It's as easy as a chess problem--fox to play, and mate in three
moves. Oh, goosey, goosey, gander, whither do you wander? By the
blessing of the literary telegraph the boodle of this benighted
fatherland shall be preserved to the honest political party that
is seeking to overthrow it."

The situation had been justly outlined by Keogh. The down trail
from the capital was at all times a weary road to travel. A jiggety-
joggety journey it was; ice-cold and hot, wet and dry. The trail
climbed appalling mountains, wound like a rotten string about the
brows of breathless precipices, plunged through chilling snow-fed
streams, and wriggled like a snake through sunless forests teeming
with menacing insect and animal life. After descending to the
foothills it turned to a trident, the central prong ending at Alazan.
Another branched off to Coralio; the third penetrated to Solitas.
Between the sea and the foothills stretched the five miles breadth
of alluvial coast. Here was the flora ofthe tropics in its rankest
and most prodigal growth. Spaces here and there had been wrested
from the jungle and planted with bananas and cane and orange groves.
The rest was a riot of wild vegetation, the home of monkeys, tapirs,
jaguars, alligators, and prodigious reptiles and insects. Where no
road was cut a serpent could scarcely make its way through the tangle
of vines and creepers. Across the treacherous mangrove swamps few
things without wings could safely pass. Therefore the fugitives
could hope to reach the coast only by one of the routes named.

"Keep the matter quiet, Billy," advised Goodwin. "We don't want
the Ins to know that the president is in flight. I suppose Bob's
information is something of a scoop in the capital as yet. Otherwise
he would not have tried to make his message a confidential one; and,