outh American countries, the two might grow rich, prosperous and of
considerable strength, for no region on the globe is more favored in
the way of climatic and natural resources.

Major Starland understood the delicate tensity of the relations
between Zalapata and Atlamalco. They had been at war before, with the
advantage at times on one side and then on the other, the final result
being no decisive change in their mutual strength or in their
combative propensities. The addition of a "gunboat" to the power of
Atlamalco naturally made her more aggressive and demonstrative.
President Bambos dreamed of acquiring two similar engines of war, when
he would proceed to wipe his hated rival off the earth; but the loan
which he tried to float remained inert and the northern barbarians,
whose shipyards send forth most of the navies of the world, insisted
upon cash or security as preliminary to laying the keels of the
Zalapatan fleet. The project therefore hung fire. Though the craft
that roamed up and down the bifurcated river was referred to as a
gunboat, it was simply an American tug, some seventy-five feet in
length, of the same tonnage and with a single six-pounder mounted fore
and another aft. From New York it had sneaked southward, so far as
possible, through the inland passage to the Gulf of Mexico and then
puffed across the Caribbean and so on to the Rio Rubio and thence to
its destination.

As intimated, Major Starland had the choice of two routes to the
western Republic: one by mule path or trail through the Rubio
Mountains, and the other by boat, fifty miles up the Rio Rubio: he
chose the latter.

On the morning following the council of war, he and his swarthy
friend, Captain Guzman, hoisted sail on their little catboat, at the
wharf of the capital, and catching the favoring breeze, curved out
into the stream, which was half a mile wide, and began their voyage
against a moderate current. Old campaigners like them needed little
luggage. The native officer took none at all, while the Major's was in
a small hand bag, which he had brought from his yacht, twenty miles
away at San Luis.

The American seated himself at the stern, where he controlled the
tiller, while the native lounged on the front seat smoking his eternal
cigarette. Behind them the pretty little capital, with its five
thousand inhabitants, distributed mostly in adobe huts, shabby and of
small dimensions, gradually sank out of sight, and finally vanished