attacked children for the most part, and swept them away in
battalions. I have seen whole families exterminated.

And nothing, then as now, prevails against this scourge save prompt
and sustained medical treatment. In Paradise we had neither doctor,
nor nurse, nor drugs. San Lorenzo, the nearest town, lay twenty-six
miles away.

Pap shambled in, clicking his teeth and grinning.

"Nice evenin'," he observed, taking his seat on his sugar barrel.

"Puffec'ly lovely," replied the man who had brought the evil news.
"Everything," he stretched out his lean hand,--"everything smilin' an'
gay--an' merry as a marriage bell."

Pap rubbed his talon-like hands together.

"Boys," said he, "I done first-rate this afternoon--I done first-
rate. I've made money, a wad of it--and don't you forget it."

"You never allow us to forget it," said Ajax. "We all wish you would,"
he added pointedly.

"Eh?"

He stared at my brother. The other men in the store showed their teeth
in a sort of pitiful, snarling grin. Each was sensible of a secret
pleasure that somebody else had dared to bell the cat.