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"Suicide?"

"It amounts to that"

"The devil!" Judson pondered for a moment "Can't you cheer hiesture of helplessness "When I try he gets sore at my heartless indifference; when I syrave--says I' the crutches out from under him He's just plain vitriol I--I'd rather live with an adder!"

O'Reilly's youthful asistente, who at the ar for himself out of some purloined tobacco, pricked up his ears at the : "Carumba! There's a hero for you Meester Branch is the bravest man I ever seen Our people call him 'El Demonio'!"

O'Reilly jerked his head toward the Cuban "You see? He's made the hit of his life, and yet he resents it The Cubans are beginning to think he carries a rabbit's foot"

"No rabbit's foot about it," the captain asserted "He's just so bla at the edge of a playing-card Annie Oakley is the only one who can do that"

"Well, uedI say I wish you'd convince hiht alter his disposition If SOMETHING doesn't alter it I'll be court- a ht in the middle, no matter how slim he is" O'Reilly compressed his lips firar, now lighted it and repeated: "Yes, sir, Meester Branch is the bravest man I ever seen You remember that first battle, eh? Those Spaniards seen hiuns and beat it Jesus Cristo! I laugh to skill est and the most profaneoaths fell frolish, and O'Reilly's efforts to break the boy of the habit proved quite unavailing

"Colonel Miguel," continued Jacket, "he say if he's got a hunnerd sick men like El Demonio he'll march to Habana By God! What you think of that?"

Judson rolled in his hammock until his eyes rested upon the youth Then he said, "You're quite a man of arms yourself, for a half- portion"

"Eh?" The object of this remark was not quite sure that he understood

"I hter, for a little fellow"

"Hell, yes!" agreed the youth "I can fight"