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 BIG DATA
ANALYTICS
 BIG DATA
ANALYTICS
Introduction to Hadoop, Spark, and Machine-Learning
 About the Authors
Dr Raj Kamal did his MSc at the age of 17, published his first research paper in a UK
journal at the age of 18, wrote his first programme in FORTRAN that ran at ICTl904, also
at the age of 18, and completed his PhD from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi at 22.
He was awarded a scholarship for postgraduate studies at IIT Delhi, research fellowships
of CSIR, and post-doctoral fellowships at Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, (15
months) and ICTP, Trieste, Italy (3 months).
He has 51 years of research and 46 years of teaching experience, respectively. He has
so far successfullyguided 19 PhD scholars and is currently supervising 2 PhD scholars and
research students. He has published about 94 research papers in journals and 61
conference papers of both international and national repute. He is lovingly referred by a
few colleagues as the 'learning machine' and by a few others as a 'human dynamo!',
perhaps because of his constant drive for understanding emerging technologies and
passion for acquiring latest knowledge and its dissemination.
He has worked as a professor of seven subjects, viz. computer science, computer
science and engineering, information technology, electronics, electronics and
communication engineering, electrical education and physics. He has served as a faculty
member in DeviAhilyaVishwavidyalaya,Indore (25 years), Punjabi University, Patiala (17
years), Medi-CapsUniversity, Indore (3 years), KalasalingamUniversity,Tamil Nadu
(2 years), and Guru Nanak Engineering College,Andhra Pradesh, and King Mongkut's
Institute of Technology,Bangkok.
He is widely known for his books published by McGraw-HillIndia, namely, The Internet
of Things (2017), Embedded Systems (3rd Ed. 2014), Computer Architecture (Schaum series
adaptation), and Internet and Web Technologies (16th Reprint 2017). His Embedded Systems
book has international editions from McGraw-HillUSA, McGraw-HillSingapore, McGraw•
Hill China and McGraw-HillSouth Korea.
Currently, he is working as a senior professor at Prestige Institute of Engineering
Management and Research in Indore, MadhyaPradesh.
Preeti Saxena is working as an associate professor of computer science at School of
Computer Science & Information Technology in Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, Indore,
Madhya Pradesh. She has over 18 years of teaching experience at undergraduate and
postgraduate levels. She has three years of experience in a multinational software
company as a software engineer and programmer. She has published and presented 35
research papers in various international/national journals and conferences. She
completed her MCA degree with distinction in 1996 from National Institute of Technology
(earlier called MACT), Bhopal. She was awarded the 'Ramanujan GoldMedal - 2008' in her
MTech (Computer Science). She did her PhD in mobile computing. She is currently
supervising six research scholars in computer networks, mobile computing, data
analytics, augmented reality and Internet of Things (IoT). She has a passion for acquiring
knowledge on emerging technologies.
 BIG DATA
ANALYTICS
Introduction to Hadoop, Spark, and Machine-Learning

Raj Kamal
Senior Professor
Prestige Institute of Engineering Management and Research
Indore, Madhya Pradesh

Preeti Saxena
Associate Professor
Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya
Indore, Madhya Pradesh

•
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Big Data Analytics
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Preface

Data analysis involves numerical and statistical analysis techniques, which have been
widely used in many fields such as sciences, biology, research, industry, business and
even sports, since the 1960s. The first author of this textbook, Raj Kamal, himself used
analytical techniques in the 1970s for obtaining solutions using matrix multiplication,
inversion, transpose, determinants, linear equations, simultaneous equations using
matrices and least square fitting for finding parameters from observed data points, which
can be described theoretically by superimposition of the functions. His first programme
was in FORTRAN that ran on ICT1904 in 1967. A classic book, Numerical Methods for
Scientists and Engineers, Richard W. Hamming, McGraw-Hill,New York, 1973 (Availableat
the ACM digital library), fuelled his interest in the field of analytics since then. Both the
authors learned from excellent lessons on Big Data Analytics and Advanced Big Data
Analytics given by Ching-Yung Lin, PhD and adjunct professor at Departments of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,ColumbiaUniversity USA, in 2017. It is here
that an idea of writing a textbook on Big Data Analytics for young minds came to the
authors.
The chess match of the legendary Garry Kasparov in 1997 against the IBM
supercomputer, Deep Blue, is a landmark moment in the history of computing
technology. "It was the dawn of a new era in artificial intelligence: a machine capable of
beating the reigning human champion at this most cerebral game", in the words of Garry
himself. Nowadays, data analytics, decisions, predictions and discovery of new
knowledge, are possible with the use of AI techniques of machine learning and deep
learning. The rise in technology has led to production and storage of voluminous amount
of data. Earlier, megabytes (106 B) were used and now petabytes (1015 B) plus are used for
processing, analysis, predicting, decisions, discovering facts and generating new
knowledge. Big Data storage, processing and analysis, face challenges from large growth
in volume of data, variety of data, various forms and formats, increasing complexity, fast
generation of data and the need to quickly process, analyse and use data.
Many applications such as industry reports, financial reports, social network and
social media, cloud applications, public and commercial websites, scientific experiments,
simulators, sensors in Internet of Things, and e-services generate Big Data. Big Data
Analytics (BDA) finds applications in many areas, such as healthcare, medicine,
advertising, marketing, sales, and tracing anomalies in big data in these disciplines
This textbook explains the concepts of BDA in a simple to complex manner. For
example, it uses the popular Ravensburger Beneath the SeaJigsaw Puzzle (5000pieces) in
an example to show that scaling out
and division of the computations along with data works well in parallel processing
shared-nothing architecture at distributed computing nodes. This student-friendly
textbook has a number of illustrations, sample codes, case studies and real-life analytics
for datasets such as toys, chocolates, cars, students' GPAs and academic performance.
Classic Apache-based Hadoop ecosystem tools and the latest Apache Spark ecosystem
tools deploying the Python libraries for analytics have been described in depth.

