en butchered besides.

At the end of a terrific ten days, Thirteen was crawling at nightfall
into the large garrison at Lipa. Men and mules had been lost in the
recent gruelling service. The trails and the miles had been long and
hard; much hunger and thirst, and there was hell in the hearts of men
this night. Even Bedient was shaking with fatigue; and Cairns beside
him, felt that there wasn't the brain of a babe in his skull. His
saddle seemed filled with spikes. His spur was gone, and for hours he
had kept his half-dead, lolling-tongued pony on the way, by frequent
jabbing from a broken lead-pencil.... And here was Lipa at last, the
second Luzon town, and a corral for the mules. As they passed a
nipa-shack, at the outer edge, a sound of music came softly forth. Some
native was playing one of the queer Filipino mandolins. The Train
pushed on, without Cairns and Bedient. All the famine and foulness and
fever lifted from these two. They forgot blood and pain and glaring
suns. The early stars changed to lily-gardens, vast and white and
beautiful, and their eyes dulled with dreams.

They did not guess, at least Cairns did not, that the low music brought
tears that night--because they were in dreadful need of it, because
they were filled with inner agony for something beautiful, because they
had been spiritually starved. And all the riding hard, shooting true
and dying game--those poor ethics of the open--had not brought a crumb,
not a crumb, of the real bread of life. Nor could mountains of mere
energy nor icebergs of sheer nerve! In needing the bread of life--they
were different from the others, and so they lingered, unable to speak,
while a poor little Tagal--"one of the niggers"--all unconsciously
played. "Surely," they thought, "his soul is no dead, dark thing when
he can play like that."

* * * * *

... So often, Bedient watched admiringly while Cairns wrote. The
correspondent didn't know it, but he was bringing a good temporal fame
to Thirteen and himself in these nights. He had a boy's energy and
sentiment; also a story to tell for every ride and wound and shot in
the dark. The States were attuned to boyish things, as a country always
is in war, and a boy was better than a man for the work.... Often
Bedient would bring him a cup of coffee and arrange a blanket to keep
the wind from the sputtering candles. The two bunks were invariably
spread together; and Bedient was ever ready fo