170 On the trail of vanishing birds 



of the government were probably Communists seeking to start a 

 revolution among the cane laborers, or something equally fright- 

 ful. There were fellow Communists in every cantina and on every 

 other park bench in the plaza. We must be very careful. "But 

 Arturo," I protested, "what has this to do with us? We are not 

 going after el capitdris gun runners!" Arturo looked at me with a 

 great show of surprise, and perhaps a dash of pity at my naivete. 

 "But we are!" he announced. "I told him we could not go up the 

 river after flamingos without him, and it is obvious that he can- 

 not go with us until these bandits of contrabanders are caught, 

 so we must go with him, of course. It is only being polite to do 

 so. It would have been very inconsiderate if we did not offer to 

 help him with the contrabanders, when he, el capitdn himself, has 

 offered to help us with the flamingos!" Although I found the logic 

 of this rather heavy going, I saw nothing to be gained by not 

 falling in with it. After all, with Arturo and el capitdn both oc- 

 cupied with gun runners, I would only be cooling my heels until 

 they returned anyway. So I said that it was agreeable with me. We 

 would go to Niquero. "But not until tomorrow," Arturo hastened 

 to say. "We must find transportation, and manana will be time 

 enough." 



Back at El Gran Hotel Inglaterra, I struggled with the type- 

 written menu, fought off the flies and mosquitoes that swarmed 

 in the dining room and, at length, under a copious mosquitero, 

 fell asleep, still a trifle uneasy at the unexpected turn of events. 

 Gun runners! I was interested solely in flamingos, but this was 

 Cuba, and I should have known that gun runners would always 

 come first. 



That overland journey to Niquero was something that could 

 happen only in Cuba. Arturo, who was a shoe salesman when not 

 looking for flamingos or contrabanders, had found a fellow drum- 

 mer, a pleasant and quite handsome young man by the name of 

 Aurencio. Aurencio had an old Ford car; he was driving to 

 Niquero in any event, and he would be delighted to have us as 

 fellow travelers. After much talk, comfortably seated in rocking 

 chairs in the open lobby of the Inglaterra, we were joined by 

 Arturo's brother, a big, brawny individual named Carlos, engineer 



