hedge at the junction of three roads. There were
several small grass-roofed shelters with open sides in there, and two
tents already pitched, but we were not sufficiently interested just
then to see who owned the other tents. We pitched our own--stowed the
loads in one of the shelters--gave our porters money for board and
rations--and sent them to find quarters in the town. Another of the
shelters we took over for a kitchen, and while our servants were
cooking a meal we four gathered in Fred's tent and began to question
Will again.

"They've got a fine place in there," he said. "Neat as a new pin.
Officers' mess. Non-commissioned officers' quarters. Stores.
Vegetable garden. Jail--looks like a fine jail--hold a couple of
hundred. Government offices. Two-story buildings. Everything fine.
The officers were all sitting smoking on a veranda.

"'Is one of you the doctor?' I asked in German, and a tall lean one
with a mighty mean face turned his head to squint at me: but he didn't
take his feet off the rail. He looked inquisitive, that's all.

"'Are you the doctor?' I asked him.

"'I am staff surgeon,' he answered. 'What do you want?'

"I told him about your wound, and how we'd marched about two hundred
miles on purpose to get medical assistance. He listened without asking
a question, and when I'd done he said curtly that the hospital opens
for out-patients at eight in the morning.

"Well, I piled it on then. I told him your leg was so rotten that you
might not be alive to-morrow morning. He didn't even look interested.
I piled it on thicker and told him about the poisoned spear. He didn't
bat an eyelid or make a move. So I started in to coax him.

"I did some coaxing. Believe me, I swallowed more pride in five
minutes than I guessed I owned! A ward-heeler cadging votes for a
Milwaukee alderman never wheedled more gingerly. I called him 'Herr
Staff Surgeon' and mentioned the well-known skill of German medicos,
and the keen sense of duty of the German army, and a whole lot of other
stuff.

"'Tomorrow morning at eight!' was all the answer I got from him.

"I reckon it was somewhere about that time I began to get rattled. I
pulled out money and showed it. He looked the other way, and when I
went on talking he turned his back. I suspect he didn't dare keep on
lookin' at money almost within reach. Anyhow, then I opened on him,
firin' both bow guns. I dared him to sit there, with a patient in nee