the dogs, the curs of the camp, snarling and laughing and gurgling like a pack of hyenas. To this preoccupation of man and dog may be ascribed the ensuing catastrophe. For suddenly, close, so close that the vibration of it could be felt, but muffled in the impenetrability of the jungle, a shot rang out. This was followed by a crepitating volley; a buzz of lead passed overhead. Silently, with a minimum of movement, the ladrones, as if at a preconceived signal, slid across the clearing and into the wilderness beyond. Just at that psychological moment, the widow caught up with Gato. Calmly, dexterously, as one spanks a child, she upset him, face down, and resolutely sat upon him. Then, readjusting her skirts about her limbs and her spectacles upon her nose, she grimly waited. Shouts came to her ears, a hewing and hacking of bushes, a crackling of bamboo. Vague brown spots appeared against the metallic green foliage; they massed, detached themselves and burst into the clearing--a detachment of constabulary. At their head, charging furiously, was a lieutenant, slender and boyish, in accoutrement ridiculously new. He was enjoying himself immensely. A fine ardour was in his face; his cap was off, his hair streaming in the wind; he held a naked sword extended up and forward in statuesque gesture. Across the clearing he came, straight as a bee; his eyes flashing, his nostrils distended, all a-thrill with military glory. And suddenly he was nose to nose with the widow, who had slowly risen and now confronted him majestically, her foot upon the luckless Papa Gato. An extraordinary change came over the young warrior. His martial excitement, his keen zest, his bravado collapsed; his sword dropped till its point touched the ground; his flaming uniform took on cringing folds. "Mamma!" he cried, a little wistfully. "Boy," shouted the widow; "boy, what are you doing here! Quick, give me this"--she snatched the sword from his hand--"that also"--she whisked the revolver out of his holster. "Oh, that child, that child," she wailed. Out in the jungle there were cries, hollow and muffled in the crape of vegetation; a few shots rang, dull as if underground. Three or four bullets whirred overhead. "Down! Down!" cried the widow; "down, boy"--and her iron claw sank into his shoulder, bearing him down, and unresistingly he fell upon the luckless Gato. "That's right, sit on him," the widow whispered hoarsely; "and don't you move, don't you budge. My God, if only I can get you out of this----" She turned toward the jungle, straight to her full height, a strange, inflexible figure with the sabre in her right hand, the revolver in her left; a heroic figure, really, keeping guard there upon her boy, her son, her baby, her treasure in life; the object upon which had flowed all her wealth of love, of tenderness, leaving her, soul and body, arid and sterile and bitter and awesome.