Stuart stood with the supposed fisherman at the door of the hut until the throbbing of the motor boat's engine had died away in the distance. Then, American fashion, he turned to the brown-skinned occupant with an air of authority.
"Who is this man Cecil?" he asked. The phrase began boldly, but as he caught the other's glance, the last couple of words dragged.
Brown-skinned this fisherman might be, but the dark eyes were keen and appraising. Stuart, who was no fool, realized that his new host—or, was it captor?—was more than he seemed. At the same time, the boy remembered that he was in rags and that his own skin was stained brown. Yet the fisherman answered his question courteously.
"Does not the young Senor know him? Senor Cecil is an Englishman, and wealthy."
"But what does he do?" persisted Stuart.
The other shrugged his shoulders.
"Can anyone tell what wealthy Englishmen do?" he queried. "They are all a little mad."
The boy held his tongue. This evasive reply was evidence enough that he would not secure any information by questioning. Also, Stuart realized that anyone whom the Englishman trusted was not likely to be loose-mouthed.
"Senor Cecil said you were an American," the fisherman continued, "he meant by that——"
"Probably he meant that he knew I'd like to get this brown off my skin," declared Stuart, realizing that his disguise was unavailing now. "Have you any soap-weed root?"
The Cuban bent his head and motioned the boy to enter the hut. It was small and clean, but did not have the atmosphere of use. Stuart guessed that probably it was only employed as a blind and wondered how his host had come to know of the arrival of the motor boat. Then, remembering that the sound of the motor boat's engine had been heard for several moments, as it departed from the cove, he thought that perhaps the noise of the "chug-chug" would be a sufficient signal of its coming, for, surely, no other motor boats would have any reason for entering so hidden a place.
"If the young Senor will add a few drops from this bottle to the water," commented his host, "the stain will come out quicker."
Stuart stared at the man. The suggestion added to the strangeness of the situation. The presence of chemicals in a fisherman's hut tallied with the boy's general idea that this man must hold a postof some importance in the plot. But he made no comment.
While he was scrubbing himself thoroughly, so that his skin might show white once more, the fisherman prepared a simple but hearty meal. His ablutions over, Stuart sat down to the table with great readiness, for, though he had joined Cecil in a cold snack on the motor boat, the boy had passed through thirty-six hours of the most trying excitement, since his departure from Millot the morning of the day before. The food was good and plentiful, and when Stuart had stowed away all he could hold, drowsiness came over him, and his head began to nod.
"When do we go to bed?" he asked with a yawn.
The fisherman motioned to a string-bed in the corner.
"Whenever the young Senor wishes," was the reply.
"And you?"
"Did you not hear Senor Cecil say that I was to be sure you did not get lost?" He smiled. "You might have dreams, Senor, and walk in your sleep. When Senor Cecil says 'Watch!' one stays awake."
At the same time, with a deft movement, he pinioned Stuart's arms, and searched him thoroughly, taking away his revolver and pocket knife. No roughness was shown, but the searching was done in a businesslike manner, and Stuart offered no resistance. As a matter of fact, he was toosleepy, and even the bravest hero might be cowed if he were fairly dropping for weariness. Stuart obediently sought the string-bed, and, a few seconds later, was fast asleep.
It was daylight when he awoke. Breakfast was on the table and the boy did as much justice to the breakfast as he had to the supper. With rest, his spirits and energy had returned, but he was practically helpless without his revolver. Besides, on this desolate bit of beach on the eastern end of Cuba, even if he could escape from his captor, he would be marooned. Such money as the boy possessed was secreted in Cap Haitien, most of his friends lived in Western Cuba. If this fisherman were indeed to aid him to get to Havana, nothing would suit him better. All through the meal he puzzled over the fisherman's rough mode of life, and yet his perfect Spanish and courtly manners.
"If the young Senor will accompany me to the stable?" suggested his host, when the meal was over, the mild words being backed by an undertone of considerable authority. Stuart would have liked to protest, for he was feeling chipper and lively, but, just as he was about to speak, he remembered Andy's remark, on board the motor boat, about "food for fishes." Probably Cecil's allies were ready for any kind of bloodshed, and the boy judged that he would be wise to avoid trouble. He followed without a word.
The stables were of good size and well kept,out of all proportion to the hut, confirming Stuart's suspicion that a house of some pretensions was hidden in the forest nearby. A fairly good horse was hitched to a stoutly-built light cart and the journey began. The driver took a rarely traveled trail, but, at one point, an opening in the trees showed a snug little town nestling by a landlocked harbor of unusual beauty.
"What place is that?" queried Stuart, though not expecting a response.
To his surprise, the driver answered promptly.
"That, Senor," he said, "is Baracoa, the oldest town in Cuba, and the only one that tourists seldom visit."
Whereupon, breaking a long silence, Vellano—for so he had given his name to Stuart—proceeded to tell the early history of Eastern Cuba with a wealth of imagery and a sense of romance that held the boy spellbound. He told of the peaceful Arawaks, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Greater Antilles, agriculturists and eaters of the cassava plant, growers and weavers of cotton, even workers of gold. He told of the invasion of the meat-eating and cannibal Caribs from the Lesser Antilles, of the wars between the Arawaks and Caribs, and of the hostility between the two races when Columbus first landed on the island. He told of the enslavement of the peaceful Arawaks by the Spaniards, and of the savage massacres by Caribs upon the earliest Spanish settlements.
From that point Vellano broke into a song of praise of the gallantry of the early Spanish adventurers and conquerors, the conquistadores of the West Indies, who carried the two banners of "Christianity" and "Civilization" to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. He lamented the going of the Spaniards, took occasion to fling reproach at France for her maladministration and loss of Haiti, and, as Stuart was careful to observe, he praised England and Holland as colonizing countries as heartily as he condemned the United States for her ignorance of colonization problems.
This fitted in exactly with Stuart's opinion of the plot of which Cecil was the head. Here, in Vellano, was an underling—or another conspirator, as it might be—favorable to England, resentful of the United States, and probably in a spirit of revolt against existing conditions in his own country. The boy decided to test this out by bringing up the subject a little later in the journey.
Presently the road turned to the westward, following the valley of the Toa River. Duala, Bernardo and Morales were passed, the road climbing all the time, the mountain ranges of Santa de Moa and Santa Verde rising sentinel-like on either side. The trail was obviously one for the saddle rather than for a cart, but Stuart rightly guessed that Vellano was afraid that his captive might escape if he had a separate mount.
