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

match for the swarms of cacos about them, even if their taut nerves did not give way in flight under the strain. Button, however, was equal to the occasion.

"Let me go!" he panted, jerking away from the negro leader. "Don't you see that my chief is getting out of sight?"

The black giant, still suspicious, yielded with bad grace, and the Americans hurried on. The sixth outpost was the immediate guard over Charlemagne, about thirty paces from where he had spread his blanket for the night. François gave the countersign, took two or three steps forward, whispered in Hanneken's ear, "he is up there," and slipped away into the bushes. The gendarmes had likewise disappeared. The Americans advanced to within fifteen feet of a faintly blazing camp-fire. On the opposite side of it a man stood crect, his silk shirt gleaming in the flickering light. He was peering suspiciously over the fire, trying to recognize the new-comers. A woman was kneeling beside the heap of fagots, coaxing it to blaze. A hundred or more cacos were lined up to the right, at a respectful distance from the peering chief.

Two negroes, armed with rifles, halted the Americans, at the same time cocking their pieces. Hanneken raised his black, invisible automatic and fired at the chief beyond the fire, at the same time shouting, "Let her go, Button!" In an instant the kneeling woman scattered the fire with a sweeping gesture and plunged the spot in darkness. Button was spraying the line of cacos to the right with his machine-gun. The disguised gendarmes came racing up and lent new legs to the fleeing bandits. When a space had been cleared, Hanneken placed his handful of soldiers in a position to offset a counter-attack, and began groping about the extinguished fire. His hands encountered a dead body dressed in a silk shirt. This, however, was no proof that his mission had been accomplished. Some of Charlemagne's staff might have boasted silk shirts, also. He ran his hands down the body to a holster, and drew out the pearlhandled revolver which he had loaned to Conzé, and which had been appropri

ated in turn by Charlemagne. The cacoin-chief had been shot squarely through the heart, a statement which has no breath of poetic license, since photographs I have seen prove it beyond all question.

When daylight came, the hilltop was found to be strewn with the bodies of nine other bandits, while trails of blood showed that many more of them had dragged themselves off into the bushes. Among the wounded, it was discovered later, was St. Remy, the brother of Charlemagne, who afterward died of his wounds. The captured booty included nine rifles, three revolvers, two hundred rounds of ammunition, seven swords, fifteen horses and mules, and Charlemagne's voluminous correspondence. This latter was of special value, since it contained the names of the good citizens of Port-au-Prince and the other larger cities who had been financing the cacoin-chief. Most of them are now languishing in prison. But let me yield the floor to Captain Hanneken's official diary of the events that followed. Its succinctness is suggestive of the character of the man:

Nov. 1, 1919.-Killed Charlemagne Peralte, Commander-in-Chief of the bandits. Wounded St. Remy Peralte. Brought Charlemagne's body to Grande Rivière arriving 9 A.M. Went to Cap Haitien with the body. Received orders to proceed to Fort Capois the next morning. Went to Grande Rivière via handcar, arriving 9 P.M. Wrote report re death of Charlemagne. Left Grande Rivière with seven gendarmes, via handcar to Bahon, arriving midnight.

Nov. 2.-Left Bahon 1 A.M. with seven

gendarmes. Arrived 200 yards from first outpost of Fort Capois at 5 A.M. Crawled to 150 yards from outpost and remained there until 6:30 A.M., waiting for detachment from Le Trou to attack at daybreak, when six bandits came in our direction. Opened fire, killing three. All bandits in various outposts retreated to main fort. Advanced and captured the first, second, and third outposts. Got within 300 yards of fort when they opened fire from behind a stonewall barricade. They fired a can

non and about 40 rifle shots. Crawled on our stomachs, no cover. Fired the machine-gun and ordered the gendarmes to advance 15 yards and open fire. Kept this up until we arrived within 150 yards, when we espied the bandits escaping. Entered fort, burned all huts and outposts. Left Fort Capois at 9 A.M. Arrived in Grande Rivière 2 P.M., very tired.

