Bob was crashing through the bushes to the edge of the creek.

"Foh Gawd, Ole Cap'n, I sutn'ly is glad to fine you. I wish you'd jes
show me how to wuk this gun. I'se gwine to fight right side o' you--you
heah me."

"Go back, Bob," said Crittenden, firmly.

"Silence in the ranks," roared a Lieutenant. Bob hesitated. Just then a
company of the Tenth Cavalry filed down the road as they were deployed
to the right. Crittenden's file of soldiers could see that the last man
was a short, fat darky--evidently a recruit--and he was swinging along
as jauntily as in a cake-walk. As he wheeled pompously, he dropped his
gun, leaped into the air with a yell of amazed rage and pain, catching
at the seat of his trousers with both hands. A bullet had gone through
both buttocks.

"Gawd, Ole Cap'n, did you see dat nigger?"

A roar of laughter went down the bed of the creek.

"Go back!" repeated Crittenden, threateningly, "and stop calling me Old
Captain." Bob looked after the file of coloured troops, and then at
Crittenden.

"All right, Ole Cap'n; I tol' you in ole Kentuck that I gwine to fight
wid the niggers ef you don't lemme fight wid you. I don't like
disgracin' the family dis way, but 'tain't my fault, an' s'pose you git
shot--" the slap of the flat side of a sword across Bob's back made him
jump.

"What are you doing here?" thundered an angry officer." Get into
line--get into line."

"I ain't no sojer."

"Get into line," and Bob ran after the disappearing file, shaking his
head helplessly.

The crash started again, and the hum of bees and the soft snap of the
leaves when bullets clipped them like blows with a rattan cane, and the
rattling sputter of the machine guns, and once more came that long, long
wait that tries the soldier's heart, nerve, and brain.

"Why was not something done--why?"

And again rose the cry for the hospital men, and again the limp figures
were brought in from the jungle, and he could see the tall doctor with
the bare head helping the men who had been dressed with a first-aid
bandage to the protecting bank of the creek farther up, to make room for
the fresh victims. And as he stood up once, Crittenden saw him throw his
hand quickly up to his temple and sink to the blood-stained sand. The
assistant, who bent over him, looked up quickly and shook his head to
another, who was binding a wounded leg and looking anxiously to know the
fatal truth.

"I've got it," said a soldier to Crittenden's l