Readers
This textbook is an extremely useful asset for national as well as international students of
Big Data Analytics. This book caters to the needs of undergraduate and postgraduate
students of computer science and engineering, information technology, and related
disciplines, along with professionals in the industry for developing innovative Big Data
Analytics solutions based on Spark ecosystem tools with Python libraries, which include
the use of machine-learning concepts.
The book will also be a useful guide in training programmes for Big Data architects
and analytics requiring new skills, and for those who wish to learn the latest topics.
The main features of the book are:
• Easy-to-understand and student-friendly content, which includes
illustrative figures, examples and sample codes
• The book explains architecture, storage and programming methods for
Big Data analytics, while keeping multidisciplinary undergraduate and
postgraduate students as primary readers in mind
• Learning objectives for each section, recall from previous chapters and
introduction along with meanings of important key terms have been
provided in the beginning of each chapter
• Self-assessment questions, classified into three difficulty levels, have
been given at the end of each section in a chapter
• Key concepts covered, learning outcomes, objective questions, review
questions and practice exercises have been provided towards the end of
the textbook.

Roadmap for BDA Readers

The author presumes the readers possess basic intellectual and academic background in
mathematical and statistical methods, cloud platform for storage and applications (such
as Amazon 53), object oriented programming, familiarity and programme-writing skills in
Java, and the knowledge of Python libraries.
Readers intending to learn and use Hadoop ecosystem tools need to study chapters 1
to 4 and 6 to 9. They need prerequisite programme-writing skills in Java. Readers
intending to learn and use the latest Spark ecosystem tool need to study chapters 1, 3 and
5 to 10. They need familiarity and programme-writing skills in Java and Python libraries.
Learningand Assessment Tools
Learning Objectives
Designof this book followsLearning Objective(LO) - oriented approach. This educational
process emphasises on developing required skills amongst the students. The process tests
the outcomes of the study of a course, as opposed to routine learning. This approach
creates an ability to acquire knowledge and apply fundamental principles to analytical
problems and applications.
Self Assessment Exercises
Each learning objective is followed by a set of questions for self-assessment. This offers
great retention of concepts.
Pedagogical Classification
The pedagogy is arranged as per levels of difficulty-all checkpoint problems are linked
with Learning Objectives(Los) and marked with Levelsof Difficulty(LOD), to help assess
students' learning. These levels of difficulty have been derived as per Bloom'staxonomy.
o o • indicates Level 1 and Level 2, i.e. knowledge and comprehension-based
easy-to-solve problems.
o • • indicates Level 3 and Level 4, i.e. application and analysis-based
medium to difficult problems.
• •• indicates Level 5 and Level, 6 i.e. synthesis and evaluation-based very
difficult problems.
Learning Outcomes
Summary points specific to each LO are provided at the end of each chapter. This
helps in recapitulating the ideas initiated with the outcomes achieved.
Chapter-end Exercises
More than 300 carefully designed chapter-end questions and exercises are arranged as
per levels of difficulty, and are framed to enhance knowledge and test new skills learnt.
These include objective type multiple choice questions, review questions and practice
exercises.

Salient Features
• Extensive coverage of topics in Big Data Analytics, such as Big Data
NoSQL Column-family, Object and Graph databases, Data reporting and
visualization, Programming with open source Big Data Hadoop
ecosystems tools, Spark, Spark ecosystem, Streaming, GraphX, and
 Mahout tools, have been explained using examples of datasets of interest
to students, such as toys, chocolates, cars and GPAs/academic
performance of students in theory and practical subjects.
• Latest topics such as Machine Learning, Regression analysis, K-NN,
Predictive analytics, Clustering, Decision trees, Clusters, and Similar,
frequent item sets, Pattern mining solutions, Classifiers, Recommenders,
Real-time streaming data analytics, Graph networks for web and social
network analytics, and Text analytics.
• Systematic approach: Data architecture is followed by Analytics
architectures, and the section on Hadoop ecosystem tools is followed by
Spark- and Python-based tools. Each chapter starts with learning
objectives and a quick recall from earlier chapters. The introduction is
followed by important key terms in the beginning of each chapter for
easy understanding of the chapter content. The text has been tagged
with descriptions and questions, self-assessment exercises and
illustrations within the chapter, and each chapter ends with learning
outcomes, MCQs, review questions and practice exercises.
• Rich pedagogy: 20+ programming codes, 100+ questions, solved
examples and practice exercises. Dedicated chapter on a major case
study in the textbook, and another major case study in online content.
Rich online content, PPTs, guide to solutions of practice exercises and
list of select books and references, which makes a comprehensive
bibliography for anyone interested in pursuing further studies in Big
Data Analytics.

