a" of some disreputable
cafe. Captain Scraggs never knew how badly he was going to miss
them both until they were gone, and he had nobody to fight with
except Mrs. Scraggs; and when Mrs. Scraggs (to quote Captain
Scraggs) "slipped her cable" in her forty-third year, Captain
Scraggs felt singularly lonesome and in a mood to accept eagerly
any deviltry that might offer.

Upon a night, which happened to be Scraggs's night off, and when he
was particularly lonely and inclined to drown his sorrows in the
Bowhead saloon, he was approached by Scab Johnny, and invited to
repair to the latter's dingy office for the purpose of discussing
what Scab Johnny guardedly referred to as a "proposition."

Upon arrival at the office, Captain Scraggs was introduced to a
small, fierce-looking gentleman of tropical appearance, who owned to
the name of Don Manuel Garcia Lopez. Scab Johnny first pledged
Captain Scraggs to absolute secrecy, and made him swear by the
honour of his mother and the bones of his father not to divulge a
word of what he was about to tell him.

Scab Johnny was short and to the point. He stated that as Captain
Scraggs was doubtless aware, if he perused the daily papers at all,
there was a revolution raging in Mexico. His friend, Senor Lopez,
represented the under-dogs in the disturbance, and was anxious to
secure a ship and a nervy sea captain to land a shipment of arms in
Lower California. It appeared that at a sale of condemned army goods
held at the arsenal at Benicia, Senor Lopez had, through Scab
Johnny, purchased two thousand single-shot Springfield rifles that
had been retired when the militia regiments took up the Krag. The
Krag in turn having been replaced by the modern magazine
Springfield, the old single-shot Springfields, with one hundred
thousand rounds of 45-70 ball cartridges, had been sold to the
highest bidder. In addition to the small arms, Lopez had at present
in a warehouse three machine guns and four 3 inch breech-loading
pieces of field artillery (the kind of guns generally designated as
a "jackass battery," for the reason that they can be taken down and
transported over rough country on mules)--together with a supply of
ammunition for same.

"Now, then," Scab Johnny continued, "the job that confronts us is
to get these munitions down to our friends in Mexico. You know,
as well as anybody, Scraggs, that while our government makes no
bones of selling a lot o' retired rifles an' ammunition,
nev