Conzé took pains to be seen by the worst native element as he was leaving town, among whom he had already spread propaganda calling upon them to join him in a new caco enterprise. On the road he held up the market women and several travelers, taking nothing from them, but impressing upon them the fact that he had turned bandit. All this was reported to Captain Hanneken by his secret police. He told them to keep their ears open, but not to worry, that he would get the rascal all in good season. One morning a written notice appeared in the market of Grande Rivière. It was signed by Conzé and berated the commander of the district in violent terms, calling upon the inhabitants to join the writer and put an end to his oppression. People recalled that Conzé and the big American ruler of the town had once had words over some small matter. Within three days the talk in all the district was of this member of one of Grande Rivière's most prominent families who had turned caco.

Specially favored by his rifles, rum, and apparently unlimited financial resources, Conzé soon gathered a large band of real cacos about him. When questions were asked, he explained that he had captured the weapons from the gendarmerie by a happy fluke, and that the wealthy citizens of Grande Rivière, disgusted with the exactions of American rule, were furnishing him with money. The new army established a camp at Fort Capois, at the top of a high hill five hours' walk from Grande Rivière. Now and then they made an attack in the neighborhood, Conzé keeping a secret list of those who suffered serious damages and never allowing his men to give themselves over to the drunken pillaging that is common to caco warfare. The people accounted for this by recalling that Conzé had always been a more kindly man than the average bandit leader. Meanwhile the new chief continued his recruiting propaganda. He made personal appeals to those of lawless tendency, he induced several smaller bands to join him, he sent scurrilous personal attacks on Captain Hanneken to be read in the marketplace. The law-abiding citizens of

Grande Rivière, well aware of the advantages of American occupation and fearful of a caco raid, appealed to the district commander to drive the new band out of the region. Hanneken reassured them in a special meeting of the town notables with the assertion that he already had a scheme on foot that would settle that rascal Conzé.

At the same time he had as many real worries as the good citizens, though of a different nature. The first was a threat by the nearest marine commander to wipe out that camp at Fort Capois if the strangely laggard gendarme officer did not do so. It would have been fatal to his plans for the latter to take the marines into his confidence; the merest whisper of a rumor travels with lightning speed in Haiti. Besides Conzé and his friend and the gendarme "deserter," the only persons with whom he had shared his plans were his department commander and the chief of the gendarmerie in Port-au-Prince. Even his own subordinate officers were not let into the secret. Despite this extreme care, he was annoyed by persistent rumors that the whole thing was a "frame-up." Conzé, ran the marketplace gossip, was really a zandolite, a "caterpillar" in the pay of the Government and the Americans. General Charlemagne, stationed far off in the district of Mirebalais, had been warned to look out for him, a more or less unnecessary "tip," since it is natural to Haitian chiefs to be suspicious of their fellows. In vain Conzé sent letters written by his secretary, in proper caco style-most of them dictated by Hanneken-to the big chief, offering the assistance of his growing band. For a month he received no reply whatever. Then Charlemagne wrote back in very courteous terms, lauding Conzé's conversion to the cause of Haitian liberty, but constantly putting him off on one polite pretext or another. These letters, always sent by women of caco sympathies, were a week or more old before the replies came back through devious bandit channels, and the situation often changed materially within that length of time, upsetting Hanneken's plans. Meanwhile Conzé cleared the region about him, built houses for his soldiers,

and made Fort Capois the talk of all the cacos. Each new recruit was given a draft of rum and what seemed to him a generous cash bounty, and better food than most of them had tasted in their lives. Still Charlemagne would have nothing to do with him beyond the exchange of polite, non-committal notes.

At length the caco-in-chief sent one of his trusted subordinates to report on the situation at Fort Capois. General "Tijacques marched into Conzé's camp one evening at the head of seventy-five well-armed followers, every man with a shell in his chamber. His air was more than suspicious, and he ended by openly accusing Conzé of being a zandolite.

"If I am, go ahead and shoot me!" cried the latter, laying aside his weapons and ordering his men to withdraw. 'Tijacques declined the invitation, but all night long he and his men sat about the fire, their weapons in their hands, while Conzé slept with the apparent innocence of a babe. When morning broke without an attack upon him, "Tijacques was convinced. He kissed Conzé on both cheeks, complimented him on joining the "army of liberation," and welcomed him as a brother in arms. When Conzé presented him with a badly needed suit of clothes, a still more desired bottle of rum, and money enough to pay his troops a week's salary of ten cents each, he left, avowing eternal friendship.

A day or two later Charlemagne sent another of his generals, Papillon, on a secret mission to arrest Conzé and bring him to his own camp. It was merely a lucky coincidence that Hanneken had decided on that very night to "attack" Fort Capois, as he had already done several times before. Conzé, who made three nightly journeys a week to Grande Rivière on the pretext of getting more money from the inhabitants friendly to his cause, and entered Hanneken's house through the back garden, was instructed how to conduct himself in the affair to avoid personal injury. For all that, the American had hard work to keep his gendarmes from wiping out the camp entirely. In the midst of the fighting he slipped aside into the bushes and, smearing his left arm with red ink, wrapped it up in a bandage generously covered with the same liquid. Then he

sounded the retreat, and the gendarmes fell back pell-mell on Grande Rivière. The next morning the market-place was agog with the astonishing news. The cacos of Fort Capois had repulsed the gendarmes! Moreover, the great Conzé himself had wounded the redoubtable American captain! It would not be long before the bandits descended on Grande Rivière itself! Some of the frightened inhabitants seized their valuables and fled to Cap Haitien.

