dering where Vixen had got to, and where I might
be.

Just as I was getting ready to go to sleep I heard a jingle of harness
and a grunt, and a mule passed me shaking his wet ears. He belonged to
a screw-gun battery, for I could hear the rattle of the straps and rings
and chains and things on his saddle pad. The screw-guns are tiny little
cannon made in two pieces, that are screwed together when the time comes
to use them. They are taken up mountains, anywhere that a mule can find
a road, and they are very useful for fighting in rocky country.

Behind the mule there was a camel, with his big soft feet squelching
and slipping in the mud, and his neck bobbing to and fro like a
strayed hen's. Luckily, I knew enough of beast language--not wild-beast
language, but camp-beast language, of course--from the natives to know
what he was saying.

He must have been the one that flopped into my tent, for he called to
the mule, "What shall I do? Where shall I go? I have fought with a white
thing that waved, and it took a stick and hit me on the neck." (That was
my broken tent pole, and I was very glad to know it.) "Shall we run on?"

"Oh, it was you," said the mule, "you and your friends, that have
been disturbing the camp? All right. You'll be beaten for this in the
morning. But I may as well give you something on account now."

I heard the harness jingle as the mule backed and caught the camel
two kicks in the ribs that rang like a drum. "Another time," he said,
"you'll know better than to run through a mule battery at night,
shouting `Thieves and fire!' Sit down, and keep your silly neck quiet."

The camel doubled up camel-fashion, like a two-foot rule, and sat down
whimpering. There was a regular beat of hoofs in the darkness, and a big
troop-horse cantered up as steadily as though he were on parade, jumped
a gun tail, and landed close to the mule.

"It's disgraceful," he said, blowing out his nostrils. "Those camels
have racketed through our lines again--the third time this week. How's a
horse to keep his condition if he isn't allowed to sleep. Who's here?"

"I'm the breech-piece mule of number two gun of the First Screw
Battery," said the mule, "and the other's one of your friends. He's
waked me up too. Who are you?"

"Number Fifteen, E troop, Ninth Lancers--Dick Cunliffe's horse. Stand
over a little, there."

"Oh, beg your pardon," said the mule. "It's too dark to see much. Aren't
these camels too sickening for anyt