in it. I had anticipated the pride I should have in sending the
picture back to Beatrice. So I was considerably chagrined, until I
decided to invent a uniform of my own, which I would wear whether
anyone else wore it or not. This was even better than having to accept
one which someone else had selected. As I had thought much on the
subject of uniforms, I began at once to design a becoming one.

We had reached a most difficult pass in the mountain, where the trail
stumbled over broken masses of rock and through a thick tangle of
laurel. The walls of the pass were high and the trees at the top shut
out the sunlight. It was damp and cold and dark.

"We're sure to strike something here," Aiken whispered over his
shoulder. It did not seem at all unlikely. The place was the most
excellent man-trap, but as to that, the whole length of the trail had
lain through what nature had obviously arranged for a succession of
ambushes.

Aiken turned in his saddle and said, in an anxious tone: "Do you know,
the nearer I get to the old man, the more I think I was a fool to
come. As long as I've got nothing but bad news, I'd better have stayed
away. Do you remember Pharaoh and the messengers of ill tidings?"

I nodded, but I kept my eyes busy with the rocks and motionless
laurel. My mule was slipping and kicking down pebbles, and making as
much noise as a gun battery. I knew, if there were any pickets about,
they could hear us coming for a quarter of a mile.

"Garcia may think he's Pharaoh," Aiken went on, "and take it into his
head it's my fault the guns didn't come. Laguerre may say I sold the