gh it to the front. Except for the clatter of the land-crabs, those
hideous orchid-colored monsters that haunt the places of the dead, and
the whistling of the bullets in the trees, the place was as silent as a
grave. For the wounded lying along its length were as still as the dead
beside them. The noise of the loose stones rolling under my feet brought
a hospital steward out of the brush, and he called after me:

"Lieutenant Thomas is badly wounded in here, and we can't move him. We
want to carry him out of the sun some place, where there is shade and a
breeze." Thomas was the first lieutenant of Capron's troop. He is a
young man, large and powerfully built. He was shot through the leg just
below the trunk, and I found him lying on a blanket half naked and
covered with blood, and with his leg bound in tourniquets made of twigs
and pocket-handkerchiefs. It gave one a thrill of awe and wonder to see
how these cowboy surgeons, with a stick that one would use to light a
pipe and with the gaudy 'kerchiefs they had taken from their necks, were
holding death at bay. The young officer was in great pain and tossing
and raving wildly. When we gathered up the corners of his blanket and
lifted him, he tried to sit upright, and cried out, "You're taking me to
the front, aren't you? You said you would. They've killed my
captain--do you understand? They've killed Captain Capron. The ---
Mexicans! They've killed my captain."

The troopers assured him they were carrying him to the firing-line, but
he was not satisfied. We stumbled over the stones and vines, bumping his
wounded body against the ground and leaving a black streak in the grass
behind us, but it seemed to hurt us more than it did him, for he sat up
again clutching at us imploringly with his bloody hands.

"For God's sake, take me to the front," he begged. "Do you hear? I
order you; damn you, I order--We must give them hell; do you hear? we
must give them hell. They've killed Capron. They've killed my captain."

The loss of blood at last mercifully silenced him, and when we had
reached the trail he had fainted and I left them kneeling around him,
their grave boyish faces filled with sympathy and concern.

Only fifty feet from him and farther down the trail I passed his captain,
with his body propped against Church's knee and with his head fallen on
the surgeon's shoulder. Capron was always a handsome, soldierly looking
man--some said that he was the m