"By noon the next day the submerged Gatling was rescued, as Kearny had promised.Then Carlos and Manuel Ortiz and Kearny (my lieutenants)
distributed Winchesters among the troops and put them through an incessant rifle drill.We fired no shots, blank or solid, for of all coasts Esperando is the stillest; and we had no desire to sound any warnings in the ear of that corrupt government until they should carry with them the message of Liberty and the downfall of Oppression.
"In the afternoon came a mule-rider bearing a written message to me from Don Rafael Valdevia in the capital, Aguas Frias.
"Whenever that man's name comes to my lips, words of tribute to his greatness, his noble simplicity, and his conspicuous genius follow irrepressibly.He was a traveller, a student of peoples and governments, a master of sciences, a poet, an orator, a leader, a soldier, a critic of the world's campaigns and the idol of the people in Esperando.I had been honoured by his friendship for years.It was I who first turned his mind to the thought that he should leave for his monument a new Esperando--a country freed from the rule of unscrupulous tyrants, and a people made happy and prosperous by wise and impartial legislation.When he had consented he threw himself into the cause with the undivided zeal with which he endowed all of his acts.The coffers of his great fortune were opened to those of us to whom were entrusted the secret moves of the game.His popularity was already so great that he had practically forced President Cruz to offer him the portfolio of Minister of War.
"The time, Don Rafael said in his letter, was ripe.Success, he prophesied, was certain.The people were beginning to clamour publicly against Cruz's misrule.Bands of citizens in the capital were even going about of nights hurling stones at public buildings and expressing their dissatisfaction.A bronze statue of President Cruz in the Botanical Gardens had been lassoed about the neck and overthrown.
It only remained for me to arrive with my force and my thousand rifles, and for himself to come forward and proclaim himself the people's saviour, to overthrow Cruz in a single day.There would be but a half-hearted resistance from the six hundred government troops stationed in the capital.Th country was ours.He presumed that by this time my steamer had arrived at Quintana's camp.He proposed the eighteenth of July for the attack.That would give us six days in which to strike camp and march to Aguas Frias.In the meantime Don Rafael remained my good friend and /compadre en la cause de la libertad/.
"On the morning of the 14th we began our march toward the sea-
following range of mountains, over the sixty-mile trail to the capital.Our small arms and provisions were laden on pack mules.
Twenty men harnessed to each Gatling gun rolled them smoothly along the flat, alluvial lowlands.Our troops, well-shod and well-fed, moved with alacrity and heartiness.I and my three lieutenants were mounted on the tough mountain ponies of the country.
"A mile out of camp one of the pack mules, becoming stubborn, broke away from the train and plunged from the path into the thicket.The alert Kearny spurred quickly after it and intercepted its flight.
Rising in his stirrups, he released one foot and bestowed upon the mutinous animal a hearty kick.The mule tottered and fell with a crash broadside upon the ground.As we gathered around it, it walled its great eyes almost humanly towards Kearny and expired.That was bad;
but worse, to our minds, was the concomitant disaster.Part of the mule's burden had been one hundred pounds of the finest coffee to be had in the tropics.The bag burst and spilled the priceless brown mass of the ground berries among the dense vines and weeds of the swampy land./Mala suerte/! When you take away from an Esperandan his coffee, you abstract his patriotism and 50 per cent.of his value as a soldier.The men began to rake up the precious stuff; but I beckoned Kearny back along the trail where they would not hear.The limit had been reached.
"I took from my pocket a wallet of money and drew out some bills.
"'Mr.Kearny,' said I, 'here are some funds belonging to Don Rafael Valdevia, which I am expending in his cause.I know of no better service it can buy for him that this.Here is one hundred dollars.
Luck or no luck, we part company here.Star or no star, calamity seems to travel by your side.You will return to the steamer.She touches at Amotapa to discharge her lumber and iron, and then puts back to New Orleans.Hand this note to the sailing-master, who will give you passage.' I wrote on a leaf torn from my book, and placed it and the money in Kearny's hand.
"'Good-bye,' I said, extending my own.'It is not that I am displeased with you; but there is no place in this expedition for--let us say, the Senorita Phoebe.' I said this with a smile, trying to smooth the thing for him.'May you have better luck, /companero/.'
"Kearny took the money and the paper.
"'It was just a little touch,' said he, 'just a little lift with the toe of my boot--but what's the odds?--that blamed mule would have died if I had only dusted his ribs with a powder puff.It was my luck.
Well, Captain, I would have liked to be in that little fight with you over in Aguas Frias.Success to the cause./Adios/!'
"He turned around and set off down the trail without looking back.The unfortunate mule's pack-saddle was transferred to Kearny's pony, and we again took up the march.
"Four days we journeyed over the foot-hills and mountains, fording icy torrents, winding around the crumbling brows of ragged peaks, creeping along rocky flanges that overlooked awful precipices, crawling breathlessly over tottering bridges that crossed bottomless chasms.
"On the evening of the seventeenth we camped by a little stream on the bare hills five miles from Aguas Frias.At daybreak we were to take up the march again.
