days--so the Train had come swiftly, ten hours on the trail, and forced
going. It was a volunteer infantry outfit, and apt to be a bit lawless
in the sight of food. Some of the men began pulling at the packs. Healy
and his iron-handed, vitriol-tongued crew beat them back with the
ferocity of devils--and had the battalion cowed and whimpering, before
the officers withdrew the men and arranged an orderly issue of rations.

Meanwhile, David Cairns watched the tall, young cook, lean, tanned, and
with an ugly triangle of fresh sunburn under his left shoulder-blade,
where his shirt had been torn with a thorn that day. He loosed the
_aparejos_ and _mantas_, containing the kitchen-kit; almost magically a
fire was started. Water was heating a moment later and slabs of bacon
began to writhe.... Savage as he was from hunger, it was marvellously
colorful to the fresh-eyed Cairns--his first view of a pack-train. The
mules, relieved of their burdens, were rolling on the dusty turf.
Thirty mountain-mules, under packs one-third their own weight, and
through the pressure of a Luzon day; dry, empty, caked with
sweat-salt--yet there were not a few of those gritty beasts that went
into the air squealing, and launched a hind-foot at the nearest rib or
the nearest star, or pressed close to muzzle the bell-mare--after the
restoring roll. Then, some of the packers drove them down to water,
while others made ready the forage and grain-bags; infantry fires were
lit; the provisions turned over; detachments came meekly forward for
rations, and the lifting aroma of coffee enchanted the warm winds.
Cairns remembered all this when the sharp profile of battle-fronts grew
dull in memory.

And now Bedient had three great pans of bacon sizzling, a young
mountain of brown sugar piled upon a _Poncho_, a big can of hard-tack
broken open, and the coffee had come to boil under his hands--three