nap, Berthe," she said to her one companion. "They'll
pull us out, as usual."

The customary yelling and straining began, and men grunted as they
heaved against an axle. After a long seance of such effort there came a
sharp exclamation, like an oath, and the confusion fell to a murmur of
dismay. Someone jerked open the door, and Dupin's grizzled head
appeared.

"Mademoiselle, I regret to have to announce that a wheel is dished in."

Jacqueline's gray eyes regarded him quizzically. The sardonic old face
spread to a grin, but deftly readjusted itself to the requisite despair.

Not a carriage except the wrecked one was in sight. Only the Tiger's
whelps, by the hundred, surrounded her.

"And the others? Her Majesty?"

"The others did the sensible thing. They know that you will catch up
with them when they themselves are mired. Her Majesty, being ahead, is
probably still in ignorance of your accident."

"But the wheel?"

"If mademoiselle wishes it mended?"

"Is it so bad?"

Dupin caught her expression. "It will take six hours," he said
mercilessly.

"Oh dear!" said Jacqueline.

"There's a settler's cabin a mile from here. If you will accept my
horse, and Mademoiselle Berthe can mount behind----"

"Poor Berthe," sighed Jacqueline. But she nodded eagerly.

CHAPTER IV

THE LACKING COINCIDENCE

"Achilles absent was Achilles still."--_The Iliad._

Colonel Dupin helped first one and then the other of his charges upon
the same horse and wrapped them about in the same gaudy serape till only
two pair of pretty eyes peeped forth at the rain. The Vera Cruz highway
clung to the mountain side, but the Contra Guerrillas took a venturesome
little bridle path which dropped abruptly down into the rich valley of a
thousand or more feet below. Emerging from the dense tropical growth of
the highland, they beheld a vast emerald checkerboard of cultivation,
field after field of sugar cane, and set in each bright square a little
house of bamboo with a roof of red piping. After the dreary black gorges
behind them, the light of the sun seemed boxed in here under a leaden
cover of cloud. Coming suddenly out of the chill and mist, the two girls
felt the very rain gratefully warm and the fragrant smells of the wet
earth a thing of comfort. As the beauty and the cheer of it subtly
gladdened her mood, Jacqueline thought that here at any rate was an
adequate mise-en-scene for whatever tremors might befall.

There was o