“All right, Ole Cap’n; I tol’ you in ole Kentuck that I gwine to fight wid the niggers ef you don’t lemme fight wid you.  I don’t like disgracin’ the family dis way, but ‘tain’t my fault, an’ s’pose you git shot—­” the slap of the flat side of a sword across Bob’s back made him jump.

“What are you doing here?” thundered an angry officer.”  Get into line—­get into line.”

“I ain’t no sojer.”

“Get into line,” and Bob ran after the disappearing file, shaking his head helplessly.

The crash started again, and the hum of bees and the soft snap of the leaves when bullets clipped them like blows with a rattan cane, and the rattling sputter of the machine guns, and once more came that long, long wait that tries the soldier’s heart, nerve, and brain.

“Why was not something done—­why?”

And again rose the cry for the hospital men, and again the limp figures were brought in from the jungle, and he could see the tall doctor with the bare head helping the men who had been dressed with a first-aid bandage to the protecting bank of the creek farther up, to make room for the fresh victims.  And as he stood up once, Crittenden saw him throw his hand quickly up to his temple and sink to the blood-stained sand.  The assistant, who bent over him, looked up quickly and shook his head to another, who was binding a wounded leg and looking anxiously to know the fatal truth.

“I’ve got it,” said a soldier to Crittenden’s left; joyously, he said it, for the bullet had merely gone through his right shoulder.  He could fight no more, he had a wound and he could wear a scar to his grave.

“So have I,” said another, with a groan.  And then next him there was a sudden, soft thud: 

“T-h-u-p!” It was the sound of a bullet going into thick flesh, and the soldier sprang to his feet—­the impulse seemed uncontrollable for the wounded to spring to their feet—­and dropped with a groan—­dead.  Crittenden straightened him out sadly—­putting his hat over his face and drawing his arms to his sides.  Above, he saw with sudden nausea, buzzards circling—­little cared they whether the dead were American or Spaniard, as long as there were eyes to pluck and lips to tear away, and then straightway, tragedy merged into comedy as swiftly as on a stage.  Out of the woods across the way emerged a detail of negro troopers—­sent to clear the woods behind of sharpshooters—­and last came Bob.  The detail, passing along the creek on the other bank from them, scattered, and with Bob next the creek.  Bob shook his gun aloft.

“I can wuk her now!”

Another lull came, and from the thicket arose the cry of a thin, high, foreign voice: 

“Americano—­Americano!”

“Whut regiment you b’long to?” the voice was a negro’s and was Bob’s, and Grafton and Crittenden listened keenly.  Bob had evidently got a sharpshooter up a tree, and caught him loading his gun.

“Tenth Cav’rly—­Tenth!” was the answer.  Bob laughed long and loud.