Chapter Organization
Chapter 1 gives overview of Big Data, characteristics, types and classification methods. It
describes scalability, need of scaling up and scaling out of processing, analytics using
massively parallel processors, and cloud, grid and distributed computing. This chapter
introduces data architecture design, data management, data sources, data quality, data
pre-processing and export of pre-processed data stores to cloud. Approaches of
traditional systems, such as SQL, Relational Database Management System (RDBMS),
enterprise servers and data warehouse for data storage and analysis, as well as the
approaches for Big Data storage, processing and analytics have been explained in detail. It
also includes Berkley Data Analytics architecture, and introduces cases, case studies and
applications of BOA to its readers.
Chapter 2 starts with an interesting example, explaining the distributed parallel
computing architecture with shared-nothing architecture. This chapter describes basics
of Hadoop, its ecosystem components, streaming and pipe functions, Hadoop physical
architecture, Hadoop distributed file system (HDFS). It explains how to organize nodes for
computations using large-scale file systems, and provides a conceptual understanding of
MapReduceDaemon, functioning of Hadoop MapReduceframework, YARN for managing
resources along with the application tasks. The chapter introduces Hadoop ecosystem
interactions, and application support for analytics using AVRO, Zookeeper, Ambari,
HBase,Hive,Pig and Mahout.
Chapter3 highlights NoSQL data stores, solutions, schema-less models and increasing
flexibility of NoSQL for data manipulation. It describes NoSQL data architecture patterns,
namely the key value pairs, graphs, column family, tabular, document and object in the
data stores. This chapter explains the use of the shared-nothing architecture, choosing a
distribution model, master-slave versus peer-to-peer, and four ways which NoSQL
handles Big Data problems. The chapter covers MongoDB and Cassandra databases.
Chapter 4 describes the MapReduce paradigm, map tasks using key-value pairs,
grouping-by-keys and reduce tasks. It provides the conceptual understanding of
partitioning and combiners in the application execution framework, and MapReduce
algorithms by stating various examples. The chapter also describes Hive, HiveQL and Pig
architecture, Grunt shell commands, data model, Pig Latin. It provides an understanding
how to develop scripts and User-DefinedFunctions.
Chapter 5 introduces Spark architecture features, software stack components and
their functions. It describes the steps in data analysis with Spark, and usage of Spark with
Python advanced features. The highlight of this chapter is the description of methods of
downloading Spark, programming with the RDDs, usage of the Spark shell, developing
and testing Spark codes, and the applications of MLib. The chapter gives understanding of
how to run ETL processes using the built-in functions, operators and pipelines. It also
covers data analytics, data reporting and data visualization aspects.
Chapter 6 lucidly explains the classes of variables, and the ways of estimating the
relationships, outliers, variances, probability distributions, errors and correlations
between variables, items and entities. The chapter gives detailed descriptions of
regression analysis, and the use of K-NN distance measures for making predictions using
interpolations and extrapolations. It explains machine-learning methods of finding
similar items, similarities, filtering of simliars, frequent itemset mining, collaborative
filtering, associations and association rules mining. The highlight of this chapter is the
description of ML methods of clustering, classifiers and recommenders, and Apache
Mahout algorithms for big datasets.
Chapter 7 provides understanding of the concept, model, architecture, management
of data streams. It describes stream sources and stream computing aspects - sampling,
filtering, counting distinct elements, frequent itemset stream analytics, handling of large
datasets, and mining of association rules. The chapter explains the real-time analytics
platform, Apache SparkStreaming, and case studies on real-time sentiment analytics and
stock price analytics.
Chapter8 describes the modelling of databases as the graphs and representations of
graphs using triples. The highlight of this chapter is the description of use of graphs and
graph networks. The chapter gives methods of choosing the graph and graph parameters,
such as centralities for analytics. It explains the graph methods of diagnostics, decisions,
StatsModel, and probabilities-based analytics. Another highlight is the description of
features of Apache Spark GraphX,and its architecture, components and applications.
Chapter 9 describes text mining and the usage of ML techniques . Naive-Bayes
analysis, and support-vector machines (SVMs) for analysing text. The chapter explains
the methods of web mining, link analytics, analysing of web graphs, PageRank methods,
web structure analytics, finding hubs and communities, social-network analysis, and
representation of social networks as graphs. It describes computational methods of
finding the clustering in social network graphs, SimRank,counting triangles (cliques) and
discovering the communities.
Chapter 10 describes installation methods for Hadoop, Hive, Pig and Spark on the
Ubuntu platform. The highlight of this chapter is deploying and exploring open-source
Lego datasets, schema, processing and storage. The chapter explains MapReduce
implementation for counting items in a dataset, creating Hive data tables from a CSV
format dataset, and creating Dataframes from RDDs. It describes Hive and PySpark
programmes using functions for Merge and Join of Dataframes, the SQL-equivalentJoin,
and the UDFs for customised query processing. The chapter explains programmes for data
visualization using pi, bar and scatter plots. Another highlight of the chapter is the
description of machine learning programmes using sklearn for SVMs, Naive Bayes
Classifiers,linear and polynomial regression analyses, and predictive analytics.
Followingcontent is available towards the end of this textbook:
1. Solution to objective questions

