TIBERIUS SMITH
in their tastes and will gladly devour their grandparents when the larder is low; but we won't plan on becoming chummy with them, and I guess we can turn the trick without figuring in a salad. While they are not a jovial, whole-souled people, they are, thank Heavens, few in number. For see, the census returns show that in all the State of Amazonas, with its seven hundred and thirty-two thousand, two hundred and fifty square miles, the population is but two-tenths of a person per mile. That's what I call a scattered population. When you figure out the squaws and children, it would be queer if we couldn't easily dodge the remaining decimal fraction. We only need about one mile to browse in, and a fortune may be contained in one yard of earth.'
"I balked, and was for jumping to New Orleans and picking up some plantation medleys for the New England trade.
"‘Child,' pleaded Tib, 'just this one fling with fortune's dice. Santos was up there last year, and he'll get through all right this trip. Thousands travel up and down the Madeira each season and it's safer than Broadway. There's no danger until we branch off to the Blue Hen Valley. We won't carry a band with us—just sly in—and if things look rocky, we'll trip a merry morris back to the settlement. Do you think I would place your young life in hazard?' he concluded, reproachfully, and then,
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