They stayed that night at a small, but well-kept house, hidden in the forests. The owner seemedto be a simple guarijo or cultivator, but was very hospitable. Yet, when Stuart, tossing restlessly in the night, chanced to open his eyes, he saw the guarijo sitting near his bed, smoking cigarettes, and evidently wide awake and watching. It was clear that he was keeping guard while Vellano slept. Certainly, the Englishman had no need to complain that his orders were unheeded!
Taking up the way, next morning, the road became little more than a trail, through forests as dense as the Haitian jungle. The guarijo walked ahead of them with his machete, clearing away the undergrowth sufficiently for the horse and cart to get through. From time to time, Velanno took his place with the machete and the guarijo sat beside the boy. Never for a moment was Stuart left alone.
It was a wild drive. The trail threaded its way between great Ceiba trees, looming weird and gigantic with their buttressed trunks, all knotted and entwined with hanging lianas and curiously hung with air plants dropping from the branches. Gay-colored birds flashed in the patches of sunlight that filtered through the trees. The Cuban boa-constrictor or Maja, big and cowardly, wound its great length away, and the air was full of the rich—and not always pleasant—insect life characteristic of the Cuban eastern forests.
Approaching San Juan de la Caridad, the trail widened. Machete work being no longer necessary, the guarijo was enabled to return, which hedid with scarcely more than an "adios" to Vellano.
The trail now skirted the edges of deep ravines and hung dizzily on the borders of precipices of which the sharply and deeply cut Maestra Mountains are so full. The forest was a little more open. Thanks to the information given him by Cecil during their walk through the Haitian jungle, after the parachute descent, Stuart recognized mahogany, lignum vitae, granadilla, sweet cedar, logwood, sandalwood, red sanders and scores of other hardwood trees of the highest commercial value, standing untouched. Passing an unusually fine clump of Cuban mahogany, Stuart turned to his companion with the exclamation:
"There must be millions of dollars' worth of rare woods, here!"
"Cuba is very rich," came the prompt reply, coupled with the grim comment, "but Cubans very poor."
"They are poor," agreed Stuart, "and in this part of the island they seem a lot poorer than in the Pinar plains, where I lived before. Why? Here, nine out of every ten of the guarijos we've seen, live like hogs in a sty. Most of the huts we've passed aren't fit for human beings to live in. Why is it?"
Stuart had expected, and, as it turned out, rightly, that this opening would give Vellano the opportunity to express himself on Cuban conditions as he saw them. Stuart was eager for this,for he wanted to find out where his companion stood, and hoped to find out whether he was ripe for revolt. But he was surprised at the bitterness and vehemence of the protest.
"Ah! The Rats that gnaw at the people!" Vellano cried. "The Rats that hold political jobs and grow fat! The government Rats who care for nothing except to make and collect taxes to keep the people poor! The job-holders of this political party, or that political party, or the other political party! What are they? Rats, all! Tax-Rats!
"Why do the guarijos live like hogs in a sty? The Rats ordain it. It is the taxes, all on account of the taxes. Consider! All this land you see, all undeveloped land, belonging, it may be, to only a few wealthy people, pays no tax, no tax at all. But if a man wishes to make a living, settles on the ground and begins to cultivate it, that day, yes, that hour, the owner will demand a high rent. And why will he ask this rent? Because, Young Senor, as soon as land is cultivated, the government puts a high tax on it. The Rats punish the farmers for improving the country.
"What happens? I can tell you what happens in this province of Oriente. In the province of Camaguey, too. The small farmer finds a piece of good land. He settles on it—what you Americans call 'squatting'—and, if he is wise, he says nothing to the owner. Perhaps he will not be found out for a year or two, perhaps more, but, when heis found, he must pay a big rent and the owner a big tax. Perhaps the guarijo cannot pay. Then he must go away.
"Generally he goes. In some other corner, hidden away, he finds another piece of land. He squats on that, too, hoping that the tax-Rats may not find him. He does not cultivate much land, for he may be driven off next day. He does not build a decent house, for he may have to abandon it before the week's end.
"Suppose he does really wish to rent land, build a house and have a small plantation, and is willing to pay the rent, however high it be. Why then, Young Senor, he will learn that it will be many years before he finds out whether the man to whom he is paying the rent is really the owner of the land. And if he wishes to buy, it is worse than a lottery. In this part of the island no surveys have been made—except a circular survey with no edges marked—and land titles are all confused. Then the lawyer-Rats thrive."
"It's not like that near Havana," put in Stuart.
"Havana is not Cuba. Only three kinds of people live in Havana: the Rats, the tourists, and the people who live off the Rats and the tourists. They spend, and Cuba suffers.
"For the land tax, Senor, is not all! Nearly all the money that the government spends—that the Rats waste—comes from the tax on imports. No grain is grown in Cuba, and there is no clothing industry. All our food and all our clothes areimported, and it is the guarijo who, at the last, must pay that tax. Young Senor, did you know that, per head of population, the poor Cuban is taxed for the necessities of life imported into this island three and a half times as much as the rich American is taxed for the goods entering the United States?
"Even that is not all. Here, in Cuba, we grow sugar, tobacco, pineapples, and citrus fruit, like oranges, grapefruit and lemons. Does America, which made us a republic, help us? No, Young Senor, it hurts us, hinders us, cripples us. In Hawaii, in Porto Rico, in the southern part of the United States, live our sugar, tobacco and fruit competitors. Their products enter American markets without tax. Ours are taxed. What happens? Cuba, one of the most fertile islands of the West Indies is poor. The Cuban cultivator, who is willing to be a hard worker, gives up the fight in disgust and either tries in some way to get the dollars from the Americans who come here, or else he helps to ruin his country by getting a political job."
Stuart, listening carefully to this criticism, noticed in Vellano's voice a note of hatred whenever he used the word "American." Connecting this with his own suspicion that Cecil was head of a conspiracy against the United States and that this supposed fisherman was evidently the Englishman's tool, he asked, casually:
"Then you don't think that the United Statesdid a good thing in freeing Cuba from Spain?" he hazarded.
To the boy's surprise, his companion burst out approvingly.
