ercise
of almost inexhaustible patience, he contrived to make very excellent
marksmen of a good percentage of them.

Meanwhile, with the exception above referred to, events, so far as those
on the estate were concerned, pursued the even tenor of their way;
nothing in the least out of the common happened, and the Senora
Montijo's mental condition had by this time so far improved that the
society of Carlos and Jack was no longer necessary to her welfare.

But they both remained on the estate, for the war had now come almost to
their own door, and their services were as likely to be useful where
they were as anywhere else. News came to them at irregular intervals,
and there by and by reached them the intelligence that, in order to
isolate Maceo and prevent his return to the eastern provinces of the
island, General Weyler was constructing a _trocha_, or entrenchment,
with blockhouses and wire entanglements all complete, from Mariel on the
north coast to Majana on the south--that is to say, across the narrowest
part of the island--some sixteen or seventeen miles in length. The next
news to hand was that the _trocha_ was completed, and manned by twenty
thousand men! And the next was that Weyler was marching ten thousand
troops through the province, with the object of finding and destroying
Maceo and his men--and any other rebels, actual or suspected, whom they
might chance to find! Jack and Carlos felt that the time had arrived
for them to hold themselves on the qui vive.

They were not kept very long in suspense. A few days later, as they
were about to sit down to dinner, a negro peon presented himself, with
the report that a large body of Spanish troops, having marched down the
road from Pinar del Rio, were at that moment pitching their camp on the
plain, some two miles away; and just as the party had finished their
meal, and were on the point of rising from the table, the beat of
horses' hoofs, approaching the house, was heard, with, a little later,
the jingle of accoutrements; and presently footsteps, accompanied by the
clink of spurs and the clanking of a scabbard, were heard ascending the
steps leading to the veranda. The next moment the major-domo flung open
the door and, with the announcement of "Capitan Carera", ushered in a
fine, soldierly looking man, attired in a silver-braided crimson jacket
and shako, and light-blue riding breeches, tucked into knee-boots
adorned with large brass spurs.

The newcomer b