me, 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. The 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 causa 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.