But now other equally annoying thorns in the flesh had made a hideout of those same inaccessible mountains—defeated aspirants for the presidency of the Republic, always generals, took to gathering groups of malcontents and mercenary adventurers in these mountain depths, defying the troops sent to rout them out, and proving the latest source of trouble in the political problems of the authorities.
Jack soon completed his preparations for abandoning their ship. He looked it all over, to satisfy himself its camouflage would prevent it from being sighted by any air pilot chancing to pass overhead at a reasonable altitude then he gathered a few articles, the possession of which might turn out to be of value when it came to closing the mouth of the bag and finally announced himself as ready to make a move.
“Got all you wanted, Perk?” he inquired, incidentally, for he had reason to feel certain such was the case.
“Yeah! from the binoculars an’ my rifle, down to what’s left o’ the eats,” the other assured him. “Guess we’ll get along somehow or other.”
“Oh! don’t bother your head about the grub part, comrade; I’m carrying a small packet with me that holds enough to keep two men alive for a whole week—all we’ll have to do is to run across some sort of spring, where we can get all the drinking water we’ll need, while we wait for the wagon.”
“Huh! in this case you’re meanin’ a _hearse_, ’cause mebbe we’ll have to shoot him up afore he calls quits,” and Perk grinned horribly at his own wit.
So they left the ship stranded there, sprawled out like a gigantic dragon-fly or a monstrous toad. If Fortune proved kind they might yet live to make good use of it again when the time came to fly back to God’s country on the other side of the border where defeated candidates are in the habit of accepting the dictum of the voters, and retiring from the field of battle await the next call to arms, with ballots instead of bullets as their method of settling elections.
Side by side they set forth, like a pair of adventurers starting out in search of Fortune’s smiles, and careless alike as to whether they met with success or not, so long as the excitement they craved came their way.
Perk managed to conceal the chagrin with which he buckled down to his unwelcome task, walking always gave him a pain, mental rather than physical but on the whole he was a good scout, and could follow the beckoning finger of duty, even though he loathed the conditions attached to the performance of his role.