"It took me and Denver about a week to get acclimated.Denver sent out the letters the General had given him, and notified the rest of the gang that there was something doing at the captain's office.We set up headquarters in an old 'dobe house on a side street where the grass was waist high.The election was only four weeks off; but there wasn't any excitement.The home candidate for president was named Roadrickeys.This town of Esperitu wasn't the capital any more than Cleveland, Ohio, is the capital of the United States, but it was the political centre where they cooked up revolutions, and made up the slates.
"At the end of the week Denver says the machine is started running.
"'Sully,' says he, 'we've got a walkover.Just because General Rompiro ain't Don Juan-on-the-spot the other crowd ain't at work.They're as full of apathy as a territorial delegate during the chaplain's prayer.
Now, we want to introduce a little hot stuff in the way of campaigning, and we'll surprise 'em at the polls.'
"'How are you going to go about it?' I asks.
"'Why, the usual way,' says Denver, surprised.'We'll get the orators on our side out every night to make speeches in the native lingo, and have torch-light parades under the shade of the palms, and free drinks, and buy up all the brass bands, of course, and--well, I'll turn the baby-kissing over to you, Sully--I've seen a lot of 'em.'
"'What else?' says I.
"'Why, you know,' says Denver.'We get the heelers out with the crackly two-spots, and coal-tickets, and orders for groceries, and have a couple of picnics out under the banyan-trees, and dances in the Firemen's Hall--and the usual things.But first of all, Sully, I'm going to have the biggest clam-bake down on the beach that was ever seen south of the tropic of Capricorn.I figured that out from the start.We'll stuff the whole town and the jungle folk for miles around with clams.That's the first thing on the programme.Suppose you go out now, and make the arrangements for that.I want to look over the estimates the General made of the vote in the coast districts.'
"I had learned some Spanish in Mexico, so I goes out, as Denver says, and in fifteen minutes I come back to headquarters.
"'If there ever was a clam in this country nobody ever saw it,' I says.
"'Great sky-rockets!' says Denver, with his mouth and eyes open.'No clams? How in the--who ever saw a country without clams? What kind of a--how's an election to be pulled off without a clam-bake, I'd like to know? Are you sure there's no clams, Sully?'
"'Not even a can,' says I.
"'Then for God's sake go out and try to find what the people here do eat.We've got to fill 'em up with grub of some kind.'
"I went out again.Denver was manager.In half an hour I gets back.
"'They eat,' says I, 'tortillas, cassava, carne de chivo, arroz con pollo, aquacates, zapates, yucca, and huevos fritos.'
"'A man that would eat them things,' says Denver, getting a little mad, 'ought to have his vote challenged.'
"In a few more days the campaign managers from the other towns came sliding into Esperitu.Our headquarters was a busy place.We had an interpreter, and ice-water, and drinks, and cigars, and Denver flashed the General's roll so often that it got so small you couldn't have bought a Republican vote in Ohio with it.
"And then Denver cabled to General Rompiro for ten thousand dollars more and got it.
