CHAPTER I. Something unusual was going on at division headquarters. The men in the nearest regimental camps, regular and volunteer, were “lined up” along the sentry posts and silently, eagerly watching and waiting. For a week rumor had been rife that orders for a move were coming and the brigades hailed it with delight. For a month, shivering at night in the dripping, drenching fogs drifting in... more...

I. The sun was just going down, a hissing globe of fire and torment. Already the lower limb was in contact with the jagged backbone of the mountain chain that rimmed the desert with purple and gold. Out on the barren, hard-baked flat in front of the corral, just where it had been unhitched when the paymaster and his safe were dumped soon after dawn, a weather-beaten ambulance was throwing unbroken a... more...

CHAPTER I. The stage coach was invisible in a cloud of its own dust as it lurched and rolled along the alkali flats down the valley, and Sancho, the ranch-keeper, could not make out whether any passengers were on top or not. He had brought a fine binocular to bear just as soon as the shrill voice of Pedro, a swarthy little scamp of a half-breed, announced the dust-cloud sailing over the clump of... more...

I. After months of disaster there had come authentic news of victory. All Union-loving men drew a long breath of relief when it was certain that Lee had given up the field and fallen back across the Potomac. The newsboys, yelling through the crowded streets in town, and the evening trains arriving from the neighboring city were besieged by eager buyers of the "extras," giving lists of the... more...

CHAPTER I. She had met him the previous summer on the Rhine, and now "if theyaren't engaged they might as well be," said her friends, "for he is her shadow wherever she goes." There was something characteristically inaccurate about that statement, for Miss Allison was rather undersized in one way and oversized in another; at least that, too, is what her friends said. She was not... more...

TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS The war with Spain was at an end, and so were the hopes and aspirations of many a warrior. For several reasons Colonel Ray of the ——th Kentucky was a disappointed man. One of the best soldiers doing duty with the volunteers, he had had some of the worst luck. Through long years of service in the regular cavalry he had borne the reputation of being a most energetic and valuable... more...