"Have you seen any signs of the Moros lately, sir?"
"No, Sergeant. Later in the forenoon, however, I think I shall order you to take about twenty men out in skirmish line. You will try to draw the enemy's fire, returning if you succeed. If you do not succeed, you will search the woods, always keeping an alert eye open for the possibility of running into an ambushed party of cold steel men in the woods."
"I shall be delighted to have charge of that reconnaissance, sir," Hal replied promptly.
"Yes; it is work cut out for just such a cool head as yours, Sergeant."
"Thank you, sir."
"Well, you are cool-headed, so why should I not say it?" laughed Lieutenant Prescott. "Sergeant, your presence here has made my own work half as heavy as it would have been without you. I shall so report to Captain Cortland on my return."
"Thank you, sir. May I ask if Captain Cortland reports trouble with the Moros in any other locality?"
"Nothing has as yet broken out anywhere else. Captain Cortland writes me that Bantoc, while apparently quiet, is really a seething volcano, ready to break out into insurrection, riot and pillage. Lieutenant Holmes is still in personal command over in Bantoc, so I fancy your friend, Sergeant Terry, is there with him."
As Hal followed the lieutenant out after breakfast, the first man they saw was Slosson, busily smoking the pipe that he had tramped twenty-four miles to obtain.
Then, as the officer walked away, Kelly sauntered up.