Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/324

 better, much better, for his having crossed her path.

"Possibly the trick could have been turned without him, turned in a prosaic manner with a certain amount of vulgar blood-letting and at a great expenditure of gunpowder. But I think not, nor can she. For when a lovely girl is the stake, whether a lord's daughter or a queen from the masses, it is always advisable to finesse; and Tiberius, if slightly melodramatic, solved the unlovely problem as only he could—that is, in an unusual manner.

"To return to the details. We had reached Cape Town and had started a goodly amount of four-footed, snarling wild-wood gear for home when Tib found an opportunity to indulge in his peculiar faculty of rescuing the weak and unfortunate from a hateful predicament. The recipients of his hearty favor were the members of a busted 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' outfit, who had foolishly left the New England circuit to follow a scalawag manager abroad, and who now were left stranded high and dry in Cape Town. When Tib ran across the derelicts he immediately offered to pay their fares home, via Australia, as well as good wages, providing they would tour the big island under the impetus of his dollar-drawing supervision. He figured we were free from circus control for a while, and in returning to his native heather intended not only to delectate