om "malaria and starvation," and "dying of yellow
fever and smallpox." As a matter of fact, at that time there had not
been a single death or one case of serious sickness. The health of the
colonists remained good through the winter, the spring, and even the
following summer.

Indeed, the colonists had but few grievances, so few that they would
sometimes manufacture them out of trifles. Of such was the "sugar riot"
with its laughable and harmonious ending. One day in the latter part of
January, when the arrival of provisions was barely keeping pace with the
arrival of colonists, a small invoice of sugar was brought into La
Gloria over the bad road from the port. Scarcely had it been unloaded at
the commissary when the head of the engineer corps took possession of
about half of it for the surveyors and the boarders at their table, and
gave orders that the other half should be turned over to the Cuban
workmen of the company. The carrying out of this order aroused great
indignation among the colonists who were boarding themselves and had run
out of sugar, as most of them had. This action of the amateur "sugar
trust" caused certain of the colonists to sour, so to speak, on all of
the officers and chief employes of the company, for the time being, at
least, and mutterings, "not loud but deep," were heard all about the
camp. Not that there was danger of a sanguinary conflict, but a war of
words seemed imminent. The "era of good feeling" was threatened.

A day or two later, on the evening of Saturday, January 27, a meeting of
the colonists was held preparatory to the organization of a pioneer
association, and it was arranged among some of the leading spirits in
the sugar agitation that at the close of this session the saccharine
grievance should be publicly aired. The gathering was held around a
camp-fire in the open air, in front of headquarters tent. The regularly
called meeting adjourned early, with a feeling of excited expectancy in
the air. Something was about to happen. The officers of the company on
the ground, it was understood, were to be raked over the coals for
favoring the Cubans and thus perpetrating an outrage on the colonists.
The colonists whose tempers had been kept sweet by a sufficiency of
sugar lingered around in the pleasant anticipation of witnessing an
_opera bouffe_.

But it was the unexpected that happened. Just as the sugar orators were
preparing to orate, a man with muddy boots pushed through the c