new that there must lie either plantation
fields or the houses themselves.

Many a soldier in the column tightened his grip on his rifle as he
thought how soon, now, the raiding Moros would find that they had more
fighting on hand than they had bargained for.

The "point" presently halted at the edge of the forest and Lieutenant
Prescott signaled back by raising his hand with a downward gesture.
Sergeant Overton halted the main detachment.

Over a broad field the soldiers looked, but it was now plain that the
besieged planter's house lay on the other side of a belt of timber at
the further edge of the field. Then the officer signaled for the main
column to be brought up.

"I don't see any of the enemy in sight, men," declared Prescott. "You
will deploy into line of skirmishers and then we'll run across the
field. Be prepared for the order to lie down in case the enemy
develops."

A moment later, and the men, in one straight, thin line, with
considerable intervals between them, charged silently across the field.

At the edge of the timber they halted again. Lieutenant Prescott,
revolver in hand, moved forward, accompanied only by Corporal Cotter.

After some minutes the pair came back again.

"You'll go forward as skirmishers," said Prescott. "Keep your intervals.
Forward!"

No further word was spoken, but the lieutenant, at the right of the line
and slightly in advance, moved so stealthily that those nearest him felt
that the enemy could not be far off.

Suddenly the stick that the lieutenant carried in place of a sword was
held aloft, then the point lowered. The advancing line halted.

"When you move forward again," went the low, almost whispered and
repeated order down the line, "crouch low and do not hurry. A hundred
yards ahead is a position from which we can rake the rascals with a
flanking fire. Forward!"

Very soon the advancing soldiers caught sight of the planter's house
between the trees. It stood some seven hundred yards from this nearer
edge of the clearing.

Now the soldiers, crouching as they moved, until they appeared to be
bent nearly double, came in sight of a trench. It spread away obliquely
before them, but everything in the trench was visible to them. At a
rough estimate there were some seventy-five brown-skinned Moros
crouching in the trench behind a line of hard-packed dirt thrown up
before them.

At this moment most of the brown fellows were loafing in the trench.
Only occasiona