“It doesn’t seem to fill my wants,” the girl acknowledged.  “Let’s talk about something else.”

Miss Evans did seem truly concerned for the welfare of her “boys,” as she termed the little group of Americans whom she had met, and she showed, by asking numerous questions, that her interest was keen.

The men were glad to talk and she soon gained an insight into the peculiar, aimless, unsatisfactory, and yet effective method of warfare practised by the Insurrecto armies; they told her of the endless marches and counter-marches, the occasional skirmishes, the feints, the inconclusive engagements which were all a part of the general strategy—­operations which served to keep the enemy constantly on guard, like a blind swordsman, and would, it was hoped, eventually wear down his patience and endurance.  In her turn, Norine related something of what she was doing and how her labor of mercy progressed.

“I’m nearly discouraged,” she confessed, finally.  “Everything is so different to what I thought it would be, and I’m so weak and ineffective.  The medical supplies I brought are nearly all gone, and I’ve learned what hard work it is fitting up hospitals when there’s nothing to fit them up with.  I can’t teach these people to take care of themselves—­they seem to consider precautions against disease as a confession of cowardice.  Summer, the yellow-fever season, is here and—­well, I’m getting disheartened.  Disheartened and hungry!  They’re new sensations to me.”  She sighed.  “I imagined I was going to work wonders—­I thought I was going to be a Florence Nightingale, and the men were going to idolize me.”

“Don’t they?” Judson demanded.

“No.  That is—­not in exactly the way I expected.”

“They all want to marry her,” O’Reilly explained.

“Insolent bunch!” growled the captain.  Then he swallowed hard and said, “But for that matter, so do I.”

“Why, Joe!” Norine cast a startled glance at the big fellow.

“It’s a fact,” he asserted, doggedly.  “I might as well declare myself here and now.  There’s always a gang of eavesdroppers hanging around you.”

“He means you, Leslie,” O’Reilly said.  “Hadn’t you better take a walk?”

Branch rolled a hostile eye at the artilleryman, and his lip curled.  “I’ll not move.  When he gets through, I’ll propose.”

“How silly you boys can be!” Norine laughed.  “I dare say the others are joking too, but—­”

“Joking?” O’Reilly grinned.  “Not at all.  I’m the only single man in camp who isn’t in love with you.  When you arrived this morning there was a general stampede for the river.  I’ll bet the fish in this stream will taste of soap for years to come.”

As if to point O’Reilly’s words at the moment appeared Colonel Lopez, shaved blood-raw and clad in a recently laundered uniform which was still damp.  The three Americans rose to salute him, but discipline was lax and he waved them back to their seats.  Other eyes than his, too, had noted Miss Evans’s reappearance after her siesta, for Major Ramos, Norine’s escort from headquarters, soon joined the group, and he was followed by two Camagueyan lieutenants.