"Yes, yes, a magnificent thing! But they did not know it, and they did not know why! The Americans thought they were championing an oppressed people struggling for justice. Nothing of the sort. They took the side of one party struggling for jobs against another party struggling for jobs. But the result was magnificent. Under the last American Military Governor, Leonard Wood, Cuba advanced more in two years than she had in two centuries. When the Americans went away, though, it was worse than if they had never come. Cubans did not make Cuba a republic, Americans made Cuba a republic and then abandoned us. Of course, confusion followed. And in the revolution of 1906 and other revolutions, the Americans meddled, and yet did nothing. It is idle to deny that American influence is strong here! But what does it amount to? We are neither really free, nor really possessed."
"But what do you want?" queried Stuart. "I don't seem to understand. You don't want to be a possession of Spain, you don't want to be an American colony, and you don't want to be a republic. What do you want?"
"Do I know?" came the vehement reply. "Does anyone in Cuba know? Does anyone, anywhere, know? Remember, Young Senor, the Cubanguarijo does not feel himself to be a citizen of Cuba, as an American farmer feels himself a citizen of the United States. He has been brought up under Spanish rule, and is, himself, Spanish in feeling.
"What does he know about a republic? Unless he can get a political job for himself, unless he sees the chance to be a Rat, he cares nothing about politics, but he will fight, at any time, under any cause, for any leader who will promise him a bigger price for his sugar, his tobacco or his fruit. The World War helped him, for sugar was worth gold. But now—if the Cuban wishes to say anything to America, he must do it through the Sugar Trust, the Tobacco Trust or the Fruit Trust.
"What!" Vellano flamed out, "The United States will not answer us when we pray, nor listen when we speak? Then we will make her hear!"
Upon which, suddenly realizing that in this direct threat he might have said too much, Vellano dropped the subject. Nothing that Stuart could suggest would tempt him to say anything more.
The boy had been brought up in Cuba, and, though he had never been in this eastern part of the island, he knew that a great deal of what his companion had said was true. At the same time, he realized that Vellano had not done justice to the modern improvements in Cuba, to the extension of the railroads, the building of highways, the improvement of port facilities, the establishment of sugar refineries, the spread of foreign agricultural colonies, the improved sanitation and water supply and the development of the island under foreign capital. It was as foolish, Stuart realized, for Vellano to judge all Cuba from the wild forest-land of Oriente as it is for the casual tourist to judge the whole of Cuba from the casinos of Havana.
Cuba is not small. Averaging the width of the State of New Jersey, it stretches as far as the distance from New York to Indianapolis. Its eastern and western ends are entirely different. Originally they were two islands, now joined by a low plain caused by the rising of the sea-bottom.
Climate, soil and the character of the people vary extremely in the several provinces. High mountains alternate with low plains, dense tropical forests are bordered by wastes and desert palm-barrens. Eighty per cent of the population are Cubans—which mean Spanish and negro half-breeds with a touch of Indian blood, and of all shades of color—fifteen per cent Spanish and less than two per cent American.
Foreign colonies are numerous, though small. They are to be found in all the provinces, and exhibit these same extremes. About one-half have sunk to a desolation of misery and ruin, one-half have risen to success. As Stuart once remembered his father having said:
"I will never advise an American, with small capital, to come to Cuba. If he will devote the same amount of work to a piece of land in theUnited States that he will have to give to the land here, he will be more prosperous, for what he may lose in the lesser fertility of the land, he will gain by the nearness of the market. There are scores of derelicts in this island who would have led happy and useful lives in the United States."
Crossing the hills—by a trail which threatened to shake the cart to pieces at every jolt—the two travelers reached Palenquito, and thence descended by a comparatively good road to Vesa Grande and on to Rio Seco. A mile or so out of the town, Stuart saw the gleaming lines of the railway and realized that this was to be the end of the long drive.
"I have no money for a trip to Havana!" he remarked.
"That is a pity," answered Vellano gravely, who, since he had searched the boy's pockets, knew that only a few dollars were to be found therein, "but Senor Cecil said you were to go to Havana. Therefore, you will go."
There seemed no reply to this, but Stuart noted that, at the station, the supposed fisherman produced money enough for two tickets.
"Are you coming, too?" queried Stuart, in surprise.
"Senor Cecil said that I was to see that you did not get lost on the way," came the quiet answer.
Certainly, Stuart thought, the Englishman's word was a word of power.
From Rio Seco, the train passed at first through heavy tropical forests, such as those in the depths of which Vellano and Stuart had just driven, but these were thinned near the railroad by lumbering operations. The main line was joined a little distance west of Guantanamo. Thence they traveled over the high plateau land of Central Oriente and Camaguey, on which many foreign colonies have settled, the train only occasionally touching the woeful palm barrens which stretch down from the northern coast.
Vellano, who seemed singularly well informed, kept up a running fire of comment all the way, most of his utterances being colored by a resentment of existing conditions—for which he blamed the United States—and containing a vague hint of some great change to come.
At Ciego de Avila, where a stay of a couple of hours was made, Stuart's companion pointed out the famoustrochaor military barrier which had been erected by the Spaniards as a protection against the movements of Cuban insurgents, and which ran straight across the whole island.
This barrier was a clearing, half-a-mile wide; a narrow-gauge railway ran along its entire length, as did also a high barbed-wire fence. Every two-thirds of a mile, small stone forts had been built. Each of these was twenty feet square, with a corrugated iron tower above, equipped with apowerful searchlight. The forts themselves were pierced with loopholes for rifle fire and the only entrance was by a door twelve feet above ground, impossible of entrance after the ladder had been drawn up from within. The forts were connected by a telephone line. They have all fallen into ruins and are half swallowed up by the jungle, while the half mile clearing is being turned into small sugar plantations.
Beyond Ciego, the train passed again through a zone of tropical forest lands and then dropped into the level plains of Santa Clara, the center of the sugar industry of Cuba. From there it bore northward toward Matanzas, through a belt of bristling pineapple fields.
One station before arriving at Havana, Stuart's companion, who showed signs of fatigue—which were not surprising since he had wakened at every stop that the train had made during the night to see that the boy did not get off—prepared to alight.
"You're not going on to Havana?" queried Stuart.
"I shall step off the train here after it has started," replied Vellano. "There will be no opportunity for you to do the same until the train stops at the capital. Senor Cecil said only that I was to see that you did not get lost on the way. He said nothing about what you should do in Havana. Possibly he has plans of his own."
