"You would steal Uncle Sam's groceries and go skylarking off to start trouble in the cute little republic of San Salvador, would you?" playfully remarked a sergeant of marines. "I never had a chance to talk plain to a real live general. Step lively, now. No impudence."
The general was permitted to get his personal baggage, after which the marines escorted him to the Dauntless, where his fallen fortunes met with little sympathy. He was a sullen, despondent figure and not a trace of his pompous bearing was left.
The sea was so smooth and the weather indications so favorable that it was decided to salvage the cargo of the Juan Lopez. Her arms and munitions and supplies were valuable and would be confiscated by the American government after due process of the law. The transfer had to be made in small boats, and was a task requiring two or three days. The Juan Lopez was hopelessly stranded. She would soon go to pieces, a melancholy memorial of a Spanish-American revolution that was nipped in the bud.
Walter Goodwin was in danger of being spoiled by the marines who petted and pampered him, and were never tired of hearing him spin the yarn of his adventures which began with the episode of the parrot and the broomstick. Their surgeon attended to the injured arm, and found that it was little the worse for the rough usage of the voyage. His verdict was so encouraging that Walter could hope to play base-ball before the Isthmian League finished its winter season.
This aroused violent argument on board the Dauntless. A war of words raged over Walter's services as a pitcher. Jack Devlin set up a claim in behalf of Culebra, because he had engineered the rescue.
"All obligations to Naughton and those other Cristobal robbers are wiped out," cried he. "If I hadn't set out to find you and stuck to it like a terrier at a rat-hole, where would you be now?"
"Camp Elliot has a pretty fast nine," chimed in the captain of marines, "and Goodwin fairly belongs to us. Didn't we have a lot to do with getting him back?"
"I really belong to Cristobal—" Walter tried to explain, but Devlin cut the discussion short by declaring:
"We'll put it up to Colonel Gunther for a decision."
After one of these good-natured altercations, Walter called the steam-shovel man aside and anxiously told him: