detective story when my mother caught me at it. That was about a year before she died. She didn't get angry, but she sat down quietly and made me go over the whole story with her, and then she pointed out all the absurd things, and showed me how no man could possibly do what that detective had been doing,—according to the book,—and she made me so ashamed and disgusted that I threw the story into the fire, and I haven't read a detective story since."
"I would like to see one of your modern detectives set down here," went on the Yankee lad. "I reckon he'd have his hands jest as full as anybody." And the young sailor chewed away at the rice cake in deep meditation. Walter also began to eat, and for some time little was said.
They had reached the Cagayan River, to find that the rain had caused a wide overflow of the banks. Here and there a village was found with its house posts deep in the water. They continued to keep at a distance, longing deeply for some friendly face that never showed itself.
But a change was at hand. On the day following the conversation recorded above, they came to the small mountain range which runs east and west,
