I'll get the two Bradleys to tell me all they know about drilling,
to-morrow morning, and we'll drill these Opekians, and have sham
battles, and attacks, and repulses, until I make a lot of wild,
howling Zulus out of them. And when the Hillmen come down to pay their
quarterly visit, they'll go back again on a run. At least some of them
will," he added, ferociously. "Some of them will stay right here."
"Dear me, dear me!" said Stedman, with awe; "you are a born fighter,
aren't you?"
"Well, you wait and see," said Gordon; "maybe I am. I haven't studied
tactics of war and the history of battles, so that I might be a great
war correspondent, without learning something. And there is only one
king on this island, and that is old Ollypybus himself. And I'll go
over and have a talk with him about it to-morrow."
Young Stedman walked up and down the length of the veranda, in and out
of the moonlight, with his hands in his pockets, and his head on his
chest. "You have me all stirred up, Gordon," he said; "you seem so
confident and bold, and you're not so much older than I am, either."
"My training has been different; that's all," said the reporter.
"Yes," Stedman said, bitterly. "I have been sitting in an office ever
since I left school, sending news over a wire or a cable, and you have
been out in the world, gathering it."
"And now," said Gordon, smiling and putting his arm around the other
boy's shoulders, "we are going to make news ourselves.
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