its?" inquired Trent. "Did you see any signs
of them?"

"No, sir, but the adobe house is large enough to hide them all."

"Any trenches near the house?"

"No, sir."

"I am afraid it would do little good to approach the house in
broad daylight," Lieutenant Trent reflected, excitedly, "but it
should make an excellent enterprise late in the night. I will
report this matter to Commander Dillingham, in command of the
advanced line. With his permission, we'll try to-night for the
capture of that much needed pair of rascals."

"Our signalman is being called from the advanced line, sir," reported
a saluting sailorman.

Wheeling, Trent ordered his own signalman to wig-wag, "Go ahead."
Then the lieutenant stood reading the message.

"You will fall back upon the advanced line," the signal read.

"Send 'O.K.,'" called the lieutenant.

"Sir," cried a sentry, "There's a party coming in. You can just
make 'em out, sir."

Stepping forward, Trent brought up his fieldglasses, while Dave
informed him:

"That was the second matter upon which I intended to report to you,
sir. I observed those people from the airship. I believe them
to be refugees."

Immediately Lieutenant Trent signaled the advanced line, reporting
the party seen out on the plain.

"Then wait and escort them in," came Commander Dillingham's order.

"O.K., sir," the detachment's signalman wigwagged back.

In three-quarters of an hour more the painfully moving party reached
the detachment. They were truly refugees, released from Mexico
City and nearby points.

The sight of these suffering people, some hundred and twenty in
number, and mainly Americans, was enough to cause many of the
sailormen to shed unaccustomed tears, and not to be ashamed of
them, either!

Every degree of wretchedness and raggedness was represented by
these sufferers of indescribable wrongs.

Men, and women too, showed the marks of rough handling by brutal
prison guards. There were many disfigured faces. One man carried
in a crude sling, an arm broken by a savage Mexican captor.

Such spectacles were of daily occurrence in Vera Cruz! These
wretched men, women and children had been on the way on foot since
the middle of the night, having painfully trudged in over the
twenty-five-mile gap in which the tracks had been torn up.

Ordering his men to fall in, Lieutenant Trent escorted the patient,
footsore procession in to the advanced line. The sailormen adjusted
their o