n colony at Oroquieta was more interesting than the
_personae dramatis_ of the "Canterbury Tales." Where to begin I do not
know. But, anyway, there was my old friend the constabulary captain,
"Foxy Grandpa," as we called him then, because when he was not engaged
in telling how he had arrested somebody in Arizona, he was playing
practical jokes or doing tricks with cards and handkerchiefs. And
then there was the "Arizona Babe," a blonde of the Southwestern type,
affianced to the commissary sergeant. The wife oL the commanding
officer, a veritable O'Dowd, and little Flora, daughter of O'Dowd,
who rode around town in a pony cart, were leaders of society for
the subpost.

Then you could take a stool in front of Paradies's general store,
and almost at any time engage the local teacher in an argument. You
would expect, of course, that he would wander from his topic till you
found yourself discussing something entirely foreign to the subject,
but so long as he was talking, everything was satisfactory. There were
the two Greek traders who had "poisoned the wells" out Lobuc way,--so
people said. And I must not forget "Jac-cook," whose grandfather,
according to his own report, had been a cannibal, a king of cannibals,
and eaten a roast baby every morning for his breakfast. Jack was a
soldier of fortune if there ever was one. He could give you a recipe
for making _poi_ from ripe bananas and the milk of cocoanuts, or for
distilling whisky from fermented oranges,--both of which formulas I
have unfortunately lost. He recommended an exclusive diet of raw fish,
and in his youth he had had many a hard battle with the shark and
octopus. His one regret was that there were no sharks in the Oroquieta
Bay, that, diving under, he could rip with a sharp knife. "To catch
the devil-fish," he used to say, "you whirl them rapidly around
your arm until they get all tangled up and supine-like." And once,
like Ursus, in "Quo Vadis," he had taken a young bull by the horns
and broken its neck.

All members of good standing in the colony received their invitations
to the birthday party. Old Vivan, the ex-horse-doctor of the
_Insurrectos_, went out early in the morning to cut palms. The floor
was waxed and the walls banked with green. The first to arrive was
"Fresno Bill," the Cottobato trader, in a borrowed white suit and a
pair of soiled shoes. Then came the bronzed Norwegian captain of the
_Delapaon_, hearty and hale from twenty years of deep-sea sa