Of course, when troops are sent out only for the purpose of drawing
fire, these troops withdraw, if necessary, as soon as they attract the
enemy's fire to themselves, and thus locate the enemy.

Sergeant Hal Overton kept at the right of his thin, sparse line of men
as they moved forward.

Every man had his eyes ahead; each was watching for the first sign of
trouble.

When the line had reached a plane within a hundred yards of the edge of
the woods the soldiers expected, momentarily, to hear the signal shot,
then the first scattering shots, followed by the heavy, crashing
volleys.

Yet they passed this point safely and went on. The edge of the woods was
gained, still without provoking hostile shots. It would have looked to
one untrained in the art of war as though there were no enemy there. But
this handful of soldiers knew better than to jump at any such
conclusion. The Moros, like the Tagalos and Pampangos, are fond of
getting an enemy at close quarters, and then leaping on him with cold
steel. The Tagalo or Pampango fights with the bolo, the Moro often with
the creese, and with all these brown-skinned men the game is the
same--to leap up unexpectedly, from the tall grass, before the soldier
has had time to throw himself on his guard.

A swift, short-armed cutting movement--a mere slash, delivered with
muscular effort, and the soldier is gashed across the abdomen. After
this cutting has been effectively delivered the white fighting man
usually sinks down in a pool of his own blood, and his fighting days are
likely to be over.

Small wonder that Uncle Sam's infantrymen prefer facing native bullets
to native steel! The bolo man, or the sword man, is the soldier's
greatest aversion. It is like fighting rattlesnakes!

Glancing down the line, Sergeant Hal saw one or two of the newer men
flinch slightly.

"Steady, there!" Hal called, in an easy but business-like tone. "If we
strike the rascals an unbroken line is the one hope for us all."

They had now reached the woods, but no halt was made. The boyish
sergeant, who knew his business, marched his little command about six
hundred yards under the trees.

Still no Moros were encountered.

Then Hal turned his line to the left, marching on through the woods. In
this manner, in less than an hour, he had thoroughly explored the
territory near the Seaforth plantation, and had returned to the point
where his command had first entered the forest.

"Halt!" ordered