"Let it come, then," laughed Holmes indifferently. "We need a bit of practice, now and then, to keep us in handy touch with our work."
"But how does the Thirty-fourth happen to be down here?" Hal asked curiously.
"Ordered away from Fort Clowdry. That's all I know," Prescott answered. "At least B and C companies were sent. We detrained at Spartansburg, eighteen miles from here. The two companies are now about six miles above, save for this little detachment, which was sent down to report to Captain Foster for some co-operation with you on the water."
"Lieutenant," spoke a sergeant of B company, approaching and saluting, "may I ask, sir, whether the men are to eat field rations or whether they're to be fed on the boat?"
"What do you say, Overton? How much food is there on the boat?"
"I'll find out from the cook," Hal answered. "Sergeant Kelly, are you going to forget me in that fashion?"
"You're an officer now, sir," replied Sergeant Kelly, saluting. "I awaited your pleasure, sir, about speaking."
"I can't see that you've changed any, Sergeant," smiled Hal, extending his hand. "But for the difference in some of the stage-settings we might seem to be in the Philippines instead of in Texas."
"This is 'God's country,' sir," replied Kelly, with an air almost of reverence. "There's nothing in the Philippines as restful to the eye as the meanest stretch in the United States."
Only a few months before while Hal and Noll were still in the Philippines Kelly had been made a corporal. Kelly was one of the staunchest souls in the Army. Many a time had he, with Noll and Hal, braved death side by side when facing the treacherous Moros. Since that time he had won the higher grade of sergeant.