They said "how," and drank. After which Stone asked what the military were going to do about certain things which he specified, and implied the inability of the military to do anything for any one. Landor smiled indolently and said "Quien sabe?" Stone wished to be told if any one ever did know and suggested, acridly, that if the by-word of the Mexican were poco-tiempo, that of the troops was certainly quien-sabe? Between the two the citizen got small satisfaction. "I don't know," objected Landor; "you get the satisfaction of beginning the row pretty generally--as you did this time--and of saying what you think about us in unmistakable language after we have tried to put things straight for you." Stone considered his dignity as a representative of the press, and decided that he would not be treated with levity. He would resent the attitude of the soldiery; but in his resentment he passed the bounds of courtesy altogether, forgetting whose toddy he had just drunk, and beneath whose tent pole he was seated. He said rude things about the military,--that it was pampered and inefficient and gold laced, and that it thought its mission upon earth fulfilled when it sat back and drew princely pay. Landor recalled the twenty years of all winter campaigns, dry camps, forced marches, short rations, and long vigils and other annoyances that are not put down in the tactics, and smiled again, with a deep cynicism. Barnwell sat silent. He sympathized with Stone because his interests lay that way, but he was somewhat unfortunately placed between the military devil and the political deep sea. Stone was something of a power in Tucson politics, and altogether a great man upon the territorial stump. He was proud of his oratory, and launched into a display of it now, painting luridly the wrongs of the citizen, who, it appeared, was a defenceless, honest, law-abiding child of peace, yet passed his days in seeing his children slaughtered, his wife tortured, his ranches laid waste, and himself shot down and scalped. Landor tried to interpose a suggestion that though the whole effect was undoubtedly good and calculated to melt a heart of iron, the rhetoric was muddled; but the reporter swept on; so he clasped his hands behind his head and leaning back against a tent pole, yawned openly. Stone came to an end at length, and had to mop his head with a very much bordered handkerchief. The temperature was a little high for so much effort. He met Landor's glance challengingly. "Well done!" the officer commended. "But considering how it has heated you, you ought to have saved it for some one upon whom it would have had its effect--some one who wasn't round at the time of the Aravaypa Cañon business, for instance." The Agency man thought a question would not commit him. He had not been round at that time, and he asked for information. The lieutenant gave it to him.