“Think not, sir. Supplies limited. Officer-of-the-day reported half an hour ago every set was in use. Sent over to division quartermaster and he answered we had a dozen more’n we were entitled to now. Wanted to know ’f we meant to iron the whole regiment——”
“The hell he did!” raged Canker. “I’ll settle that in short order. My horse there, orderly! I’ll be back by four, Mr. Gordon. Fix that detail to suit yourself.” And so saying the irascible colonel flung himself out of the tent and into his saddle.
“You young idiot,” said Gordon, whirling on Billy the moment the coast was clear. “You came within an ace of ruining the whole thing. Never ask Canker for anything, unless it’s what you wish to be rid of. Tell Brooke you’re for guard, and he’s to go to town instead.”
“Hopping mad,” as he himself afterward expressed it, Colonel Canker had ridden over to “have it out” with the quartermaster who had ventured to comment on his methods, but the sight of the commanding general, standing alone at the entrance to his private tent, his pale face grayer than ever and a world of trouble in his eyes, compelled Canker to stop short. Two or three orderlies were on the run. Two aides-de-camp, Mr. Garrison and a comrade were searching through desks and boxes, their faces grave and concerned. The regimental commander was off his horse in a second. “Anything amiss, General?” he asked, with soldierly salute.
The General turned slowly toward him. “Can our men sell letters,” he said, “as well as food and forage? Do people buy such things? A most important package has been—stolen from my tent.”
CHAPTER VI.
The great thoroughfare of that wonderful city, seated on more than her seven hills, and ruling the Western world, was thronged from curb to curb. Gay with bunting and streamers, the tall buildings of the rival newspapers and the long façades of hotels and business blocks were gayer still with the life and color and enthusiasm that crowded every window. Street traffic was blocked. Cable cars clanged vainly and the police strove valiantly. It was a day given up to but one duty and one purpose, that of giving Godspeed to the soldiery ordered for service in the distant Philippines, and, though they hailed from almost every section of the Union except the Pacific slope, as though they were her own children, with all the hope and faith and pride and patriotism, with all the blessings and comforts with which she had loaded the foremost ships that sailed, yet happily without the tears that flowed when her own gallant regiment was among the first to lead the way San Francisco turned out en masse to cheer the men from far beyond the Sierras and the Rockies, and to see them proudly through the Golden Gate. Early in the day the guns of a famous light battery had been trundled, decked like some rose-covered chariot at the summer festival of flowers, through the winding lanes of eager forms and faces, the cannoneers almost dragged from the ranks by the clasping hands of men and women who seemed powerless to let go. With their little brown carbines tossed jauntily over the broad blue shoulders, half a regiment of regular cavalry, dismounted, had gone trudging down to the docks, cheered to the gateway of the pier by thousands of citizens who seemed to envy the very recruits who, only half-uniformed and drilled, brought up the rear of the column. Once within the massive wooden portals, the guards and sentries holding back the importunate crowd, the soldiers flung aside their heavy packs, and were marshalled before an array of tempting tables and there feasted, comforted and rejoiced under the ministrations of that marvelous successor of the Sanitary Commission of the great Civil War of the sixties—the noble order of the Red Cross. There at those tables in the dust and din of the bustling piers, in the soot and heat of the railway station, in the jam and turmoil at the ferry houses, in the fog and chill of the seaward camps, in the fever-haunted wards of crowded field hospitals, from dawn till dark, from dark till dawn, toiled week after week devoted women in every grade of life, the wife of the millionaire, the daughter of the day laborer, the gently born, the delicately reared, the social pets and darlings, the humble seamstress, no one too high to stoop to aid the departing soldier, none too poor or low to deny him cheer and sympathy. The war was still young then. Spain had not lowered her riddled standard and sued for peace. Two great fleets had been swept from the seas, the guns of Santiago were silenced, and the stronghold of the Orient was sulking in the shadow of the flag, but there was still soldier work to be done, and so long as the nation sent its fighting men through her broad and beautiful gates San Francisco and the Red Cross stood by with eager, lavish hands to heap upon the warrior sons of a score of other States, even as upon their own, every cheer and comfort that wealth could purchase, or human sympathy devise. It was the one feature of the war days of ’98 that will never be forgotten.
At one of the flower-decked tables near the great “stage” that led to the main deck of the transport, a group of blithe young matrons and pretty girls had been busily serving fruit, coffee, bouillon and substantials to the troopers, man after man, for over two hours. There was lively chat and merry war of words going on at the moment between half a dozen young officers who had had their eyes on that particular table ever since the coming of the command, and were now making the most of their opportunities before the trumpets should sound the assembly and the word be passed to move aboard. All the heavy baggage and ammunition had, at last, been swung into the hold; the guns of the battery had been lowered and securely chocked; the forecastle head was thronged with the red-trimmed uniforms of the artillerymen, who had already been embarked and were now jealously clamoring that the troopers should be “shut off” from the further ministrations of the Red Cross, and broadly intimating that it wasn’t a fair deal that their rivals should be allowed a whole additional hour of lingering farewells.