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Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel by Will Levington Comfort
page 16 of 413 (03%)
find his friend.

Three years after the great wind, the excitement in Manila called
Bedient across the China Sea. There had been a _coup_ of the American
fleet, and soldiers from the States were on the way to the Islands....
In the following weeks, there was much to do and observe around that
low large city of Luzon, the lights of which Andrew had seen many times
at night from the harbor and the passage--lights which seemed to lie
upon still waters. When Pack-train Thirteen finally took the field from
the big corral, to carry grub and ammunition to the moving forces and
the few outstanding garrisons, Bedient had already been tried out and
found excellent as cook of the outfit.

It is to be doubted if history furnishes a more picturesque service
than that which fell to Luzon pack-trains throughout the following two
years. It was like Indian fighting, but more compact, rapid and
surprising. The actions were small enough to be seen entire; they fell
clean-cut into pictures and were instantly comprehensive. As the
typhoon confirmed Carreras, this Luzon service brought to Bedient an
important relation--his first real friendship with a boy of his own
age.

In the fall of 1899, David Cairns, the youngest of the American
war-correspondents, stood hungry and desolate in the plaza of the
little town of Alphonso, two days' cavalry march below Manila--when
Pack-train Thirteen arrived with provisions. The mules swung in with
drooping heads and lolling tongues, under three-hundred-pound packs.
The roars of Healy, the boss-packer, filled the dome of sky where a
young moon was rising in a twilight of heavenly blue--dusk of the gods,
indeed. A battalion of infantry in Alphonso had been hungry for three
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