The train began to move.
"Adios, Young Senor," quoth the supposed fisherman, and dropped off the train.
During the long train trip, and especially when lying awake in his berth, Stuart had plenty of time to recall the events of the four days since he first met Manuel on the streets of Cap Haitien and had offered himself as a guide to the Citadel of the Black Emperor. Much had passed since then, and this period of inaction gave the boy time to view the events in their proper perspective.
The more he thought of them, the more serious they appeared and the more Stuart became convinced that the plot was directed against United States authority in Haiti. Perhaps, also, it would attack American commercial interests in Cuba. As the train approached Havana, Stuart worked himself up into a fever of anxiety, and, the instant the train stopped, he dashed out of the carriage and into the streets feeling that he, and he alone, could save the United States from an international tragedy.
Through the maze of the older streets of Havana, with their two-story houses plastered and colored in gay tints, Stuart rushed, regardlessly. He knew Havana, but, even if he had not known it, the boy's whole soul was set on getting the ear of the United States Consul. It was not until he was almost at the door of the consulate that his promise to Cecil recurred to him as a reminder that he must be watchful how he spoke.
At the door of the consulate, however, he found difficulty of admission. This was to be expected. His appearance was unprepossessing. He was still attired in the ragged clothes tied up with string, and the aged boots he had got Leon to procure for him, to complete his disguise as a Haitian boy. Moreover, while the soap-weed wash at the fisherman's hut had whitened his skin, his face and hands still retained a smoky pallor which would take some time to wear off.
In order to gain admission at all, Stuart was compelled to give some hint as to his reasons for wishing to see the consul, and, as he did not wish to divulge anything of importance to the clerk,his explanation sounded as extravagant as it was vague. His father's name would have helped him, but Stuart did not feel justified in using it. For all he knew, his father might have reasons for not wishing to be known as conducting any such investigations. This compulsion of reserve confused the lad, and it was not surprising that the clerk went into the vice-consul's office with the remark:
"There's a ragged boy out here, who passes for white, with some wild-eyed story he says he has to tell you."
"I suppose I've got to see him," said the harassed official. "Send him in!"
This introduction naturally prejudiced the vice-consul against his visitor, and Stuart's appearance did not call for confidence. Moreover, the boy's manner was against him. He was excited and resentful over his brusque treatment by the clerk. Boy-like, he exaggerated his own importance. He was bursting with his subject.
In his embarrassed eagerness to capture the vice-consul's attention and to offset the unhappy first impression of his appearance, Stuart blurted out an incoherent story about secret meetings, and buried treasure and conspiracy, and plots in Haiti, all mixed together. His patriotic utterances, though absolutely sincere, rang with a note of insincerity to an official to whom the letters "U. S." were not the "open sesame" of liberty, but endless repetitions of his daily routine.
"What wild-cat yarn is this!" came the interrupting remark.
Stuart stopped, hesitated and looked bewildered. It had not occurred to him that the consular official would not be as excited as himself. He spluttered exclamations.
"There's a Haitian, and a Cuban, and an Englishman in a conspiracy against the United States! And they meet in a haunted citadel! And one said I was to kill the other! And I got away in a parachute. And they're going to do something, revolution, I believe, and——"
Undoubtedly, if the vice-consul had been willing to listen, and patient enough to calm the boy's excitement and unravel the story, its value would have been apparent. But his skeptical manner only threw Stuart more off his balance. The vice-consul was, by temperament, a man of routine, an efficient official but lacking in imagination. Besides, it was almost the end of office hours, and the day had been hot and sultry. He was only half-willing to listen.
"Tell your story, straight, from the beginning," he snapped.
Stuart tried to collect himself a little.
"It was the night of the Full Moon," he began, dramatically. "There was a voodoo dance, and the tom-tom began to beat, and——"
This was too much!
"You've been seeing too many movies, or reading dime-novel trash," the official flung back. "Besides, this isn't the place to come to. Go and tell your troubles to the consul at Port-au-Prince."
He rang to have the boy shown out.
The next visitor to the vice-consul, who had been cooling his heels in the outer office while Stuart was vainly endeavoring to tell his story, was the Special Correspondent of a New York paper. It was his habit to drop in from time to time to see the vice-consul and to get the latest official news to be cabled to his paper.
"I wish you'd been here half-an-hour ago, Dinville, and saved me from having to listen to a blood-and-thunder yarn about pirates and plots and revolutions and the deuce knows what!" the official exclaimed petulantly.
"From that kid who just went out?" queried the newspaper man casually, nosing a story, but not wanting to seem too eager.
"Yes, the little idiot! You'd think, from the way he talked, that the West Indies was just about ready to blow up!"
His bile thus temporarily relieved, the official turned to the matter in hand, and proceeded to give out such items of happenings at the consulate as would be of interest to the general public.
The newspaper man made his stay as brief as he decently could. He wanted to trace that boy. Finding out from the clerk that the boy had come in from the east by train, and, having noted for himself that the lad was in rags, the Special Correspondent—an old-time New York reporter—feltsure that the holder of the story must be hungry and that he did not have much money. Accordingly, he searched the nearest two or three cheap restaurants, and, sure enough, found Stuart in the third one he entered.
Ordering a cup of coffee and some pastry, the reporter seated himself at Stuart's table and deftly got into conversation with him. Inventing, for the moment, a piece of news which would turn the topic to Haiti, Dinville succeeding in making the boy tell him, as though by accident, that he had recently been in Haiti.
"So!" exclaimed the reporter. "Well, you seem to be a pretty keen observer. What did you think of things in Haiti when you left?"
Stuart was flattered—as what boy would not have been—by this suggestion that his political opinions were of importance, and he gave himself all the airs of a grown-up, as he voiced his ideas. Many of them were of real value, for, unconsciously, Stuart was quoting from the material he had found in his father's papers, when he had rescued them from Hippolyte.
Dinville led him on, cautiously, tickling his vanity the while, and, before the meal was over, Stuart felt that he had found a friend. He accepted an invitation to go up to the news office, so that his recently made acquaintance might take some notes of his ideas.
The news-gatherer had not been a reporter for nothing, and, before ten minutes had passed Stuartsuddenly realized that he was on the verge of telling the entire story, even to those things which he knew must be held back. Cecil's warning recurred to him, and he pulled up short.
