"See here, Doc," says I, "how am I going to manufacture good new blood, without the raw material? Just let me have a half-a-dozen eggs and a hunk of bacon and a loaf of bread, and I'll do credit to you." He snorted at the idea, but I begged so hard he says at last: "Well, all right; you are the toughest piece of humanity I ever struck; maybe it _will_ do you good." When I got outside that first square meal, William De La Tour Saunders felt less naked and ashamed inside of him, and proceeded to get better a mile a minute. The fourth day I could sit up and hear Jim tell me all about it. He had found a feller in the camp preaching revolution. For some time this had been expected. It was known that a General Zampeto was setting up for President, and it was also known that Belknap was backing him, although he took great care not to be mixed in it by name. But Zampeto and Belknap had fooled our crowd plenty, by being all ready for action when it was supposed they were just starting in. When Jim caught and thumped that first revolutionist, he tumbled at once that things were about to boil, so he flew for help. His camp was a sort of turning-point. The two sides were about evenly divided as to forces, and, as Jim worked nearly three hundred men, it meant a great deal which side they fought on. Jim's men were mainly peaceful, quiet fellows, like Gonzales and that other feller--(Pepe something-or-other--I don't know as I ever learned his full name)--and Jim had great authority with them. If the rebels smashed Jim on the start, his men would fall in on the winning side, or at worst remain neutral. Neither Zampeto nor Jim had the least idea they'd fight hard--it was just the moral effect of it, and then, too, the supplies in the store were valuable. Jim could have rounded up enough of the boys to lick the hide off this gang of rebels, if it wasn't, as I said, that, knowing 'em to be nice quiet lads, like Pedro, he felt sure they'd quit in a mess. "And never will I be such a fool as that again," says Jim. "I knew you'd give 'em war, but to think of Pedro! I told him to run and save himself!" Our boys, being scattered and without a leader, simply had to submit to being chased out of the country. Chance led Gonzales and Pepe to fly to the store. So much for us. No one knew what was doing in Panama. The country was full of rebels around us, and Jim found himself too busy gathering an army to ride to town and see. He finally had some three or four hundred men, armed after a fashion, that he drilled from morning till night. And here was I, stuck in bed! Doc wouldn't let me try the game leg, although I felt sure it would hold me. "You stay there till I tell you," says he, "and then you'll get up and be useful; if you try now, you'll only go back again to be a nuisance to your friends."