2. Bibliography
• Printed and e-books
• Website resources
• Research journals
• Reference papers

Online LearningCenter
An accompanying web supplement available at http://www.mhhe.com/kamal/bda
includes:
PowerPoint slides for each chapter to supplement lecture presentations
Solution guide to practice exercises
Write-up on topics
An additional case study using an open source large dataset of car
company
Although much care has been taken to ensure an error-free text, a few mistakes may
have crept in. The authors shall be grateful if they are pointed out by the readers.
Feedback on content of the book as well as the web supplement available on the McGraw•
Hill site from readers will be highly appreciated through e-mail to
dr [email protected] and [email protected].
RAJ KAMAL
PREETISAXENA
Other documents randomly have
different content
 Affectionately,
Billy.
Jerome finished reading this remarkable communication; then with
infinite amusement he regarded John Stuart Webster over the tops
of his glasses as one who examines a new and interesting species of
bug.
“So Billy loves that dear Sobrante, eh?” he said with abysmal
sarcasm. “Jack Webster, listen to a sane man and be guided
accordingly. I was in this same little Buenaventura once. I was there
for three days, and I wouldn't have been there three minutes if I
could have caught a steamer out sooner. Of all the miserable,
squalid, worthless, ornery, stinking holes on the face of God's green
footstool, Sobrante is the worst—if one may judge it by its capital
city. Jack, there is an old bromide that describes aptly the republic of
Sobrante, and it's so trite I hesitate to repeat it—but I will, for your
benefit. Sobrante is a country where the flowers are without
fragrance, the men without honour, and the women without virtue.
It is hot and unhealthy, and the mosquitoes wear breechclouts; and
when they bite you, you die. You get mail three times a month, and
there isn't a white man in the whole Roman-candle republic that a
gentleman would associate with.”
“You forget Billy Geary,” Webster reminded him gently.
“He's a boy. What does his judgment amount to? Are you going to
chase off to this God-forsaken fever-hole at the behest of a lad
scarcely out of his swaddling clothes? Jack Webster, surely you aren't
going to throw yourself away—give up the sure thing I offer you—to
join Billy Geary in Sobrante and finance a wildcat prospect without a
certificate of title attached. Why, Jack, my dear boy, don't you know
that if you develop your mine to-morrow and get it paying well, the
first 'liberator' may take it away from you or tax you for the entire
output?”
“We'll have government protection, Neddy. This will be American
capital, and if they get fresh, our Uncle Sam can send a warship,
can't he?”
 “He can—but he won't. Are you and Billy Geary of sufficient
importance at home or abroad to warrant the vast consumption of
coal necessary to send a battleship to protect your dubious prospect-
hole? Be reasonable. What did you wire that confounded boy?”
“That I was coming.”
“Cable him you've changed, your mind. We'll send him some
money to come home, and you can give him a good job under you.
I'll O. K. the voucher and charge it to your personal expense
account.”
“That's nice of you, old sport, and I thank you kindly. I'll talk to
Billy when I arrive in Buenaventura, and if the prospect doesn't look
good to me, I'll argue him out of it and we'll come home.”
“But I want you now. I don't want you to go away.”
“You promised me thirty days in which to have a good time——”
“So I did. But is this having a good time? How about that omelette
soufflé all blazing with blue fire, and that shower-bath and the opera
and mushing through the art centres, and Sousa's band——”
“They have a band down in Buenaventura. Billy says so.”
“It plays 'La Paloma' and 'Sobre las Olas' and 'La Golondrina' and
all the rest of them. Jack, you'll go crazy listening to it.”
“Oh, I don't want any omelette soufflé, and I had a bath before I
left the hotel. I was just hearing myself talk, Neddy,” the culprit
protested weakly. “Let me go. I might come back. But I must go. I
want to see Billy.”
“You just said a minute ago you'd turned the forty-year post,”
Jerome warned him. “And you're now going to lose a year or two
more in which you might better be engaged laying up a foundation
of independence for your old age. You will get out of Sobrante with
the price of a second-class ticket on a vile fruit boat, and you'll be
back here panhandling around for a job at a quarter of what I am
offering you. For Heaven's sake, man, don't be a fool.”
“Oh, but I will be a fool,” John Stuart Webster answered; and
possibly, by this time, the reader has begun to understand the
potency of his middle name—the Scotch are notoriously pig-headed,
and Mr. Webster had just enough oatmeal in his blood to have come
by that centre-fire name honestly. “And you, you poor old horse, you
could not possibly understand why, if you lived to be a million years
old.”
He got up from his chair to the full height of his six-feet-one, and
stretched one hundred and ninety pounds of bone and muscle.
“And so I shall go to Sobrante and lose all of this all-important
money, shall I?” he jeered. “Then, by all the gods of the Open
Country, I hope I may! Old man, you have browsed through a heap
of literature in your day, but I doubt if it has done you any good.
Permit me to map out a course of reading for you. Get a copy of
'Paradise Lost' and another of 'Cyrano de Bergerac.' In the former
you will find a line running somewhat thusly: 'What tho' the cause
be lost, all is not lost!' And in the immortal work of Monsieur
Rostand, let me recommend one little page—about fifteen lines.
Read them, old money-grubber, and learn! On second thought, do
not read them. Those lines would only be wasted on you, for you
have become afflicted with hypertrophy of the acquisitive sense,
which thins the blood, dwarfs the understanding, stunts the
perception of relative values, and chills the feet. .
“Let me foretell your future for the next twenty years, Neddy. You
will spend about forty per cent, of your time in this lounging-room,
thirty per cent, of it in piling up a bank-roll, out of which you will
glean no particular enjoyment, and the remaining thirty per cent,
you will spend in bed. And then some bright morning your heart-
beat will slow down almost imperceptibly, and the House Committee
will order a wreath of autumn leaves hung just above Number Four
domino table, and it will remain there until the next annual house-
cleaning, when some swamper 'will say, 'What the devil is this stuff
here for?' and forthwith he will tear it down and consign it to the
fireplace.”
“Ba-a-li,” growled Jerome.
 “The truth hurts, I know,” Webster pursued relentlessly, “but hear
me to the bitter end. And then presently shall enter the club no less
a personage than young John Stuart Webster, even as he entered it
to-day. He will be smelling of country with the hair on, and he will
glance toward Table Number Four and murmur sympathetically:
'Poor old Jerome! I knowed him good!' Did I hear you say 'Huh!' just
then? I thank thee for teaching me that word. Take careful note and
see I use it correctly—'Huh!' Dad burn you, Neddy, I'm not a
Methuselah. I want some fun in life. I want to fight and be broke
and go hungry and then make money for the love of making it and
spending it, and I want to live a long time yet. I have a
constitutional weakness for foregathering with real he-men, doing
real he-things, and if I'm to be happy, I'll just naturally have to be
the he-est of the whole confounded pack! I want to see the mirage
across the sagebrush and hear it whisper: 'Hither, John Stuart
Webster! Hither, you fool, and I'll hornswaggle you again, as in an
elder day I horn,swaggled you before.'”
Jerome shook his white thatch hopelessly.
“I thought you were a great mining engineer, John,” he said sadly,
“but you're not. You're a poet. You do not seem to care for money.”
“Well,” Webster retorted humorously, “it isn't exactly what you
might term a ruling passion. I like to make it, but there's more fun
spending it. I've made a hundred thousand dollars, and now I want
to go blow it—and I'm going to. Do not try to argue with me. I'm a
lunatic and I will have my way. If I didn't go tearing off to Sobrante
and join forces with Billy Geary, there to play the game, red or black,
I'd feel as if I had done something low and mean and small. The
boy's appealed to me, and I have made my answer. If I come back
alive but broke, you know in your heart you'll give me the best job
you have.”
“You win,” poor Jerome admitted.
“Hold the job open thirty days. At the end of that period I'll give
you a definite answer, Neddy.”
 “There is no Balm in Gilead,” Jerome replied sadly. “Blessed are
they that expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed.”
“It's six-thirty,” Webster suggested. “Let's eat. Last call for that
omelette soufflé, and we'll go to a show afterward. By the way,
Neddy, how do you like this suit? Fellow in Salt Lake built it for me—
ninety bucks!”
But Jerome was not interested in clothing and similar foolishness.
He only knew that he had lost the services of a mining engineer for
whom he had searched the country for a month. He rose, dusting
the cigar ashes from his vest, and followed sulkily.
Despite the evidences of “grouch” which Jerome brought to the
dinner table with John Stuart Webster, he was not proof against the
latter's amazing vitality and boundless good spirits. The sheer weight
of the Websterian optimism and power of enjoying simple things
swept all of Jerome's annoyance from him as a brisk breeze
dissipates the low-lying fog that hides a pleasant valley, and ere the
second cocktail had made its appearance, the president of the
Colorado Consolidated Mines Company, Limited, was doing his best
to help Webster enjoy this one perfect night snatched from the grim
processional of sunrise and sunset that had passed since last he had
dallied with the fleshpots—that were to pass ere he should dally with
them again according to his peculiar nature and inclination.
Lovingly, lingeringly, Mr. Webster picked his way through the hors
d'ouvres, declared against the soup as too filling, mixed the salad
after a recipe of his own, served it and consumed it prior to the
advent of the entrée, which if not the fashion in the West, at
present, has not as yet gone entirely out of fashion. He revelled in
breast of pheasant, with asparagus tips, and special baked potato;
he thrilled with champagne at twelve dollars the quart, and a tender
light came into his quizzical glance at sight of a brick of ice cream in
four colours; he cheered for the omelette soufflé. In the end he
demanded a tiny cheese fit for active service, cracked himself a peck
of assorted nuts, and with a pot of black coffee and the best cigars
possible of purchase in Denver, he leaned back at his ease and
forgot the theatre in the long-denied delight of yarning with his old
friend.
At one o'clock next morning they were still seated in the cosy grill,
smoking and talking. Jerome looked at his watch.
“Great grief, Johnny!” he declared. “I must be trotting along.
Haven't been out this late in years.”
“It's the shank of the evening, Neddy,” Webster pleaded, “and I'm
hungry again. We'll have a nice broiled lobster, with drawn butter—
eh, Ned? And another quart of that '98?”
“My liver would never stand it. I'd be in bed for a week,” Jerome
protested. “See you at the club to-morrow afternoon before you
leave, I presume.”
“If I get through with my shopping in time,” Webster answered,
and reluctantly abandoning the lobster and accessories, he
accompanied Jerome to the door and saw him safely into a taxicab.
“Sure you won't think it over, Jack, and give up this crazy
proposition?” he pleaded at parting.
Webster shook his head. “I sniff excitement and adventure and
profit in Sobrante, Neddy, and I've just got to go look-see. I'm like
an old burro staked out knee-deep in alfalfa just now. I won't take
kindly to the pack—-”
“And like an old burro, you won't be happy until you've sneaked
through a hole in the fence to get out into a stubble-field and
starve.” Jerome swore halfheartedly and promulgated the trite
proverb that life is just one blank thing after the other—an inchoate
mass of liver and disappointment!
“Do you find it so?” Webster queried sympathetically.
Suspecting that he was being twitted, Jerome looked up sharply,
prepared to wither Webster with that glance. But no, the man was
absolutely serious; whereupon Jerome realized the futility of further
argument and gave John Stuart Webster up for a total loss. Still, he
could not help smiling as he reflected how Webster had planned a
year of quiet enjoyment and Fate had granted him one brief
evening. He marvelled that Webster could be so light-hearted and
contented under the circumstances.
Webster read his thoughts. “Good-bye, old man,” he said, and
extended his hand. “Don't worry about me. Allah is always kind to
fools, my friend; sorrow is never their portion. I've led rather a
humdrum life. I've worked hard and never had any fun or
excitement to speak of, and in answering Billy's call I have a feeling
that I am answering the call of a great adventure.”
He did not know how truly he spoke, of course, but if he had, that
knowledge would not have changed his answer.
 CHAPTER V

