"Lay off that stuff!" growled Tim, head forward and jaw out. "If ye want trouble come and git it like a man, not sneak up with a grin and then clinch. Don't reach for no knife, now, or I'll drill ye--" "Tim!" barked the black-haired one. "Ten-_shun_!" Automatically Tim's head snapped erect and his shoulders went back. He relaxed again almost at once. But in the meantime the tall man had stepped forward and faced the raging representative of the government of Brazil. "Pardon, comrade," he said with an engaging smile. "My friend is a stranger to Brazil and not acquainted with your manner of welcome. In our own country men never put the arm around one another except in combat. He has been a soldier. You are a soldier. So you can understand that a fighting man may be a little abrupt when he does not understand." The smile, the apology, and most of all the subtle flattery of being treated as an equal by a man whose manner betokened the North American army officer, mollified the aggrieved official at once. The hot gleam died out of his eyes. Punctiliously he saluted. The salute was as punctiliously returned. "It is forgotten, Capitao. As the capitao says, we soldiers are sometimes overquick. I come to give you welcome to Remate de Males. My services are at your disposal." "We thank you. Why do you call me capitao?" "My eyes know a capitao when they see him." "But this is not a military expedition, my friend. Nor are any of us soldiers now--though we all have been." "Once a capitao, always a capitao," the Brazilian insisted. Then he hinted: "If the capitao and his friends wish to call upon the superintendente they will find him in the intendencia, the blue building beyond the hotel. It will soon be closed for the day." The tall American's keen gray eyes roved down the street to the weather-beaten house whose peeling walls once might have been blue. He nodded shortly. "Better go down there," he said. "Come on, Merry. Tim, stick here and keep an eye on the stuff. And don't start another war while we're gone." "Right, Cap." Tim deftly swung his rifle to his right shoulder. "I'll walk me post in a military manner, keepin' always on the alert and observin' everything that takes place within sight or hearin', accordin' to Gin'ral Order Number Two. There won't be no war unless somebody starts somethin'. Hey, there, buddy, would ye smoke a God's-country cigarette if I give ye one?" "_Si_," grinned the soldier-policeman, all animosity gone. And as the other two men tramped away through the mud they also grinned, looking back at the North and the South American pacing side by side in sentry-go, blowing smoke and conversing like brothers in arms. "Tim likes to remember his 'general orders,' but he's forgotten Number Five," laughed the blond man. "Five? 'To talk to no one except in line of duty.' Don't need it here, Merry."