"I guess I hadn't better say any more," he declared, suddenly, and wondered how much he had betrayed himself into telling.
Persuasion and further flattery failed, and the newspaper man saw that he must change his tactics.
"You were willing enough to talk to the vice-consul," he suggested.
"Yes, but I wasn't going to tell him everything, either," the boy retorted.
"You're not afraid to?"
Stuart's square chin protruded in its aggressive fashion.
"Afraid!" he declared contemptuously. Then he paused, and continued, more slowly, "Well, in a way, maybe I am afraid. I don't know all I've got hold of. Why—it might sure enough bring on War!"
Once on his guard, Stuart was as unyielding as granite. He feared he had said too much already. The reporter, shrewdly, suggested that some of Stuart's political ideas might be saleable newspaper material, handed him a pencil and some copy-paper.
The boy, again flattered by this subtle suggestion that he was a natural-born writer, coveredsheet after sheet of the paper. Dinville read it, corrected a few minor mistakes here and there, counted the words, and taking some money from his pocket, counted out a couple of bills and pushed them over to the boy.
"What's this for?" asked Stuart.
"For the story!" answered the reporter in well-simulated surprise. "Regular space rates, six dollars a column. I'm not allowed to give more, if that's what you mean."
"Oh, no!" was the surprised reply. "I just meant—I was ready to do that for nothing."
"What for?" replied his new friend. "Why shouldn't you be paid for it, just as well as anyone else? Come in tomorrow, maybe we can dope out some other story together."
A little more urging satisfied the rest of Stuart's scruples and he walked out from the office into the streets of Havana tingling with pleasure to his very toes. This was the first money he had ever earned and it fired him with enthusiasm to become a writer.
As soon as he had left, the reporter looked over the sheets of copy-paper, covered with writing in a boyish hand.
"Not so bad," he mused. "The kid may be able to write some day," and—dropped the sheets into the waste-paper basket.
Why had he paid for them, then? Dinville knew what he was about.
He reached for a sheet of copy-paper and wrote the following dispatch—
WHALE - OF - BIG - STORY. - INFORMANT - A - KID. - WORTH - SENDING - KID - NEW - YORK - PAPER'S - EXPENSE - IF - AUTHORIZED. - DINVILLE.
WHALE - OF - BIG - STORY. - INFORMANT - A - KID. - WORTH - SENDING - KID - NEW - YORK - PAPER'S - EXPENSE - IF - AUTHORIZED. - DINVILLE.
He filed it in the cable office without delay.
Before midnight he got a reply.
IF - KID - HAS - THE - GOODS - SEND - NEW - YORK - AT - ONCE.
IF - KID - HAS - THE - GOODS - SEND - NEW - YORK - AT - ONCE.
"Here," said Dinville aloud, as he read the cablegram, "is where Little Willie was a wise guy in buying that kid's story. He'll land in here tomorrow like a bear going to a honey-tree."
His diagnosis was correct to the letter. Early the next morning Stuart came bursting in, full of importance. He had spruced up a little, though the four dollars he had got from Dinville the night before was not sufficient for new clothes.
"Say," he said, the minute he entered the office, "Mr. Dinville, I've got a corker!"
"So?" queried the reporter, lighting a cigar and putting his feet on the desk in comfortable attitude for listening. "Fire away!"
With avid enthusiasm, Stuart plunged into a wild and woolly yarn which would have been looked upon with suspicion by the editor of a blood-and-thunder twenty-five-cent series.
The reporter cut him off abruptly.
"Kid," he said dryly, "the newspaper game is on the level. I don't say that you don't have togive a twist to a story, every once in a while, so that it'll be interesting, but it's got to be news.
"Get this into your skull if you're ever going to be a newspaper man: Every story you write has got to have happened, actually happened, to somebody, somewhere, at some place, at a certain time, for some reason. If it hasn't, it isn't a newspaper story. What's more, it must be either unusual or important, or it hasn't any value. Again, it must have happened recently, or it isn't news. And there's another rule. One big story is worth more than a lot of small ones.
"Now, look here. You've got a big story, a real news story, up your sleeve. It happened to you. It occurred at an unusual place. It has only just happened. It's of big importance. And the why seems to be a mystery. If you were a A Number One newspaper man, it would be your job to get on the trail of that story and run it down."
And then the reporter conceived the idea of playing on Stuart's sense of patriotism.
"That way," he went on, "it happens that there's no class of people that does more for its country than the newspaper men. They show up the crooks, and they can point out praise when public praise is due. They expose the grafters and help to elect the right man to office. They root out public evils and push reform measures through. They're Democracy, in type."
The words fanned the fire of Stuart's enthusiasm for a newspaper career.
"Yes," he said, excitedly, "yes, I can see that!"
"Take this story of yours—this plot that you speak about and are afraid to tell. You think it's planned against the United States'?"
"I'm sure it is!"
"Well, how are you going to run it down? How are you going to get all the facts in the case? Who can you trust to help you in this? Where are you going to get all the money that it will take? Why, Kid, if these conspirators you talk of have anything big up their sleeve, they could buy people right and left to put you off the track and you'd never get anywhere! On your own showing, they've just plumped you down here in Havana, where there's nothing doing."
"They sure have," admitted Stuart ruefully.
"Of course they have. Now, if you had one of the big American newspapers backing you up, one that you could put confidence in, it would be just as if you had the United States back of you, and you'd be part and parcel of that big power which is the trumpet-voice of Democracy from the Atlantic to the Pacific—the Press!"
The boy's eyes began to glisten with eagerness. Every word was striking home.
"But how could I do that?"
"You don't have to. It's already done!"
Stuart stared at his friend, in bewilderment.
"See here," he said, and he threw the cablegram on the table. "That paper is willing to pay any price for a big story, if it can be proved authentic. Proved, mind you, documents and all the rest of it. I cabled them to know if they wanted to see you, and, if they found what you had was the real goods, whether they would stake you. They cabled back, right away, that you were to go up there."
"Up where?"
"N'York."
"But I haven't money enough to go to New York!" protested Stuart.
"Who said anything about money? That's up to the paper. Your expenses both ways, and your expenses while you're in N'York, will all be paid."
"Are you sure?"
"Seeing that I'll pay your trip up there myself, and charge it up on my own expense account, of course I'm sure. There's a boat going tomorrow."
