n extry
scrubbing, when he come over, for he's white he is, all white.
Boys!" Paddy spoke in a portentous whisper.

"Let her go," Weldon advised him calmly.

"It goes without letting. Once let Paddy get free of his skillets,
once let him have a rifle in place of his spoon, and you'll see war.
The Kingdom of Heaven is a spot of everlasting peace. All I ask of
Saint Peter is a place in front of a line of Boers and Captain
Frazer beside me to give the orders."

"Here he is, Paddy." The low-pitched voice was full of mirth. "He
orders you inside your tent to plan up an extra good breakfast. Some
of these fellows must volunteer for a night guard out in the open,
and they will need a feast, when they come in."

Weldon rose hastily.

"At your service, Captain," he said, just as Paddy, in nowise
daunted by the unexpected presence of his superior, responded,--

"Sure, Captain, I put a condition on the tail of it. If you'll
remember back a little, you'll see that I merely said, 'when I get a
rifle instead of a spoon.' It's a sorry day for an able-bodied man
to be tied to a frying pan all his days. Now and then he longs to
leap out and get into the fire."

Meanwhile, half of the men inside the church were volunteering for
the party of twenty guards demanded by the Captain. It was a surly
night, cold and raw with a drizzling rain. Nevertheless, this was
their first approach to anything even remotely resembling active
service, and the men sought it eagerly.

By dint of attaching himself to the Captain's elbow and assuming
that his going was an understood thing, Weldon accomplished his aim.
Eleven o'clock found him, wet to his skin, sneaking on the points of
his toes through the thick grass beyond the river, with nineteen
other men sneaking at his heels. There had been no especial pretext
of Boers in the neighborhood; tactical thoroughness merely demanded
a guard on the farther side of the river. Nevertheless, the
enthusiastic fellows threw themselves into the game with the same
spirit with which, twenty years before, they had faced the danger of
a runaway by the tandem of rampant hall chairs. A stray Boer or two
would have made an interesting diversion; but, even without the
Boers, a night guard in the open possessed its own interest.

By four in the morning, the interest had waned perceptibly. The
establishment of their force in a convenient hut and the placing of
pickets had served to occupy an hour or so. After that, n