dently a man of culture and ability, seemed, without official
position, to possess an extraordinary influence in the highest
Government spheres. He was able to assure Sir John that the
President-Dictator would make the journey. He regretted, however, in
the course of the same conversation, that General Montero insisted upon
going, too.

General Montero, whom the beginning of the struggle had found an obscure
army captain employed on the wild eastern frontier of the State, had
thrown in his lot with the Ribiera party at a moment when special
circumstances had given that small adhesion a fortuitous importance.
The fortunes of war served him marvellously, and the victory of Rio Seco
(after a day of desperate fighting) put a seal to his success. At the
end he emerged General, Minister of War, and the military head of the
Blanco party, although there was nothing aristocratic in his descent.
Indeed, it was said that he and his brother, orphans, had been brought
up by the munificence of a famous European traveller, in whose service
their father had lost his life. Another story was that their father
had been nothing but a charcoal burner in the woods, and their mother a
baptised Indian woman from the far interior.

However that might be, the Costaguana Press was in the habit of styling
Montero's forest march from his commandancia to join the Blanco forces
at the beginning of the troubles, the "most heroic military exploit of
modern times." About the same time, too, his brother had turned up from
Europe, where he had gone apparently as secretary to a consul. Having,
however, collected a small band of outlaws, he showed some talent as
guerilla chief and had been rewarded at the pacification by the post of
Military Commandant of the capital.

The Minister of War, then, accompanied the Dictator. The board of the
O.S.N. Company, working hand-in-hand with the railway people for the
good of the Republic, had on this important occasion instructed Captain
Mitchell to put the mail-boat Juno at the disposal of the distinguished
party. Don Vincente, journeying south from Sta. Marta, had embarked at
Cayta, the principal port of Costaguana, and came to Sulaco by sea.
But the chairman of the railway company had courageously crossed the
mountains in a ramshackle diligencia, mainly for the purpose of meeting
his engineer-in-chief engaged in the final survey of the road.

For all the indifference of a man of affairs to nature, whose hostility