r supports were banging into the brush with their heavy
Springfields; and still there seemed no symptom of weakness along the
immediate front, no sign of yielding. If anything the fury of the
Insurgent volleying increased as the sun climbed higher, and all along
the blue-shirted line men grit their teeth and swore as they crouched or
lay full length along the roadside, peering through the filmy veil that
drifted slowly across their front--the smoke from the Springfields of the
volunteers. To lie there longer with the bullets buzzing close overhead
or biting deep into the low embankment, sometimes tearing a stinging path
through human flesh and bone, was adding to the nerve strain of the hours
gone by. To rush headlong across that intervening open space, through
deep and muddy pools and stagnant ditch, and hurl themselves upon the
lurking enemy in the bamboo copse beyond, had been the ardent longing of
the line since daylight came to illumine the field before them. Yet stern
orders withheld: Defend, but do not advance, said the General's message;
and the whisper went along from man to man. "There is trouble in town
behind us, and the chief may need us there."

But, as eight o'clock passed with no word of uprising in the rear, and
the cheering over toward Santa Ana grew loud and louder, the nerve strain
upon the --teenth became well-nigh intolerable. "For God's sake, can't we
be doing something instead of lying here firing into a hornet's nest?"
was the murmur that arose in more than one company along the impatient
line; and the gruff voices of veteran sergeants could be heard ordering
silence, while, moving up and down behind their men, the line officers
cautioned against waste of ammunition and needless exposure. "Lie flat,
men. Keep down!" were the words. "We won't have to stand this forever.
You'll soon get your chance."

And presently it came. The cheering that had died away, far over to the
left beyond the wooded knolls that surrounded Singalon and Block House
12, was suddenly taken up nearer at hand. Then crashing volleys sounded
along the narrow roadway to the east, and a bugle rang out shrill and
clear above the noise of battle; and then closer still, though unseen in
the gloom of the dense thicket in which they lay, the men of the second
battalion, strung along a Filipino trail that led away to the rice
fields, swung their big straw hats and yelled for joy. A young officer,
his eyes flashing, his face flushing w