For days Captain Hanneken wandered disconsolately about the town with his arm in a sling. When his own officers or friends joggled against it by accident, he cried out with pain. His greatest difficulty was to keep himself from being invalided to the rear, or to keep the solicitous marine doctor from dressing his wounds. News of the great battle quickly reached Charlemagne. Meanwhile the agent he had sent to arrest Conzé met 'Tijacques on the trail.

"You 're crazy!" cried the latter when Papillon whispered his orders. Conzé is as sincere a caco as you or I. I will myself return to Charlemagne and tell him so."

The report of 'Tijacques, added to the news that Conzé had wounded the accursed American commander, as well as repulsing his force, won the confidence of Charlemagne-with reservations, of course; he never put full confidence in any one, being too well versed in Haitian history. He invited Conzé to visit him at his headquarters. There he commissioned him "General Jean," thanked him in the name of Haitian liberty, and promised to coöperate with him. Incidentally, he relieved him of the pearl-handled revolver that had once belonged to their common enemy, Hanneken. It was too fine a weapon to be carried by any one but the commanderin-chief. Before they parted, he promised the new general to join him some day in Fort Capois.

Meanwhile the "deserted" gendarme had joined Charlemagne's forces and so completely won his confidence that he was made his private secretary. He found means of reporting conditions and plans now and then to Hanneken. Conzé and Charlemagne entered into correspondence in planning a general

attack on Grande Rivière. Here Hanneken well knew he was playing with fire. If anything went wrong and Grande Rivière was taken, nothing could keep the cacos out of Cap Haitien, the second city of Haiti and the key to all the northern half of the country. Besides, how could he be sure that his agents were not "double-crossing" him instead of Charlemagne?

Negotiations continued all through the month of October. Toward the end of that month Charlemagne, his brother St. Remy Peralte, several other generals, and many chiefs arrived at Fort Capois, bringing with them twelve hundred bandits. In company with "General Jean" they planned a concerted attack on Grande Rivière. At the same time the programs of two other assaults, on the towns of Bahon and Le Trou, were set for the same date. The chief value of the latter was that they would keep the marines busy and leave the larger town to the gendarmes.

Charlemagne's forces were to approach Grande Rivière from the Fort Capois side and to charge across the river when they received the signal agreed upon. Conzé's men were to descend upon the city from the opposite direction, and "General Jean" was to give the signal himself by firing three shots from an old ruined fortress above the town. As it was well known that Charlemagne never attacked personally with his troops, but hung back safely in the rear, it had been arranged through Conzé that he await events at a place called Mazaire and enter the city in triumph after the news of its capture had been brought to him.

On the night set, the last one of October, Captain Hanneken ordered ten picked gendarmes to report at his residence. With them was his subordinate, Lieutenant William R. Button, who had just been let into the secret. The doors guarded against intrusion, Hanneken told the gendarmes to lay aside their

uniforms and put on caco-like rags that had been gathered for the occasion. The two Americans dressed themselves in similar garments and rubbed their faces, hands, and such portions of their bodies as showed through the tatters, with cold cream and lamp-black. Then the detail sallied forth one by one, to meet at a place designated, where rifles that had been secretly conveyed there were issued to them.

The pretended cacos took up their post at Mazaire behind a bushy hedge along which Charlemagne must pass if he kept his rendezvous. While they lay there, Conzé and his following of real cacos, some seven hundred in number, passed close by them on their way to attack Grande Rivière. This had been reinforced with a large number of gendarmes and a machine-gun manned by Americans under the personal command of the Department Commander of the North, all barricaded in the marketplace facing the river. Conzé gave the preconcerted signal, and Charlemagne's army dashed out of the foot-hills toward the stream. It was only the overeagerness of the barricaded force, which failed to hold its fire long enough, that made the caco casualties number merely by the dozen rather than by the hundred.

At the height of the battle Charlemagne's private secretary, the "deserted" gendarme, crawled up to Hanneken and informed him that the cacoin-chief had changed his mind. With his extraordinary gift of suspicion, he had smelled a rat. He would not come down to Mazaire until the actual winner of the battle came to him to announce the capture of Grande Rivière.