T
HE morning following his decision to play the rôle of angel to
Billy Geary's mining concession in Sobrante, John Stuart
Webster, like Mr. Pepys, was up betimes.
Nine o'clock found him in the office of his friend Joe Daingerfield,
of the Bingham Engineering Works, where, within the hour, he had
in his characteristically decisive fashion purchased the machinery for
a ten-stamp mill and an electric light plant capability of generating
two hundred and fifty horsepower two electric hoists with cable, half
a dozen steel ore buckets, as many more ore-cars with five hundred
feet of rail, a blacksmithing outfit, a pump, motors, sheet steel to
line the crushing-bins and form shovelling platforms for the ore in
the workings, picks, shovels drills, and so forth. It was a nice order
and Dangerfield fwas delighted.
“This is going to cost you about half your fortune, Jack,” he
informed Webster when the order was finally made up.
Webster grinned. “You don't suppose I'm chump enough to pay
for it now, do you, Joe?” he queried.
“You'll pay at least half, my son. We love you, Jack; we honour
and respect you; but this stuff is going to Central America, and in
the event of your premature demise, we might not get it back. They
have wars down there, you know, and when those people are war-
mad, they destroy things.”
“I know. But I'm going first to scout the country, Joe, and in the
meantime keep all this stuff in your warehouse until I authorize you
by cable to ship, when you can draw on me at sight for the entire
invoice with bill of lading attached. If, upon investigation, I find that
this mine isn't all my partner thinks it is, I'll cable a cancellation, and
you can tear that nice fat order up and forget it. I don't intend to
have you and that gang of penny-pinching card-room engineers up
at the Engineers' Club remind me of the old adage that a fool and
his money are soon parted.”
From Daingerfield's office Webster went forth to purchase a
steamer-trunk, his railway ticket and sleeping-car reservation—after
which he returned to his hotel and set about packing for the journey.
He sighed regretfully as he folded his brand-new raiment, packed
it in moth balls in his wardrobe-trunk, and ordered the trunk sent to
a storage warehouse.
“Well, I was a giddy old bird of paradise for one night, at least,” he
comforted himself, as he dressed instead in a suit of light-weight
olive drab goods in which he hoped to enjoy some measure of cool
comfort until he should reach Buenaventura and thus become
acquainted with the foibles of fashion in that tropical centre.
The remainder of the afternoon he spent among his old friends of
the Engineers' Club, who graciously tendered him a dollar table
d'hote dinner that evening and saw him off for his train at ten
o'clock, with many a gloomy prophecy as to his ultimate destiny—the
prevailing impression appearing to be that he would return to them
in a neat long box labelled: This Side Up—With Care—Use No Hooks.
Old Neddy Jerome, as sour and cross as a setting hen,'
accompanied him in the taxicab to the station, loth to let him escape
and pleading to the last, in a forlorn hope that Jack Webster's better
nature would triumph over his friendship and boyish yearning for
adventure. He clung to Webster's arm as they walked slowly down
the track and paused at the steps of the car containing the
wanderer's reservation, just as a porter, carrying some hand-
baggage, passed them by, followed by a girl in a green tailor-made
suit. As she passed, John Stuart Webster looked fairly into her face,
started as if bee-stung, and hastily lifted his hat. The girl briefly
returned his scrutiny with sudden interest, decided she did not know
him, and reproved him with a glance that even passé old Neddy
Jerome did not fail to assimilate.
 “Wow, wow!” he murmured. “The next time you try that, Johnny
Webster, be sure you're right——”
“Good land o' Goshen, Neddy,” Webster replied. “Fry me in bread-
crumbs, if that isn't the same girl! Come to think of it, the conductor
who gave me her name told me her ticket called for a stop-over in
Denver! Let me go, Neddy. Quick! Good-bye, old chap. I'm on my
way.”
“Nonsense! The train doesn't pull out for seven minutes yet. Who
is she, John, and why does she excite you so?” Jerome recognized in
his whimsical friend the symptoms of a most unusual malady—with
Webster—and so he held the patient fast by the arm.
 “Who is she, you ancient horse-thief? Why, if I have my way—and
I'm certainly going to try to have it—she's the future Mrs. W.”
“Alas! Poor Yorick, I knowed him well,” Jerome answered. “Take a
tip from the old man, John. I've been through the mill and I know.
Never marry a girl that can freeze you with a glance. It isn't safe,
and remember, you're not as young as you used to be. By the way,
what's the fair charmer's name?”
“I've got it down in my memorandum book, but I can't recall it this
minute—Spanish name.”
“John, my dear boy, be careful,” Neddy Jerome counseled. “Stick
to your own kind of people——”
“I'll not. That girl is as trim and neat and beautiful as a newly
minted guinea. What do I want with a Scotch lassie six feet tall and
a believer in hell-fire and infant damnation?”
“Is this—a—er—a nice girl, John?”
“How do I know—I mean, how dare you ask? Of course she's nice.
Can't you see she is? And besides, why should you be so fearful——”
“I'll have you understand, young man, that I have considerable
interest in the girl you're going to marry. Drat it, boy, if you marry
the wrong girl she may interfere with my plans. She may be a spoil-
sport and not want to live up at the mine—after you return from this
wild-goose chase, dragging your fool tail behind you. By the way,
where did you first meet this girl? Who introduced you?”
“I haven't met her, and I've never been introduced,” Webster
complained, and poured forth the tale of his adventure on the train
from Death Valley. Neddy was very sympathetic.
“Well, no wonder she didn't recognize you when you saluted her
to-night,” he agreed. “Thought you were another brute of a man
trying to make a mash. By thunder, Jack, I'm afraid you made a
mistake when you shed your whiskers and buried your old clothes.
You don't look nearly so picturesque and romantic now, and maybe
she'll refuse to believe you're the same man!”
 “I don't care what she thinks. I found her, I lost her, and I've
found her again; and I'm not going to take any further chances. I
wired a detective agency to pick her up in Salt Lake and trail her to
New Orleans and get me all the dope on her, while I was in
temporary retirement with my black eye. Brainless fellows, these
amateur detectives. I'll never employ one again. I described her
accurately—told them she was beautiful and that she was wearing a
green tailor-made suit; and will you believe me, Neddy, they
reported to me next day that their operative failed to pick her up at
the station? He said three beautiful women got off the train there,
and that none of them wore a green dress.”
“Well, it's just barely possible she may have another dress,”
Jerome retorted slyly. “Women are funny that way. They change
their dresses about as often as they change their minds.”
“Why, that's so,” Webster answered innocently. “I never thought of
that.”
The porter, having delivered his charge's baggage in her section,
was returning for another tip. Webster reached out and accosted
him.