The most exacting military superior cannot but have excused this last somewhat unmilitary remark. Fatigue does not rest long on Captain Hanneken's broad shoulders, however, and he soon had his district cleared again of the cacos he had imported for the occasion. The two thousand-dollar reward was divided between Conzé and his one civilian assistant. Captain Hanneken, Lieutenant Button, and the gendarmes who accompanied them were ordered to Port-au-Prince to be personally thanked by the President of Haiti and decorated with the Haitian medaille d'honneur, a ceremony against which the captain protested as a waste of time that he could better employ in hunting cacos. At this writing he is engaged again in his favorite sport in another district. His Marine Corps rank has been raised to that of second lieutenant, while Conzé has been appointed to the same grade in the Gendarmerie d'Haiti.

The death of Charlemagne has probably broken the back of cacoism in Haiti, though it has been by no means wiped out. Papillon, with "Tijacques and several other rascals as chief assistants, is still roaming at large in the north, and the youthful Bénoît is terrorizing the mountainous region in the neighborhood of Mirebalais and Las Cohobas. But the gendarmerie, assisted by the Marine Corps, may be trusted to bring their troublesome careers to a close all in good season. One of the chief problems of the pacifiers at present is to convince the ignorant caco rank and file that the great Charlemagne is dead. His superstitious followers credit him with supernatural powers, and many a captured bandit, when asked who is now his commander-in-chief, still replies with faithful simplicity, "Mais, c'est Charlemagne." The public display of his body at Grande Rivière and Cap Haitien produced an effect that will not soon be forgotten by those who witnessed it, but even that has not fully convinced the cacos hidden far away in the mountains. So great was the veneration, or, more exactly, perhaps, the superstition, in which he was held, that it was found necessary to give him five fake funerals in as many different places, as a blind, and to bury his body secretly in an outof-the-way spot, lest his grave become a shrine of pilgrimage for future cacos.

A

LITTLE mite of a man, who once worked with his hands in a Welsh coalmine, played a very notable part in the Conference of Paris. William Morris Hughes, War Premier of Australia, was the stormy petrel of the British delegation. In January and in April, 1919, he almost caused the collapse of the conference. He lost his first January duel with President Wilson, but at the moment in April when the Italians walked out, this tiny plenipotentiary of the world's largest island compelled the President to throw up the sponge.

Hughes is almost stone-deaf. Only one person can make him hear, his large and lovely wife. Mrs. Hughes is as tall as her husband is small. They are still sweethearts, though married some years.

I lunched with this happy couple at the Hôtel Majestic on February 7. The Majestic, as imposing as its name, and within bowshot of the Arc de Triomphe, was the home of the British plenipotentiaries. We had a large round table on the sunniest side of the huge diningroom. Our party included the premier's military and naval aides, his secretary, and the leading Australian peace conference reporter, Mr. Keith A. Murdock of the Sydney "Sun." I was placed between Mr. and Mrs. Hughes, the little statesman on my left and the lady on my right.

"His right ear is best," explained our charming hostess.

repeated experiments, I let Mrs. Hughes do my talking for me, and she did it so well that I made up my mind to win a wife like Australia's first lady before I try my hand at diplomacy. One of the few things proved by the Conference of Paris is that he is a wise man who listens only to his wife.

Mr. Wilson tried to make himself heard by Mr. Hughes. That was an amusing incident of the January duel over the mandatory principle. The President talked very earnestly about the duty that civilized nations owe to themselves and to backward peoples. There must be no more Kongos or Putumayos in the new era under the League of Nations. And so forth.

Hughes stood with his right hand cupped over his right ear, his left fingers playing fretfully with his Australian-gold watch-chain.

"Hey?" he interrupted. "League of Nations! All fiddle! Don't believe in it."

