"There goes the good old Denver, Mike. I guess she'll reach the fighting grounds before we do."
"Don't let that be for worryin' of ye, Dick, me lad," responded Corporal Dorlan. "We'll be havin' a bellyful of it, I'm thinkin', if all signs is correct. Nevertheless, she was one of the foinest little crafts I've ever served on, and they was a grand lot of Navy officers on her, too; but I'm glad to git back to the Corps again. I'm a marine, Dick, through and through, and though I get along with them Navy men well enough, I like to serve with me own kind best of all."
The old veteran and young drummer were standing on the wharf at Cristobal, at the Atlantic end of the ten-mile stretch of land across the Isthmus of Panama known as the Canal Zone, which by treaty with the Panamanian Government had come under perpetual control of the United States. Fading away in the dim distance was the ship which for many months had been Dick's official home. Diverted from her original orders, she had put in at Cristobal long enough to land all her marines, with the exception of Henry Cabell, who was still under the surgeon's care; and now she was bound for Bluefields, on the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua. In order to fill existing vacancies in a regiment of marines hurrying to the scene of action on board the Naval Transport Dixie, which ship was just appearing above the distant horizon, the guard of the Denver had been unceremoniously "dumped on the beach," as the men put it.
There was no question that the revolution in progress, most active on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, was a lively one. Marines were being assembled from all available points, even reducing the guard at Camp Elliott to a mere skeleton detachment. These men from the Zone were the first to leave for Nicaragua, and the army men stationed there had watched them depart with feelings of envy.
"Blame it all! Those marines are always getting into something. I'll bet I take on with that outfit the next time I sign up," more than one regular army "file" had been heard to say.
And that first lot of "soldiers of the sea" had already met with opposition. Even now they were somewhere between Corinto and the capital city, Managua. If they found the rails torn up, they repaired them; bridges burned, they built new ones temporarily. They were threatened with annihilation if they interfered, yet they continued with a dauntless, young and able leader at their head, relieving the fears of the foreigners in the interior and keeping the single line of railroad back to their base in fairly good order. Only this very audacity could assure the success of their undertaking, and also a possible misunderstanding on the part of Federals and Rebels as to which side "these interfering Yankees" were really there to help, though it was the bearers of the red rosettes who actively opposed their progress. American financial interests were jeopardized, and underlying all the fuss and furor were greater stakes than the general public realized.
Perhaps Drummer Richard Comstock and Trumpeter Cabell, in a talk before they separated that morning, were closer to the real reason for this strong force being despatched than were even the best informed officers of the expedition.
"I reckon a certain conversation you all overheard in Washington a year ago is bearing fruit," suggested Henry, looking up from his bunk in the sick bay where Dick had gone to visit him.
"It looks that way," Dick had replied.
"Well, if you run across a certain German and a three-fingered Limey,[#] Dick, you'll do well to keep an eye open. I sure wish I could go with you all, but we'll get together again before long; so good-bye, old boy, and good luck," and Henry turned to the wall to cover the emotion this separation caused him. Thus they had parted.