“Henry,” he said, “do you want to earn a dollar?”
“Yes, sah. Yes indeed, sah.'
“Where did you stow that young lady's hand-baggage?”
“Lower Six, Car Nine, sah.”
“I have a weakness for coloured boys who are quick at figures,”
Webster declared, and dismissed the porter with the gratuity. He
turned to Jerome. “Neddy, I feel that I am answering the call to a
great adventure,” he declared solemnly.
“I know it, Jack. Good-bye, son, and God bless you. If your fit of
insanity passes within ninety days, cable me; and if you're broke,
stick the Colorado Con' for the cable tolls.”
“Good old wagon!” Webster replied affectionately. Then he shook
hands and climbed aboard the train. The instant he disappeared in
the vestibule, however, Neddy Jerome waddled rapidly down the
track to Car Nine, climbed aboard, and made his way to Lower Six.
The young lady in the green tailor-made suit was there, looking idly
out the window.
“Young lady,” Jerome began, “may I presume to address you for a
moment on a matter of very great importance to you? Don't be
afraid of me, my dear. I'm old enough to be your father, and besides,
I'm one of the nicest old men you ever met.”
She could not forbear a smile. “Very well, sir,” she replied.
Neddy Jerome produced a pencil and card. “Please write your
name on this card,” he pleaded, “and I'll telegraph what I want to
say to you. There'll be a man coming through this car in a minute,
and I don't want him to see me here—besides which, the train
leaves in half a minute, and I live in Denver and make it a point to
be home and in bed not later than ten each night. Please trust me,
young lady.” ^
The young lady did not trust him, however, although she wrote on
the card. Jerome thanked her and fled as fast as his fat old legs
could carry him. Under the station arc he read the card.
“'Henrietta Wilkins,'” he murmured. “By the gods, one would never
suspect a name like that belonged to a face like that. I know that
name is going to jar Jack and cause him to seethe with ambition to
change it. He'll trim the Henrietta down to plain Retta, and change
Wilkins to Webster! By jingo, it would be strange if that madman
persuaded her to marry him. I hope he does. If I'm any judge of
character, Jack Webster won't be cruel enough to chain that vision to
Sobrante; and besides, she's liable to make him decide who's most
popular with him—Henrietta or Billy Geary. If she does, I'll play
Geary to lose. However, if that confirmed old bachelor wants to
chase rainbows, I might as well help him out, since whichever way
the cat jumps I can't lose. It's to my interest to have him marry that
girl, or any girl, for that matter, because she'll have something to say
about the advisability of kicking aside what amounts, approximately,
to thirty thousand a year, in order to sink the family bankroll in a
wildcat mine in the suburbs of hell. Well! Needs must when the devil
drives.” And he entered the station telegraph office and commenced
to write.
An hour later Miss Dolores Ruey, alias Henrietta Wilkins, was
handed this remarkably verbose and truly candid telegram:
Denver, Colo., Aug. 7, 1913. Miss Henrietta Wilkins,
Lower 6, Car 9,
On board train 24.
Do you recall the bewhiskered, ragged individual you met on the
S.P., L.A. & S.L. train in Death Valley ten days ago? He thrashed a
man who annoyed you, but owing to a black eye and his generally
unpresentable appearance, he remained in his stateroom the
remainder of the trip and you did not see him again until to-night.
He lifted his hat to you to-night, and you almost killed him with a
look. It did not occur to him that you would not recognize him
disguised as a gentleman, and he lifted his hat on impulse. Do not
hold it against him. The sight of you again set his reason tottering
on its throne, and he told me his sad story.
This man, John Stuart Webster, is wealthy, single, forty, fine, and
crazy as a March hare. He is in love with you.
You might do worse than fall in love with him. He is the best
mining engineer in the world, and he is now aboard the same train
with you, en route to New Orleans, thence to take the steamer to
Buenaventura, Sobrante, C. A., where he is to meet another lunatic
and finance a hole in the ground. He has just refused a thirty-
thousand-dollar-a-year job from me to answer the call of a mistaken
friendship. I do not want him to go to Sobrante. If you marry him,
he will not. If you do not marry him, you still might arrange to make
him listen to reason. If you can induce him to come to work for me
within the next ninety days, whether you marry him or not, I will
give you five thousand dollars the day he reports on the job. Please
bear in mind that he does not know I am doing this. If he did, he
would kill me, but business is business, and this is a plain business
proposition. I am putting you wise, so you will know your power and
can exercise it if you care to earn the money. If not, please forget
about it. At any rate, please do me the favour to communicate with
me on the subject, if at all interested.
Edward P. Jerome.
President Colorado Consolidated Mines, Limited.
Care Engineers' Club.
The girl read and reread this telegram several times, and presently
a slow little smile commenced to creep around the corners of her
adorable mouth, for out of the chaos of emotions induced by Ned
Jerome's amazing proposition, the humour of the situation had
detached itself to the elimination of everything else.
“I believe that amazing old gentleman is absolutely dependable,”
was the decision at which she ultimately arrived, and calling for a
telegraph blank, she wired the old schemer:
Five thousand not enough money. Make it ten thousand and I will
guarantee to deliver the man within ninety days. I stay on this train
to New Orleans.
Henrietta.
That telegram arrived at the Engineers' Club about midnight, and
pursuant to instructions, the night barkeeper read it and phoned the
contents to Neddy Jerome, who promptly telephoned his reply to the
telegraph office, and then sat on the edge of his bed, scratching his
toes and meditating.
“That's a remarkable young woman,” he decided, “and business to
her finger-tips. Like the majority of her sex, she's out for the dough.
Well, I've done my part, and it's now up to Jack Webster to protect
himself in the clinches and breakaways.”
About daylight a black hand passed Neddy Jerome's reply through
the berth-curtains to Dolores Ruey. She read:
Accept. When you deliver the goods, communicate with me and
get your money.
Jerome.
She snuggled back among the pillows and considered the various
aspects of this amazing contract which she had undertaken with a
perfect stranger. Hour after hour she lay there, thinking over this.
As she passed, John Stuart Webster looked fairly into her face, v
started as if bee-stung, and hastily lifted his hat preposterous
situation, and the more she weighed it, the more interesting and
attractive the proposition appeared. But one consideration troubled
her. How would the unknown knight manage an introduction? Or, if
he failed to manage it, how was she to overcome that obstacle?
“Oh, dear,” she murmured, “I do hope he's brave.”
She need not have worried. Hours before, the object of her
thought had settled all that to his own complete satisfaction, and as
a consequence was sleeping peacefully and gaining strength for
whatever of fortune, good or ill, the morrow might bring forth.
 CHAPTER VI

