suffering in Cuban wilds, as related in "When Santiago Fell." Perhaps it is a good thing that I did not know about my parent's condition, for I would have worried a good deal, and worrying would have done no good.
From day-dreaming over the present I began to speculate on the past, on my schoolboy days, and on the great interest I had taken for several years in steam engines, machinery of all sorts, and in big guns. Guns, such as were used in the forts on our Pacific seacoast, had particularly interested me, and I had studied them in all of their details, never once dreaming how useful this knowledge was to be to me.
From day-dreaming I fell into a light doze, from which I awoke with a start to find the form of a man leaning over me. The man had clutched my arm and this had aroused me. One glance showed that the man was Captain Kenny.
"Now I've got the chance I'll serve you as I served Holbrook!" he hissed into my ear, and hurled me over the edge of the canyon down to where the mountain torrent struck the rocks far below.
"Don't!" I managed to gasp; but that was all. I felt myself dropping through space, made a vain clutch at some brush which scraped my cheek, and then struck heavily on the rocks—and knew no more. When I recovered my
