Page:Roads of Destiny (1909).djvu/318

 Hall—and the usual things. But first of all, Sully, I’m going to have the biggest clam-bake down on the beach that was ever seen south of the tropic of Capricorn. I figured that out from the start. We’ll stuff the whole town and the jungle folk for miles around with clams. That’s the first thing on the programme. Suppose you go out now, and make the arrangements for that. I want to look over the estimates the General made of the vote in the coast districts.’

“I had learned some Spanish in Mexico, so I goes out, as Denver says, and in fifteen minutes I come back to headquarters.

“‘If there ever was a clam in this country nobody ever saw it,’ I says.

“‘Great sky-rockets!’ says Denver, with his mouth and eyes open. ‘No clams? How in the—who ever saw a country without clams? What kind of a—how’s an election to be pulled off without a clam-bake, I’d like to know? Are you sure there’s no clams, Sully?”

“‘Not even a can,’ says I.

“‘Then for God’s sake go out and try to find what the people here do eat. We’ve got to fill ’em up with grub of some kind.’

“I went out again. Sully was manager. In half an hour I gets back.

“‘They eat,’ says I, ‘tortillas, cassava, carne de chivo, arroz con pollo, aquacates, zapates, yucca, and huevos fritos.’

“‘A man that would eat them things,’ says Denver, getting a little mad, ‘ought to have his vote challenged.