D
AY was dawning in Buenaventura, republic of Sobrante, as
invariably it dawns in the tropics—without extended
preliminary symptoms. The soft, silvery light of a full moon
that had stayed out scandalously late had merged imperceptibly into
gray; the gray was swiftly yielding place to a faint crimson that was
spreading and deepening upward athwart the east.
In the Calle Nueva a game cock, pride of an adoring family of
Sobrante's lower class, crowed defiance to a neighbouring bird. A
dog barked. From the patch of vivid green at the head of the Calle
San Rosario a troupe of howling monkeys raised a sun-up cheer that
marked the finish of a night of roystering; from wattled hut and
adobe casa brunette women in red calico wrappers came forth,
sleepy-eyed and dishevelled; and presently from a thousand little
adobe fireplaces in a thousand backyards thin blue spirals of smoke
mounted—incense to the household gods of Sobrante—Tortilla and
Frijoles. Brown men, black men, lemon-tinted men, and white men
whose fingernails showed blue instead of white at the base, came to
the doors of their respective habitations, leaned against them,
lighted post-breakfast cigarettes, and waited for somebody to start
something.
To these indolent watchers of the dawn was vouchsafed presently
the sight of Senora Concepcion Josefina Morelos on her way to early
mass at the Catedral de la Vera Cruz. Men called to each other, when
she passed, that Senora Morelos shortly would seek, in a Carmelite
convent, surcease from the grief caused by the premature demise of
her husband, General Pablo Morelos, at the hands of a firing-squad
in the cuartel yard, as a warning to others of similar kidney to
forbear and cease to tamper with the machinery of politics. And
when Senora Morelos had passed, came Alberto Guzman with two
smart mules hitched to a dilapidated street-car; came Don Juan
Cafetéro, peseta-less, still slightly befuddled from his potations of
the night before, and raising the echoes in the calle with a song
singularly alien to his surroundings:

