away toward some Mecca for good mules. You must needs have been there
to get it all--the old gray against the red sky--and know first-hand
the torture of the trails, the valor of labor, the awfulness of Luzon.
To Cairns and Bedient there was something deep and heady to the
picture, as they followed the eyes of Healy--and then his yell that
filled the gorges for miles:

"Come down here--you scenery-lovin' son of----"

That was just the _vorspiel_. Mother Nature must have fed color to
Healy. He did not paint, play nor write, but the rest of that curse
dropped with raw pigment, like a painting of Sorolla. Prisms of English
flashed with terrible attraction. It was a Homeric curse of all
nations. Parts of it were dainty, too, as a butterfly dip. Cairns was
hot and courageous under the spell. The whole train of mules huddled
and fell to trembling. A three-legged pariah-dog sniffed, took on a
sudden obsession, and went howling heinously dawn the gorge. Healy
rolled a cigarette with his free hand, and the old gray let herself
down, half-falling....

And then--the end of campaigning. The rains began gradually that
season, so that the last days were steamy and sickening with the heavy
sweet of tropical fragrance. Between clouds at night, the stars broke
out more than ever brilliant and near, in the washed air. There were
moments when the sky appeared ceiled with phosphor, which a misty cloud
had just brushed and set to dazzling. Something in the soil made them
talk of girls--and Bedient drew forth for Cairns (to see the hem of her
garment)--a certain hushed vision named Adelaide.... At last, the Train
made Manila, wreck that it was, after majestic service; and the great
gray mantle, a sort of moveless twilight, settled down upon Luzon and