out
of the tent and into his saddle.

"You young idiot," said Gordon, whirling on Billy the moment the coast
was clear. "You came within an ace of ruining the whole thing. _Never_
ask Canker for anything, unless it's what you wish to be rid of. Tell
Brooke you're for guard, and he's to go to town instead."

"Hopping mad," as he himself afterward expressed it, Colonel Canker had
ridden over to "have it out" with the quartermaster who had ventured to
comment on his methods, but the sight of the commanding general, standing
alone at the entrance to his private tent, his pale face grayer than ever
and a world of trouble in his eyes, compelled Canker to stop short. Two
or three orderlies were on the run. Two aides-de-camp, Mr. Garrison and a
comrade were searching through desks and boxes, their faces grave and
concerned. The regimental commander was off his horse in a second.
"Anything amiss, General?" he asked, with soldierly salute.

The General turned slowly toward him. "Can our men sell letters," he
said, "as well as food and forage? Do people _buy_ such things? A most
important package has been--stolen from my tent."

CHAPTER VI.

The great thoroughfare of that wonderful city, seated on more than her
seven hills, and ruling the Western world, was thronged from curb to
curb. Gay with bunting and streamers, the tall buildings of the rival
newspapers and the long _facades_ of hotels and business blocks were
gayer still with the life and color and enthusiasm that crowded every
window. Street traffic was blocked. Cable cars clanged vainly and the
police strove valiantly. It was a day given up to but one duty and one
purpose, that of giving Godspeed to the soldiery ordered for service in
the distant Philippines, and, though they hailed from almost every
section of the Union except the Pacific slope, as though they were her
own children, with all the hope and faith and pride and patriotism, with
all the blessings and comforts with which she had loaded the foremost
ships that sailed, yet happily without the tears that flowed when her own
gallant regiment was among the first to lead the way San Francisco turned
out _en masse_ to cheer the men from far beyond the Sierras and the
Rockies, and to see them proudly through the Golden Gate. Early in the
day the guns of a famous light battery had been trundled, decked like
some rose-covered chariot at the summer festival of flowers, through the
winding lanes of eager form