Cabbages and Kings | Page 7

the mouths of people that they've
never been introduced to by writers of imagination. The magazines
invented it, but I never knew before that President Norvin Green had
stamped it with the seal of his approval. 'Tis now no longer literature,
but language. The dictionaries tried, but they couldn't make it go for
anything but dialect. Sure, now that the Western Union indorses it, it
won't be long till a race of people will spring up that speaks it."
"You're running too much to philology, Billy," said Goodwin. "Do you
make out the meaning of it?"
"Sure," replied the philosopher of Fortune. "All languages come easy to

the man who must know 'em. I've even failed to misunderstand an order
to evacuate in classical Chinese when it was backed up by the muzzle
of a breech-loader. This little literary essay I hold in my hands means a
game of Fox-in-the-Morning. Ever play that, Frank, when you was a
kid?"
"I think so," said Goodwin, laughing. "You join hands all 'round, and--"
"You do not," interrupted Keogh. "You've got a fine sporting game
mixed up in your head with 'All Around the Rosebush.' The spirit of
'Fox-in-the-Morning' is opposed to the holding of hands. I'll tell you
how it's played. This president man and his companion in play, they
stand up over in San Mateo, ready for the run, and shout:
"Fox-in-the-Morning!' Me and you, standing here, we say: 'Goose and
Gander!' They say: 'How many miles is it to London town?' We say:
'Only a few, if your legs are long enough. How many comes out?' They
say: 'More than you're able to catch.' And then the game commences."
"I catch the idea," said Goodwin. "It won't do to let the goose and
gander slip through your fingers, Billy; their feathers are too valuable.
Our crowd is prepared and able to step into the shoes of the government
at once; but with the treasury empty we'd stay in power about as long as
a tenderfoot would stick on an untamed bronco. We must play the fox
on every foot of the coast to prevent their getting out of the country."
"By the mule-back schedule," said Keogh, "it's five days down from
San Mateo. We've got plenty of time to set our outposts. There's only
three places on the coast where they can hope to sail from--here and
Solitas and Alazan. They're the only points we'll have to guard. It's as
easy as a chess problem--fox to play, and mate in three moves. Oh,
goosey, goosey, gander, whither do you wander? By the blessing of the
literary telegraph the boodle of this benighted fatherland shall be
preserved to the honest political party that is seeking to overthrow it."
The situation had been justly outlined by Keogh. The down trail from
the capital was at all times a weary road to travel. A jiggety- joggety
journey it was; ice-cold and hot, wet and dry. The trail climbed
appalling mountains, wound like a rotten string about the brows of

breathless precipices, plunged through chilling snow-fed streams, and
wriggled like a snake through sunless forests teeming with menacing
insect and animal life. After descending to the foothills it turned to a
trident, the central prong ending at Alazan. Another branched off to
Coralio; the third penetrated to Solitas. Between the sea and the
foothills stretched the five miles breadth of alluvial coast. Here was the
flora ofthe tropics in its rankest and most prodigal growth. Spaces here
and there had been wrested from the jungle and planted with bananas
and cane and orange groves. The rest was a riot of wild vegetation, the
home of monkeys, tapirs, jaguars, alligators, and prodigious reptiles
and insects. Where no road was cut a serpent could scarcely make its
way through the tangle of vines and creepers. Across the treacherous
mangrove swamps few things without wings could safely pass.
Therefore the fugitives could hope to reach the coast only by one of the
routes named.
"Keep the matter quiet, Billy," advised Goodwin. "We don't want the
Ins to know that the president is in flight. I suppose Bob's information
is something of a scoop in the capital as yet. Otherwise he would not
have tried to make his message a confidential one; and, besides,
everybody would have heard the news. I'm going around now to see Dr.
Zavalla, and start a man up the trail to cut the telegraph wire."
As Goodwin rose, Keogh threw his hat upon the grass by the door and
expelled a tremendous sigh.
"What's the trouble, Billy?" asked Goodwin, pausing. "That's the first
time I heard you sigh."
"'Tis the last," said Keogh. "With that sorrowful puff of wind I resign
myself to a life of praiseworthy but harassing honesty. What are
tintypes, if you