ig island here, boys?" he asked. "It looks big on the
map, but it is a very small spot on the face of the earth, and yet its
people have suffered more misery, injustice, and oppression than the
world will ever know."

"Discontented people always quarrelling with their government are
usually unhappy. They bring most of their misery on themselves."

Harry spoke carelessly. He was not much interested in the wrongs of
Cuba. He was surprised to see the captain's eyes flash again with that
fierce fire that had marked them when he first defied him.

"Discontented, is it," almost shouted the captain. "And do you know why,
boy?"

"I am sure I do not, Captain Dynamite, except that it is apparently born
in them."

"Yes, that's the way most of the world, ignorant of poor Cuba's trials,
looks at the matter. Statesmen have investigated and reported back to
the halls of Congress and Cuba and her wrongs have been laid away in the
dusty archives."

"Look," he said, pointing again at the map, and involuntarily the boys
gathered closer around him and peered at the parchment. "That land, as
God made it, was the fairest that the eye ever looked upon."

Captain Dynamite paused for a moment and seemed to grow more calm. He
seated himself with his elbows on the table behind him and deftly rolled
a cigarette with one hand. The boys, interested now because of his
intense feeling, waited for him to continue.

"Youngsters," he said finally, "let me give you a little piece of
history of these 'discontented' folks and perhaps you will regard their
condition with different eyes and hearts. Your text-books at school
have undoubtedly told you that Spanish rule in Cuba began in 1511, when
Diego Valesquez subjugated the peaceful natives, and the Spanish methods
of conquest made a record that lives to this day.

"See this island here," said the captain, pointing to Hayti. "At that
time almost uninhabited, its wild shores and hidden inlets served as
places of concealment for buccaneers. These pirates of the Spanish Main
not alone indulged in the adventurous pastime of smuggling, but they
attacked and plundered Spanish trading ships and even made forceful
expeditions upon land, ravaging cities and towns. They were encouraged
in their depredations by other nations unfriendly to Spain. Henry
Morgan, one of these buccaneers, who was commissioned as a privateer,
was knighted by England in 1671 because of his prowess as a legalized
pirate.

"In 1762