the isosceles triangle sharps. He'd never studied engineering, he modestly confessed; but he insisted that a man who had routed big shows through the cotton belt, who had collected admittance fees from gun-laden mountaineers, and who knew just how much English to put on an elephant's head when that animal is butting the beast wagons out of South Carolina mud, ought to be able to sprinkle a few germs of helpful thought on almost any perplexing situation. Well, they certainly took to him and his sparkling, brown-eyed ways, and an English tea-prince named Breusy was so captivated that he swore we should make the trip to the mines in his ninety-horse-power, six-cylinder, swifter-than-chain-lightning touring-car, the Bally Bloomer.

"‘But can you chauff?' I asked, suspiciously, after drawing Tib aside.

"He looked at me regretfully for a moment, and then sighed, 'Child, after you've once laid a gasolene trail with me and have seen my lily-like form drooping over the rudder, you'll never ride behind another pathfinder.'