"Why, I got to go down and spank 'em!" he says, and he
rolled out of the hammock and went off down the road toward Portate
with Irish pattering after him.
We saw no more of them that day, and we didn't hear any news until
the noon following. There was a gale from the northwest in the
morning. I went down to the city in the afternoon, and found the
Plaza boiling with news.
It seemed that Sadler had gone aboard the _Harvest Moon_ and
surprised the two soldiers, and dipped them in the water with their
artillery, and sent them uptown with the wet warrant stuck in the
muzzle of a gun. Then he paraded the _Harvest Moon_ the length
of Portate's water-front, tooting his steam whistle. Then the Jefe
Municipal--that's the Mayor--fell into his warmest temper, and sent
a company of pink soldiery of the City Guard in the morning, packed
close in a tugboat. Then Sadler led them seaward, where the gale was
blowing from the northwest and the seas piled past the harbour; so
most of the pink soldiers were seasick, not being good mariners, and
the gale standing the tugs on their beam-ends, which was no sort of
place for a City Guard. They came back unhappy. The _Harvest
Moon_ was in again, and now anchored in the harbour.
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