To say that Captain Hanneken received the news quietly is merely another way of stating that he is not a profane man. Here he had planned and toiled for four months to do away with the arch caco and break the back of the rebellion that was holding up the advancement of Haiti, only to have all his plans fail through the over-suspicion of the outlaw politician. He had run the risk of having the headquarters of his district captured, with dire, far-reaching results that no one realized better than himself. He had played the part

of a dime-novel hero, descended to the rôle of an actor, which his forceful, straightforward nature detested, only to be left the laughing-stock of his fellow-officers of the gendarmerie, to say nothing of the "kidding" Marine Corps, in which he was still a sergeant. Incidentally, he had staked the plan to the extent of eight hundred dollars of his own money, which there was no hope of recovering through the devious channels of official reimbursement if that plan failed, though as a matter of fact this latter detail was the least of his worries. It was not a question of a few paltry dollars, but of success.

If all these thoughts passed through his head as he lay concealed in the bushes with his dozen fake cacos, they passed quickly, for his next command came almost instantly. It was by no means the first time in this hide-andseek game with Charlemagne that he had been forced to change his plans completely on the spur of the moment.

"Button," he whispered, "we will be the successful caco detachment that brings the news of the capture of Grande Rivière to Charlemagne.

Led by Jean Edmond François, the "deserted" gendarme and private secretary of the caco-in-chief, the little group set out into the mountains. Charlemagne, said the secretary, had come a part of the way down from Fort Capois, but had camped for the night less than half-way to the town. It was nearing midnight. Heavy clouds hung low in the sky, but the stars shone here and there through them. For three hours the detail stumbled upward along a difficult mountain trail. Neither of the Americans knew how soon the gendarmes would lose their nerve and slip off into the night, frightened out of all discipline by the dreaded name of Charlemagne. There was no positive proof that they were not themselves being lead into an ambuscade, and they knew only too well the horrible end that would come to two lone Americans captured by the bandits. To make matters worse, Button was suffering from an acute attack of his old malaria, though he was too much a marine and a gendarme officer to let that retard his steps.

The detachment was halted at last by

a caco sentry, who demanded the countersign. It happened that night to be "General Jean," in honor of Charlemagne's trusted (with reservations) ally, Conzé. François, the "deserted" gendarme, gave it. The sentry recognized him also as the private secretary of the great chief. He advanced him, but declined to let the detail with him pass without specific orders from Charlemagne. The secretary left his companions behind and hurried on.

The disguised gendarmes mingled with the caco outpost and announced the capture of Grande Rivière, adding that the population was eagerly waiting to receive the great Charlemagne and his doughty warriors. Shouts of triumph rose and spread away into the night. In all the years of American occupation no town of anything like the size of Grande Rivière had ever been taken by the cacos. It was the deathknell of the cursed whites, who would soon be driven from the great Republic of Haiti, as they had been many years before.

Nearly an hour after his departure the secretary returned, to report that Charlemagne had ordered the detachment to come to him immediately with the joyful news.

"But," added François, "there are six series of outposts between here and Charlemagne's headquarters. There is n't a chance in the world that we can pass them all without being detected, and cacos swarm everywhere along the trail. It is a question of turning back, mon Capitaine, or of leaving the trail and sneaking up over the mountain through the brush."

"And lose ourselves for good and all," added Hanneken in his ready "creole." "Nothing doing. Take the lead and keep to the trail.”

The first outpost advanced the detachment without question. The score of negroes who made it up seemed to be too excited with the taking of Grande Rivière to be any longer suspicious. Some five minutes later the group was again halted, this time by an outpost of some forty men. Their leader scrutinized the new-comers carefully one by one as they passed, the latter, in turn, shuffling along with bowed heads, as if

they were completely exhausted with the climb from Grande Rivière, which was not far from the truth. Several of the bandits along the way were heard to remark in their slovenly "creole," "Bon dieu, but those niggers are sure tired." The third and fourth outposts gave the party no trouble, beyond demanding the countersign, except that casual questions were flung at them by the cacos scattered along the trail. These the disguised gendarmes answered without arousing suspicion. Perfectly as he knew "creole," Hanneken avoided speaking whenever possible, and left the word to François, fearful of giving himself away by some hint of a foreign accent or a mischosen word from the Southern dialect, with which he was more familiar. No white man, whatever his training, can equal the slovenly, thicktongued pronunciation of the illiterate Haitian.

At the fifth outpost the leader was a huge, bulking negro as large as Hanneken, and he stood on the alert, revolver half raised, as the detail approached. The giving of the countersign did not seem to satisfy him. He looked Hanneken up and down suspiciously and asked him a question. The captain, pretending he was out of breath, mumbled an answer and stalked on. It happened to be his good luck that he is blessed with high cheek bones and a face that would not be instantly recognized as Caucasian on a dark night. Button, on the other hand, seemed to arouse new suspicion. He was carrying an automatic rifle and, in order to conceal the magazine, bore it vertically across his chest, his arms folded over it. The negro sentry caught the glint of the barrel and snatched Button by the arm.

"Where did you get such a fine-looking rifle?" he demanded.

Hanneken, scenting trouble, had halted several paces beyond, his hands on the butts of the revolver and the automatic which he carried on his respective hips. It would have been easy to kill the suspicious negro, but that would have been the end of his hopes of reaching Charlemange-and probably of the two Americans. For though the disguised gendarmes were all armed with carbines, they would have been no