ee" were more than he could
stand. He had listened to them in his mind, enlarged, multiplied,
and magnified them in his own imagination, till he was sure the whole
insurrectionist army was quietly, inch by inch and foot by foot,
slipping down upon him. Up he jumped, revolver in hand, gripping
the handle and gritting his teeth, and proceeded to investigate the
sounds. Approaching within a few yards of a thick bunch of trees not
far in front of the hospital tent, he halted to listen. Yes, they
were there beyond all doubt. He could almost see them crawling toward
him; a hundred dusky demons upon all fours, with long, glistening,
razor-edged knives held between their shining teeth. They must be
stopped. With a loud voice, trembling with fear, he challenged:
"If you're an American, for God's sake say so, or I'll shoot." The
noise made no reply, and the shooting began promptly as promised.

The valiant "Pills" landed on his feet in the middle of
his tent, rallying his men, and was soon leading them to the
attack. Bang! bang! biff! bang! rang out the loud-mouthed Colt's
revolvers. A moment later the Krags began to pop to the right and
left, the alarm traveling up and down the line with lightning-like
rapidity. Soon six miles of grim-looking rifle muzzles were pointing
toward the innocent nothing to the front, a volley occasionally
resounding through the midnight air at an imaginary enemy.

Dawn found "Pills" searching the field of battle for dead and
wounded. He discovered numerous bullet-holes in his tent and medicine
chests, made by 45-caliber balls; and, lying near the place where the
gaunt, hungry-looking corps man first fired upon the enemy, he found
poor "Paterno," Company E's monkey mascot, with a short and bloody
tail, that member having been lost in the battle--a penalty for his
nocturnal perambulations.

PRIVATE TIMMONS AND THE CARABAO.

Timmons was a recruit private in an infantry regiment, and, when
stationed in a temperance community, was a mighty good soldier. True
to his steel, he met death in the general advance from San Fernando,
in August, 1899. He was one of those jolly, good natured fellows who
can sit in the mud and crack jokes, and sing standing in water to
his arm-pits. And what is better, he possessed the happy faculty of
imparting his exuberance to his long-faced, homesick, and downcast
fellow-privates. His temper was as smooth as a becalmed sea, and
seldom was it that a ripple passed ov