The Call of the South

grumbling as he rubbed away at his sawed-off rifle, and mentally moralizing on his inglorious condition. There was he, almost a graduate of Harvard, a gentleman, accustomed to a bath-tub and a toothb

ks, browns, yellows, ash-coloured, snuff-coloured. Then what possibilities in matching or contrasting the shades of the troopers with those of their mounts: black horse, yellow rider,-bay horse, black rider,-sorrel horse, gingersnap rider-no, that wouldn't do, inartistic combination! And w

er, and yet everything that happened before that is becoming vague-even the smile on Hel

ough so repeatedly day after day the horse played no part, and what riding Graham had done so far had served only to make him so sore and stiff that he could neither ride nor walk in comfort

ll manoeuvre,-just a spreading out into a thin line and running forward for five seconds perhaps, falling on your belly and pretending to fire three rounds at an imaginary foe, then jumping up and doing it all over again till you feel faint and foolish,-every man for himself, no order, no alignment, one man crouching behind a shrub, another falling prone on the ground, another hiding behind a tree,-surely no pomp or circumstance or glo

oting on the morrow. At any rate his carbine must glisten when he becomes part of to-morrow's guard, and he hoped that he would be put right on the point of the advance picket. He hadn't had a shave in three weeks, and his uniform was sweat-stained and dusty, and he could not

o Cabello from the German cruisers, and to prevent the arrival of reinforcements which were being rushed to their aid from Caracas. Reports from native scouts and communications from Gener

Uncle Sam had been able to put any troops on Venezuelan soil. It seemed nonsense for either Germany or the United States to care to fight any battles down in that little out-of-the-way place. They could find other more accessible and far more important battle-grounds: but no, as the Monroe Doctrine forbade Germany to make a foothold in Venezuela and her doing so was the casus belli, the e

e 1st X--, under General Cowles, with a battalion of engineers and four batteries of field artillery. General Earnhardt's cavalry brigade was striving to reach the Valencia road, the only p

before General Earnhardt, who at the head of his column was reclining on a bank beside the trail, perspiring and dusty and brushing viciously at the flies and mosquitoes that swarmed around him. The general did not change his position when the native, who was clad in a nondescript but much-beribboned uniform, slid from his horse and with a ceremonious bow and salute informed him that he was Captain Miguel of General Ma?ana's staff, and had the honour to report that he was despatched by General Ma?ana to say that, despite that gent

rris, wha

th General Ma?ana's troops this morning on the Valencia

s got through?"

out two troops, as ne

d Ma?ana have?" the

judge, sir, from the sound of the firing

ng, turned with unconcealed con

at a word from the angry cavalryman sounded mount and forward and the brigade was again off at top speed, hoping still to cut off the main relief force sent out from Caracas. General Earnhardt considered himself a lucky soldie

as about to be under fire. He felt a cold breeze blow upon his back for a moment, and then as the

been popping harmlessly away at them from the roadside, they decided it was best not to be too precipitate. They stopped and began to feel for the American line. A

soda-water. He had worked his nerves up to such a tension that the reaction was nothing less than painful, and he was full of impatience

detailed as stable guard, and given charge of the 10th's corral, quite a distance in rear of the line of battle an

eparately and collectively and properly consign this w

nour on his blouse, and at all times bore an unsightly scar on his cheek

l," he said. "Soldiering is not all fighting. A man ear

y business for any such consideration as fifteen dollars a month and feed, and

pot-shot by the pickets, and as the rumour began to leak back to the corral that both sides must be waiting for their guns to come up. This w