"But you couldn't get a berth for tomorrow," protested Stuart, though he was weakening. He had never been to New York, and the idea of a voyage there, with his fare and all his expenses paid, tempted him. Besides, as the reporter had suggested, it would be almost impossible for him to continue the quest of Manuel, Leborge and Cecil alone. More than that, the boy felt that, if he could get a big metropolitan paper to back him, he would be in a position to find and rescue his father.
"Can't get a berth? Watch me!" said the reporter, who was anxious to impress upon the ladthe importance of the press. And, sure enough, he came back an hour later, with a berth arranged for Stuart in the morrow's steamer. He also advanced money enough to the boy for a complete outfit of clothes. An afternoon spent in a Turkish bath restored to the erstwhile disguised lad his formerly white skin.
One sea-voyage is very much like another. Stuart made several acquaintances on board, one of them a Jamaican, and from his traveling companion, Stuart learned indirectly that Great Britain's plan of welding her West India possessions into a single colony was still a live issue. The boy, himself, remembering how easily he had been pumped by Dinville, was careful not to say a word about the purpose of his trip.
Thanks to Dinville's exact instructions, Stuart found the newspaper office without difficulty. The minute he stepped out of the elevator and on the floor, a driving expectancy possessed him. The disorderliness, the sense of tension, the combination of patient waiting and driving speed, the distant and yet perceptible smell of type metal and printers' ink, in short, the atmosphere of a newspaper, struck him with a sense of desire.
Although Stuart's instructions were to see the Managing Editor, the young fellow who came out to see what he wanted, brought him up to the City Editor's desk. The latter looked up quickly.
"Are you the boy Dinville cabled about?"
"Yes, sir," the boy answered. Here, though theCity Editor was ten times more commanding a personality than the vice-consul, the boy felt more at ease.
"Ever do any reporting?"
"No, sir."
"What's this story? Just the main facts!"
"Are you Mr. ——" the boy mentioned the name of the Managing Editor.
"I'll act for him," said the City Editor promptly.
Stuart's square chin went out.
"I came up to see him personally," he answered.
The City Editor knew men.
"That's the way to get an interview, my son," he said. "All right, I'll take you in to the Chief. If things don't go your way, come and see me before you go. I might try you on space, just to see how you shape. Dinville generally knows what he's talking about."
Stuart thanked him, and very gratefully, for he realized that the curt manner was merely that of an excessively busy man with a thousand things on his mind. A moment later, he found himself in the shut-in office of the Managing Editor.
"You are a youngster," he said with a cordial smile, emphasizing the verb, and shaking hands with the boy. "Well, that's the time to begin. Now, Lad, I've time enough to hear all that you've got to say that is important, and I haven't a second to listen to any frills. Tell everything thatyou think you have a right to tell and begin at the beginning."
During the voyage from Havana, Stuart had rehearsed this scene. He did not want to make the same mistake that he had made with the vice-consul, and he told his story as clearly as he could, bearing in mind the "Who," "What," "Why," "When" and "Where" of Dinville's advice.
The Managing Editor nodded approvingly.
"I think," he said reflectively, "you may develop the news sense. Of course, you've told a good deal of stuff which is quite immaterial, and, likely enough, some of the good bits you've left out. That's to be expected. It takes a great many years of training to make a first-class reporter.
"Now, let me see if I can guess a little nearer to the truth of this plot than you did.
"You say that the only three phrases you can be sure that you heard were 'Mole St. Nicholas,' 'naval base' and 'Panama.' That isn't much. Yet I think it is fairly clear, at that. The Mole St. Nicholas is a harbor in the north of Haiti which would make a wonderful naval base—in fact, there has already been some underground talk about it—and such a naval base would be mighty close to the Panama Canal. Suppose we start with the theory that this is what your conspirator chaps have in mind.
"Now, my boy, we have to find out some explanation for the meeting in so remote a place asthe Citadel. Those three men wouldn't have gone to all that trouble and risked all that chance of being discovered and exposed unless there were some astonishingly important reasons. What can these be? Well, if we are right in thinking that a naval base is what these fellows are after, it is sure that they would need a hinterland of country behind it. The Mole St. Nicholas, as I remember, is at the end of a peninsula formed by a range of mountains, the key to which is La Ferrière. So, to make themselves safe, they would need to control both at the same time. Hence the necessity of knowing exactly the defensive position of the Citadel. How does that sound to you?"
"I'd never thought of it, sir," said Stuart, "but the way you put it, just must be right. I was an idiot not to think of it myself."
"Age and experience count for something, Youngster," said the Managing Editor, smiling. "Don't start off by thinking that you ought to know as much as trained men."
Stuart flushed at the rebuke, for he saw that it was just.
"Now," continued the Editor, pursuing his train of thought, "we have to consider the personalities of the conspirators. You'll find, Stuart, if you go into newspaper work, that one of the first things to do in any big story, is to estimate, as closely as you can, the character of the men or women who are acting in it. Newspaper work doesn't deal with cold facts, like science, butwith humanity, and humans act in queer ways, sometimes. A good reporter has got to be a bit of a detective and a good deal of a psychologist. He's got to have an idea how the cat is going to jump, in order to catch him on the jump.
"Now, so far, we know that the conspirators are at least three in number. There may be more, but we know of three. One is a Haitian negro politician. One is a Cuban, who, from your description, seems to be a large-scale crook. One is an Englishman, and, in your judgment, he is of a different type from the other two. Yet the fact that he seems to possess an agent on the eastern shore of Cuba—which, don't forget, faces the Mole St. Nicholas—seems to suggest that he's deep in the plot."
He puffed his pipe for a moment or two, and then continued,
"Now, there are two powerful forces working underground in the West Indies. One is the Spanish and negro combination, which desires to shake off all the British, French and Dutch possessions, and to create a Creole Empire of the Islands. The other is an English plan, to weld all the British islands in the West Indies into a single Confederation and to buy as many of the smaller isles from France and Holland as may seem possible. Both are hostile to the extension of American power in the Gulf of Mexico. Possibly, some European power is back of this plot. A foreign naval base in the Mole St. Nicholas would be amenace to us, and one on which Washington would not look very kindly.
"So you see, Youngster, if such a thing as this were possible, it would be a big story, and one that ought to be followed up very closely."
"That's what Dinville seemed to think, sir," interposed the boy, "and I told him I didn't have the money."
