made public, but Claus Spreckles & Co., bankers, had never before
received such a deposit from this very able seaman in all the years he
had been sailing or steaming in and out of Honolulu harbor.

And now retribution overtook the invalid. The Red Cross had made a
marvellous name for itself in San Francisco, and was already organized
and doing wonders at Honolulu. Its ministrations had been gladly
accepted by the scores of officers and men among the volunteers, to whom
the somewhat bare and crude conditions of camp hospitals were doubtless
very trying. Women of gentlest birth and most refined associations
donned its badge and dress and wrought in ward, kitchen, or refectory.
It was a noble and patriotic purpose that inspired such sacrifice.

It was a joy to the embryo soldiery to be fed and comforted day by day
with the delicacies of the Red Cross tables; but there were military
magnates and martinets who dared to question the wisdom of such
preparation for the stern scenes of campaigning ahead of the volunteers,
and who presumed to point out to the officers of this great and
far-reaching charity that, while they were most grateful for such
dainties for the invalids of their command, the daily spectacle of
scores of lusty, hearty young heroes feasting at the tables of the Red
Cross, to the neglect of their own simple but sufficient rations,
prompted the query as to what the boys would do without the Red Cross
when they got into the field and couldn't have cake and pie and cream
with their coffee.

The Red Cross, very properly, took umbrage at such suggestions and
branded the suggesters as horrid. The Red Cross had done such widespread
good and was ready to do so much more that criticism of its methods was
well-nigh unbearable. And now that it had obtained the sanction of the
government to send out to Manila not only supplies and dainties of every
possible kind, but dozens of its members to serve as nurses to the sick
and wounded, it scored a triumph over rival organizations, notably the
Patriotic Daughters of America, whose vice-president, the austere Miss
Perkins, first bombarded the papers in vain protest and denunciation,
the Red Cross being her main objective, and with abuse of the commanding
officers in camp; then called in person on the same officers to demand
transportation to Manila with the next expedition.

The Red Cross held its head very high, and with reason. It ruffled its
feathers and resented any sli