Three jaded men sat around the fire. Like the fire, their conversation had flamed and gone out. They gazed into the darkening embers, mused on the strangeness of some things and speculated on the final solution of the problem which was theirs by reason of their present whereabouts. A palm tree, which had never before enjoyed the company of a four-wheeled vehicle, stood sentinel over an automobile, from whose tonneau protruded the feet of a folded and, presumably, sleeping figure. On a bed of brush slumbered the only one of the party who was native to the country and thereby accustomed to its lack of things comfortable. The others had abandoned this bed on which they could not sleep, had scoured the unfamiliar woods for fuel and had amused themselves by keeping an unnecessary fire ablaze, for the mere companionship of its warmth and for its light, which drove away the trepidation of loneliness. There was no noise, except the strange sounds from the underbrush and palm forests. The strangers were ourselves. The native was our interpreter. We were thirty miles from Havana, Cuba. In our sleepy thoughts, Cuba was a mighty big place, Havana far away and our own homes as distant and chimerical as the moon. The moon did not shine on that part of Cuba that night. We were a discouraged bunch, with only a few stars on which to hang our sense of location. Our hopes were in cold storage. We marveled at the wildness of a land that was figuratively but a few steps from the gay and careless Havana. We laughed hysterically at the recollection of our day’s performance in bringing the car over the roadless country whose stone trails are followed only by ox carts and ponies. Remembering we were bound across the island to one of the oldest of its very old towns, we realized that, when dawn should raise the curtain on the scene night had shut out, we would be almost up against the impossible. However, we did not seek to pry into the future. We simply tried to neglect it. We were not sure where we were and we did not care very much, because it made no difference. It was just about as hard to get into and out of one place as another. We had learned much about Cuba in a few hours. We imitated sleep with apathy. Occasionally, we tried to bring the real world back to us, by noisily gathering more fallen palm bark for the fire. Palm bark makes a poor fire for the cheering of lonely spirits. It is a fickle stimulant, the effect being great while it lasts, but it does not last long enough to give any real comfort. The dead, dark, cold night was depressing. We were startled like children when the thundering of near-by hoofs awoke us to the fact that we were no longer alone. The insurgents were busy in Cuba just then and we had not been there long enough to learn that Cuba and insurgents are not bad, but just naughty. The disturbers were as surprised as we. One was a country doctor who was riding miles to visit a stricken “spiggotie” in some distant hut.