"Nor have you the experience," added the Editor, dryly. "Money isn't any good, if you don't know how to use it."
He pondered for a moment.
"I can't buy the information from you," he said, "because, so far, the story isn't in shape to use, and I don't know when I will be able to use it. Yet I do want to have an option on the first scoop on the story. You know what a scoop is?"
"No, sir."
"A 'scoop' or a 'beat' means that one paper gets hold of a big story before any other paper has it. It is like a journalistic triumph, if you like, and a paper which gets 'scoops,' by that very fact, shows itself more wide awake than its competitors.
"Now, see here, Stuart. Suppose I agree to pay you a thousand dollars for the exclusive rights to all that you find out about the story, at what time it is ready for publication, and that I agree to put that thousand dollars to your account for you to draw on for expenses. How about that?"
Stuart was taken aback. He fairly stuttered,
"Why—sir, I—I——"
The Editor smiled at the boy's excited delight.
"You agree?"
"Oh, yes, sir!"
There was no mistaking the enthusiasm of the response.
"Very good. Then, in addition to that, I'll pass the word that you're to be put on the list for correspondence stuff. I'm not playing any favorites, you understand! Whatever you send in will be used or thrown out, according to its merits. And you'll be paid at the regular space rates, six dollars a column. All I promise is that you shall have a look in."
"But that's—that's great!"
"It's just a chance to show what you can do. If there's any stuff in you at all, here is an opportunity for you to become a high-grade newspaper man."
"Then I'm really on the staff!" cried the boy, "I'm really and truly a journalist?"
The Managing Editor nodded.
"Yes, if you like the word," he said, "make good, and you'll be really and truly a journalist."
For a couple of days, Stuart wandered about New York, partly sight-seeing and partly on assignments in company with some of the reporters of the paper. The City Editor wanted to determine whether the boy had any natural aptitude for newspaper work. So Stuart chased around one day with the man on the "police court run," another day he did "hotels" and scored by securing an interview with a noted visitor for whom the regular reporter had not time to wait. The boy was too young, of course, to be sent on any assignments by himself, but one of the older men took a fancy to the lad and took him along a couple of times, when on a big story.
Just a week later, on coming in to the office, Stuart was told that the Managing Editor wanted to see him. As this was the summons for which he had been waiting, Stuart obeyed with alacrity. The Managing Editor did not motion him to a a chair, as before, so the boy stood.
"First of all, Garfield——" and the boy noticed the use of the surname—"I want to tell you that your father is safe. We've been keeping the wireshot to Port-au-Prince and have found out that some one resembling the description you gave me of your father commandeered a sailing skiff at a small place near Jacamel and set off westward. Two days afterward, he landed at Guantanamo and registered at a hotel as 'James Garfield.' He stayed there two days and then took the train for Havana. So you don't need to worry over that, any more."
"Thank you, sir," answered the boy, relieved, "I'm mighty glad to know."
"Now," continued the Editor, "let us return to this question for which we brought you here. According to your story, you heard the conspirators say that their plans would be ready for fulfillment next spring."
"Yes, sir," the boy agreed, "Leborge said that."
"Good. Then there is no immediate need of pressing the case too closely. It will be better to let the plans mature a little. A mere plot doesn't mean much. News value comes in action. When something actually happens, then, knowing what lies behind it, the story becomes big.
"What we really want to find out is whether this plot—as it seems to be—is just a matter between two or three men, or if it is widely spread over all the islands of the West Indies. You're too young, as yet, for anything like regular newspaper work, but the fact that you're not much more than a youngster might be turned to advantage. No one would suspect that you were in quest of political information.
"So I'm going to suggest that you make a fairly complete tour of the islands, this fall and early winter, just as if you were idling around, apparently, but, at the same time, keeping your ears and your eyes open. In order to give color to your roamings, you can write us some articles on 'Social Life and the Color Line in the West Indies' as you happen to see it. First-hand impressions are always valuable, and, perhaps, the fact that you see them through a boy's eyes may give them a certain novelty and freshness. Of course, the articles will probably have to be rewritten in the office. By keeping a copy of the stuff you send, and comparing it with the way the articles appear in the paper, you'll get a fair training.
"We'll probably handle these in the Sunday Edition, and I'm going to turn you over to the Sunday Editor, to whom you'll report, in future."
He nodded pleasantly to the boy in token of dismissal.
"I wish you luck on your trip," he said, "and see that you send us in the right kind of stuff!"
Stuart thanked him heartily for his kindness, and went out, sorry that he was not going to deal with the Chief himself.
The Sunday Editor's office was a welter of confusion. As Stuart was to find out, in the years to come when he should really be a newspaperman, the Sunday Editor's job is a hard one. It is much sought, since it is day work rather than night work, but it is a wearing task. The Sunday Editor must have all the qualities of a magazine man and a newspaper man at the same time. He must also have the creative faculty.
In such departments of a modern newspaper as the City, Telegraph, Sporting, Financial, etc., the work of the reporters and editors is to chronicle and present the actual news. If nothing of vital interest has happened during the day, that is not their fault. Their work is done when the news is as well covered and as graphically told as possible.
There are no such limits in the Sunday Editor's office. He must create interest, provoke sensation, and build the various extra sections of the Sunday issue into a paper of such vital importance that every different kind of reader will find something to hold his attention. He has all the world to choose from, but he has also all the world to please. The work, too, must be done at high pressure, for the columns of a Sunday issue to be filled are scores in number, and the Sunday staff of any paper—even the biggest—is but small.
Fergus, the Sunday Editor, was a rollicking Irishman, with red hair and a tongue hung in the middle. He talked, as his ancestors fought, all in a hurry. He was a whirlwind for praise, but a tornado for blame. His organizing capacity was marvelous, and his men liked and respected him, for they knew well that he could write rings aroundany one of them, in a pinch. He began as the boy entered the door,
"Ye're Stuart Garfield, eh? Ye don't look more'n about a half-pint of a man. Does the Chief think I'm startin' a kindergarten? Not that I give a hang whether ye're two or eighty-two so long as ye can write. Ye'll go first to Barbados. Steamer sails tomorrow at eight in the morning. Here's your berth. Here's a note to the cashier. Letter of instructions following. Wait at the Crown Hotel, Bridgetown, till you get it. Don't write if ye haven't anything to say. Get a story across by every mail-boat. If ye send me rot, I'll skin ye. Good luck!"