Green were the fields where my forefathers dwelt—

O, Erin, mavourneen, slan laght go bragh!

At the theatre we sit patiently waiting for the stage electrician to

switch on the footlights and warn us that the drama is about to
begin. Let us, in a broader sense, appropriate that cue to mark the
beginning of the drama with which this story deals; instead of a
stage, however, we have the republic of Sobrante; in lieu of
footlights we have the sun popping up out of the Caribbean Sea.
Those actors whose acquaintance we have so briefly made thus
far must be presumed to be supers crossing the stage and loitering
thereon while the curtain is down. Now, therefore, let us drive them
into the wings while the curtain rises on a tropical scene.
In the patio of Mother Jenks's establishment in the Çalle de
Concordia, No. 19, the first shafts of morning light were filtering
obliquely through the orange trees and creeping in under the deep,
Gothic-arched veranda flanking the western side of the patio, to
reveal a dusky maiden of more or less polyglot antecedents, asleep
upon a bright, parti-coloured blanket spread over a wicker couch.
Presently, through the silent reaches of the Calle de Concordia, the
sound of a prodigious knocking and thumping echoed, as of some
fretful individual seeking admission at the street door of El Buen
Amigo, by which euphonious designation Mother Jenks's caravansary
was known to the public of Buenaventura. In the second story, front,
a window slid back and a woman's voice, husky with that huskiness
that speaks so accusingly of cigarettes and alcohol, demanded:
“Quien es? Who is it? Que quiere usted? Wot do yer want?”
“Ye might dispinse wit' that paraqueet conversation whin
addhressin' the likes av me,” a voice replied. “'Tis me—Cafferty. I
have a cablegram Leber give me to deliver——”
“Gawd's truth! Would yer wake the 'ole 'ouse with yer'ammering?”
“All right. I'll not say another worrd!”
A minute passed; then the same husky voice, the owner of which
had evidently descended from her sleeping chamber above, spoke in
a steadily rising crescendo from a room just off the veranda:
“Car-may-lee-ta-a-a!”
We can serve no useful purpose by endeavouring to conceal from
the reader, even temporarily, the information that Carmelita was the
sleeping naiad on the couch; also that she continued to sleep, for
hers was that quality of slumber which is the heritage of dark blood
and defies any commotion short of that incident to a three-alarm
fire. Three times the husky voice addressed Carmelita with
cumulative vehemence; but Carmelita slept on, and presently the
husky voice ceased to cry aloud for her. Followed the sound of bare
feet thudding across the floor.
Forth from the house came Mother Jenks, a redfaced, coarse-
jowled, slightly bearded lady of undoubted years and indiscretion, in
curl-papers and nightgown, barefoot and carrying a bucket. One
scornful glance at the sleeping Carmelita, and mother Jenks crossed
to the fountain plashing in the centre of the patio, filled her bucket,
stepped to the veranda and dashed three gallons of tepid water into
Carme-lita's face.
That awakened Carmelita—Mother Jenks's raucous “Git up, yer
bloody wench! Out, yer 'ussy, an' cook almuerzo. Gawd strike me
pink, if I don't give yer the sack for this—an' sleepin' on my best new
blenkit!” being in the nature of a totally unnecessary exordium.
Carmelita shrieked and fled, while Mother Jenks scuttled along in
pursuit like a belligerent old duck, the while she heaped opprobrium
upon Carmelita and all her tribe, the republic of Sobrante, its capital,
its government officials, and the cable company: Finally she
disappeared into El Buen Amigo with a hearty Cockney oath at her
own lack of foresight in ever permitting her sainted 'Enery to set foot
on a foreign shore.
 Once inside, Mother Jenks proceeded down a tiled hallway to the
cantina of her hostelry and opened the street door a few inches.
Without the portal stood Don Juan Cafetéro, of whom a word or two
before proceeding.
To begin, Don Juan Cafetéro was not his real name, but rather a
free Spanish translation of the Gaelic, John Cafferty. As would be
indicated by the song he was singing when first we made his
acquaintance, coupled with the unstable condition of his legs, Mr.
Cafferty was an exile of Erin with a horrible thirst. He had first
arrived in Sobrante some five years before, as section-boss in the
employ of the little foreign-owned narrow-gauge railway which ran
from Buenaventura on the Caribbean coast to San Miguel de Padua,
up-country where the nitrate beds were located. Prior to his advent
the railroad people had tried many breeds of section-boss without
visible results, until a Chicago man, who had come to Sobrante to
install an intercommunicating telephone system in the Government
buildings, suggested to the superintendent of the road, who was a
German, that the men made for bosses come from Erin's isle;
wherefore Mr. Cafferty had been imported at a price of five dollars a
day gold. Result—a marked improvement in the road-bed and
consequently the train-schedules, and the ultimate loss of the
Cafferty soul.
Don Juan, with the perversity of the Celt, and contrary to precept
and example, forbore to curse Sobrante. On the contrary, he liked
Sobrante immediately upon arrival and so stated in public—this
unusual state of affairs doubtless being due to the fact that his job
furnished much of excitement and interest, for his driving tactics
were not calculated to imbue in his dusky section-hands a love for
the new section-boss; and from the day he took charge until he lost
the job, the life of Don Juan Cafetéro had been equivalent in intrinsic
value to two squirts of swamp water—possibly one.
Something in the climate of Sobrante must have appealed to a
touch of laissez faire in Don Juan's amiable nature, for in the course
of time he had taken unto himself, without bell or book, after the
fashion of the proletariat of Sobrante, the daughter of one Estebân
Manuel Enrique José Maria Pasqual y Miramontes, an estimable peon
who was singularly glad to have his daughter off his hands and no
questions asked. Following the fashion of the country, however,
Esteban had forthwith moved the remainder of his numerous
progeny under the mantle of Don Juan Cafetéro's philanthropy, and
resigned a position which for many years he had not enjoyed—to
wit: salting and packing green hides at a local abattoir. This
foolhardy economic move had so incensed Don Juan that in a fit of
pique he spurned his father-in-law (we must call Esteban something
and so why split hairs?) under the tails of his camisa, with such
vigour as to sever forever the friendly relations hitherto existing
between the families. Mrs. Cafferty (again we transgress, but what
of it?) subsequently passed away in childbirth, and no sooner had
she been decently buried than Don Juan took a week off to drown
his sorrows.
In this condition he had encountered Esteban Manuel Enrique José
Maria Pasqual y Miramontes and called him out of his name—for
which there appears to be little excuse, in view of the many the
latter possessed. In the altercation that ensued Esteban, fully
convinced that he had received the nub end of the transaction from
start to finish, cut Don Juan severely in the region of the umbilicus;
Don Juan had thereupon slain Esteban with a .44-calibre revolver,
and upon emerging from the railroad hospital a month later had
been tried by a Sobrantean magistrate and fined the sum of twenty
thousand dollars, legal tender of the Republic of Sobrante. Of course
he had paid it off within six months from his wages as section-boss,
but the memory of the injustice always rankled in him, and gradually
he moved down the scale of society from section-boss to day
labourer, day labourer to tropical tramp, and tropical tramp to beach-
comber, in which latter state he had now existed for several months.
While waiting to round out the brief period of existence which
drink and the devil had left him, this poor human fragment had
become a protégé of Ignatz Leber, an Alsatian, manager for a
German importing and exporting house, and agent for the cable