ey came to a wooden bridge swinging above a ravine in
which a mountain stream, forty feet below, splashed over half-hidden
rocks, and the stepping stones of the ford. Even before the campaign
began the bridge had outlived its usefulness, and the unwonted burden of
artillery, and the vibrations of marching men had so shaken it that it
swayed like a house of cards. Threatened by its own weight, at the mercy
of the first tropic storm, it hung a death trap for the one who first
added to its burden.

No sooner had El Capitan struck it squarely with his four hoofs, than he
reared and, whirling, sprang back to the solid earth. The suddenness of
his retreat had all but thrown Chesterton, but he regained his seat, and
digging the pony roughly with his spurs, pulled his head again toward
the bridge.

"What are you shying at, now?" he panted. "That's a perfectly good
bridge."

For a minute horse and man struggled for the mastery, the horse spinning
in short circles, the man pulling, tugging, urging him with knees and
spurs. The first round ended in a draw. There were two more rounds with
the advantage slightly in favor of El Capitan, for he did not approach
the bridge.

The night was warm and the exertion violent. Chesterton, puzzled and
annoyed, paused to regain his breath and his temper. Below him, in the
ravine, the shallow waters of the ford called to him, suggesting a
pleasant compromise. He turned his eyes downward and saw hanging over
the water what appeared to be a white bird upon the lower limb of a dead
tree. He knew it to be an orchid, an especially rare orchid, and he
knew, also, that the orchid was the favorite flower of Miss Armitage. In
a moment he was on his feet, and with the reins over his arm, was
slipping down the bank, dragging El Capitan behind him. He ripped from
the dead tree the bark to which the orchid was clinging, and with wet
moss and grass packed it in his leather camera case. The camera he
abandoned on the path. He always could buy another camera; he could not
again carry a white orchid, plucked in the heart of the tropics on the
night peace was declared, to the girl he left behind him. Followed by El
Capitan, nosing and snuffing gratefully at the cool waters, he waded the
ford, and with his camera case swinging from his shoulder, galloped up
the opposite bank and back into the trail.

A minute later, the bridge, unable to recover from the death blow struck
by El Capitan, went whirling into the