em if we have to blow their brains out."

"You're too hard on 'em, Tucker," drawled Mr. Jackson. "We mustn't
expect too much from pore savages who live in a country so hot that
they can't progress like we do." Here Mr. Jackson took off his hat and
wiped the beads of perspiration from his brow with a red bandanna
handkerchief. "Don't expect too much from cannibals that have their
brains half roasted by the tropical sun."

"That's a fact!" said some one in the throng.

"Yes," said Jackson, crossing his legs on a level well above his head,
"them pore critters need our civilization, that's what they need," and
he dexterously squirted a mouthful of tobacco juice on the white-hot
stove, where it sizzled and gradually evaporated. "We must make real
men of 'em. We must give 'em our strength and vigor and intelligence.
They're a dirty lot of lazy beggars, that's the long and short of it,
and we must turn 'em into gentlemen like us!"

A general murmur of approval followed this outburst.

"I hear," said Sam, anxious to get some definite information as to the
warriors of the town, "I hear that several Slowburghers are going to
the war."

"Yes," said Tucker, while Jackson after his effort settled down into a
semi-comatose state, "six of our boys are a-going. There's Davy Black,
he drives the fastest horse in these parts, and Tom Slade. Where is
Tom? He's generally here. They'll miss him here at the hotel, and Jim
Thomson who used to be bartender over at Bloodgood's, and the two
Thatchers--they're cousins--that makes five."

"The village ought to be glad they are going to represent her at the
front," said Sam.

"From all I can hear," said the commercial man, "I think they are."

"Naturally," cried Sam, "it will reflect great glory on the place. You
ought to be proud of them."

"It'll help the insurance business here," said a young man who had not
yet spoken.

"How is that?" asked Sam. "I don't exactly see."

"Well, it's this way. You see I'm in the insurance business and I can't
write a policy on a barn in this township, there's been so many burned;
and while I don't want to say nothing against anybody, we think maybe
they won't burn so much when the Thatchers clear out."

"Nothin' ain't ever been proved against 'em," said Tucker.

"That's true," said the young man, "but perhaps there might have been
if they'd stayed. They say that Squire Jones was going to have Josh
Thatcher a