And he turned to glance over his shoulder at a copy-boy who had come in with a handful of slips, proofs and the thousand matters of the editor's daily grind.
Stuart waited two or three minutes, expecting Fergus to continue, but the Sunday Editor seemed to have forgotten his existence.
"Well, then, good-by, Mr. Fergus," said the boy, hesitatingly.
"Oh, eh? Are ye there still? Sure. Good-by, boy, good-by an' good luck to ye!"
And plunged back into his work.
There seemed nothing else for Stuart to do but to go out of the office. In the hall outside, he paused and wondered. He held in his hand the two slips of paper that Fergus had given him, and he stared down at these with bewilderment.Fergus' volley of speech, had taken him clean off his balance.
There was no doubt about the reality of these two slips of paper. One was the ticket for his berth and the other had the figures "$250" scrawled across a printed form made out to the Cashier, and it was signed "Rick Fergus."
In his uncertainty what he ought to do, Stuart went into the City Room and hunted up his friend the reporter. To him he put the causes of his confusion. The old newspaper man smiled.
"That's Rick Fergus, all over," he said. "Good thing you didn't ask him any questions! He'd have taken your head off at one bite. He's right, after all. If a reporter's any good at all, he knows himself what to do. A New York paper isn't fooling around with amateurs, generally. But, under the circumstances, I think Rick might have told you something. Let's see. How about your passport?"
"I've got one," said Stuart, "I had to have one, coming up from Cuba."
"If you're going to Barbados, you'll have to have it viséed by the British Consul."
"But that will take a week, maybe, and I've got to sail tomorrow!"
"Is that all your trouble?"
He stepped to the telephone.
"Consulate? Yes?New York Planetspeaking. One of our men's got to chase down to Barbados on a story. Sending him round this afternoon.Will you be so good as to visé him through? Ever so much obliged; thanks!"
He put up the receiver and turned to the boy.
"Easy as easy, you see," he said. "The name of a big paper like this one will take you anywhere, if you use it right. Now, let's see. You'll want to go and see the Cashier. Come on down, I'll introduce you."
A word or two at the Cashier's window, and the bills for $250 were shoved across to Stuart, who pocketed them nervously. He had never seen so much money before.
"Next," said the reporter, "you'd better get hold of some copy-paper, a bunch of letter-heads and envelopes. Also some Expense Account blanks. Stop in at one of these small printing shops and have some cards printed with your name and that of the paper—here, like mine!" And he pulled out a card from his card case and gave it to the boy for a model.
Stuart was doing his best to keep up with this rapid change in his fortunes, but, despite himself, his eyes looked a bit wild. His friend the reporter saw it, and tapped him on the back.
"You haven't got any time to lose," he said. "Oh, yes, there's another thing, too. Can you handle a typewriter?"
"No," answered the boy, "at least, I never tried."
"Then you take my tip and spend some of that $250 on a portable machine and learn tohandle it, on the way down to Barbados. You'll have to send all your stuff typewritten, you know. Imagine Fergus getting a screed from a staff man in longhand!"
The reporter chuckled at the thought.
"Why, I believe the old red-head would take a trip down to the West Indies just to have a chance of saying what he thought. Or, if he couldn't go, he'd blow up, and we'd be out a mighty good Sunday Editor. No, son, you've got to learn to tickle a typewriter!"
They had not been wasting time during this talk, for the reporter had taken out of his own desk the paper, letter-heads, expense account blanks and the rest and handed them over to the boy, explaining that he could easily replenish his own supply.
"Now," he suggested, "make tracks for the consulate. Stop at a printer's on your way and order some cards. Then chase back and buy yourself a portable typewriter. And, if I were you, I'd start learning it, right tonight. Then, hey! Off for the West Indies again, eh?"
"But don't I go and say good-by to the City Editor, or the Managing Editor, or anyone?"
"What for? You've got your berth, you've got your money, you're going to get your passport, and you've got your assignment. Nothing more for you to do, Son, except to get down there and deliver the goods."
He led the way out of the office and to the elevator. On reaching the street, he turned to the boy.
"There's one thing," he said, "that may help you, seeing that you're new to the work. When you get down to Barbados, drop into the office of the biggest paper there. Chum up with the boys. They'll see that you're a youngster, and they'll help you all they can. You'll find newspaper men pretty clannish, the world over. Well, good-bye, Garfield, I won't be likely to see you again before you go. I've got that Traction Swindle to cover and there's going to be a night hearing."
The boy shook hands with real emotion.
"You've been mighty good to me," he said, "it's made all the difference to my stay in New York."
"Oh! That's all right!" came the hearty reply. "Well—good luck!"
He turned down the busy street and, in a moment, was lost in the crowd.
For a moment Stuart felt a twinge of loneliness, but the afternoon was short, and he had a great deal to do. It was only by hurrying that he was able to get done all the various things that had been suggested. Despite his rush, however, the boy took time to send a cable to his father, telling of his own safety, for he had no means of knowing whether or not his father might be worrying over him also. He worked until midnight learning the principles of the typewriter and, in a poky sort of way, trying to hammer out the guidesentences given him in the Instruction Book. Next day found him again at sea.
In contrast with the riotous vegetation of the jungles of Haiti and the tropical forests of Eastern Cuba, Stuart found the country around Bridgetown, the sole harbor of Barbados, surprisingly unattractive. The city itself was active and bustling, but dirty, dusty and mean. On the other hand, the suburbs, with villas occupied by the white residents, were remarkable for their marvelous gardens.
On the outskirts of the town, and all over the island, in rows or straggling clumps which seemed to have been dropped down anywhere, Stuart saw the closely clustered huts of the negroes. These were tiny huts of pewter-gray wood, raised from the ground on a few rough stones and covered by a roof of dark shingles. They were as simple as the houses a child draws on his slate—things of two rooms, with two windows and one door. The windows had sun shutters in place of glass and there were no chimneys, for the negro housewives do their cooking out of doors in the cool of the evening. The boy noticed that, by dark, all these windows and doors were closed tightly, for the Barbadian negro sleeps in an air-tight room. He does this, ostensibly, to keep out ten-inch-long centipedes, and bats, but, in reality, to keep out "jumbies" and ghosts, of which he is much more afraid.