a soldier, and
absence of home influence tends to make the careless rowdy, the sterling
uprightness of the Aydelots and the inborn gentility of the Thaines kept
the boy from the Kansas prairies a fearless gentleman. Withal, he was
exuberantly pleased with life, as a young man of twenty-one should be. He
lived mostly in the company of Kansas University men, and with the old
University yell of "Rock Chalk! Jay Hawk! K U!" for their slogan, they
stood shoulder to shoulder in every conflict.

Lastly, he was a hero-worshiper at the shrine of his colonel, Fred
Funston, and his captain, Adna Clarke; while in all the regiment, the fair
face of young Lieutenant Alford seemed to him most gracious. Alford was
his soldier ideal, type of the best the battlefield may know. And, even if
all this admiration did have in it much of youthful sentimentalism, it
took nothing from his efficiency when he came to his place on the firing
line.

"I wonder where Doctor Carey is tonight," Thaine's comrade said in a low
voice, as the two came together in the road.

"What's made you think of him?" Thaine asked.

"I haven't seen him since Christmas day. A young Filipino and I got into
a scrap with a drunken Chinaman who was beating a boy, and the Chink
slashed us both. Carey stitched us up, but the other fellow keeps a scar
across his face, all right."

"I know that Filipino," Thaine said. "He seems like a fine young man. The
scar was a marker for him. I'd know him by it anywhere."

"So should I, and by his peculiar gait. I saw a man slipping along beyond
the lines just now who made me think of that fellow, and that made me
think of Doctor Carey," the sentinel said, and turned away.

It was after nine o'clock, and the hours were already beginning to stretch
wearily for sentinels, when a faint sound of guns away to the eastward
broke on the air. Again and again it came, intermittently at first, but
increasing to a steady roar. Down in Manila there was dead quiet, but
along the American line of outposts the ripping of Mauser bullets and long
streaks of light flashed the Filipino challenge to war in steady volleys.

As Thaine listened, the firing seemed to be creeping gradually toward the
north, and he knew the insurgents were swinging toward the Tondo road,
down which they would rush to storm the bridge. In that moment civil life
dropped off like a garment, and he stood up a soldier. He crept cautiously
toward the bend to see what lay beyond, a