The President tried another tackthe wonderful things that Australians have done to make the world safe for democracy. Mr. Hughes agreed that Australians are deeply interested in making the world safe for Australians.

The lecture was not a success. Mr. Wilson admitted this later. Explaining his discomfiture to a friend, he laughed and said:

"What can you do with a man who can't hear and won't read?"

Mrs. Hughes saves her husband's eyesight by reading for him. I cannot say whether or not the little premier listened to the following explanation of the mandatory principle, approved by Mr. Wilson:

The mandatory principle embodied in the Covenant of the League of Nations, so far as it affects both the treatment of the native peoples and the "Open Door" for the outside world, has been in operation in two important instances for years. The details are, however, not well known.

In 1884, an international conference met at Berlin to deal with some of the problems of the Kongo Basin. The British delegate was instructed by his government that commercial interests should not be looked upon as the exclusive subject of deliberation and that the welfare of the natives should not be neglected for "to them it would be no benefit, but the reverse, if freedom of commerce, unchecked by reasonable control, should degenerate into license." Though supported by the representative of the United States, Mr. John A. Kasson, the British delegate was not able to induce the Conference to deal with the two crying evils of tropical Africa, the slave trade and the liquor traffic. The British government did not, however, give up the attempt; and, in 1890, the Brussels Conference convened at their request dealt with these fundamental questions. Elaborate international agreements have since been worked out to control traffic in arms, slaves, and alcohol, and to check diseases such as sleeping sickness.

It was not only in Africa that the welfare of the native populations was especially safeguarded. In 1884, after many years of insistence on the part of the Australian colonies, the London government finally permitted the British flag to be hoisted over the southeastern part of New Guinea. Three years later, in 1887, the Colonial Conference at London, discussing the future government of this area, determined that it should be entrusted to Queensland, one of the Australasian colonies, on the following conditions:

1. No purchase of land to be allowed to be made by private persons, except from the Government or purchasers from it.

2. No deportation of natives to be allowed either from one part of the Territory to another or to places beyond the Territory, except under Ordinances reserved for Her Majesty's assent and assented to by Her Majesty.

3. Trading with the natives in arms, ammunitions, explosives and intoxicants to be prohibited, except under Ordinances re

served and assented to in like manner. 4. No differential duties to be imposed in favor of any of the guaranteeing Colonies, or any other Colony or country.

5. The foregoing four Articles to be embodied in the Letters Patent as part of the Constitution of the Territory.

After the Australian colonies had united to form the Commonwealth, the administration of British New Guinea, or Papua as it was then called, was taken over subject to the terms of this mandate which were incorporated in the Papua Act of 1905. This Act reserved for the prior assent of the Governor-General of Australia, who is appointed by Great Britain, all ordinances dealing with the granting or disposal of public lands, with the sale or disposition of native lands, and with native labor, as well as any ordinances relating to the supply of arms, ammunition, explosives, intoxicants, or opium to the natives. The Act further contained provisions prohibiting the supply of intoxicant liquor to the natives. These principles have been carried out in practise by the Australian administrators.

Mr. Hughes was more interested in providing to meet future dangers than in poking his nose into past history. He is quite honest about his intellectual shortcomings. He admitted to me very frankly that there are many things in the history of Australia of which he knows nothing at all. Still, he has helped to make history in Australia and in Europe, and he went to Paris with one object fixed firmly in his mind. His modest five million people, occupying a vast territory of more than two and a half million square miles (fewer than two people for every square mile) gave very nearly half a million fighting men to win the war. Everybody admitted that the Australians fought like tigers and died like heroes. Mr. Hughes told me that he felt bound to stand up for his dead, no matter what others might say or think. He made no pretense at being a diplomat, but following his motions, it was quite easy to see how he has climbed to leadership of the husky young commonwealth of the Southern Pacific. He is a natural-born fighter, all grit and gunpowder.

On January 12 the Conference of