THE LAST SHOT

by

FREDERICK PALMER

Author of _Over the Pass_, etc.

1914







TO THE READER

This story of war grew out of my experience in many wars. I have been
under fire without fighting; known the comradeship of arms without
bearing arms, and the hardships and the humors of the march with only an
observer's incentive. A singular career, begun by chance, was pursued to
the ends of the earth in the study of the greatest drama which the earth
stages. Whether watching a small force of white regulars disciplining a
primitive people, or the complex tactics of huge army against huge army;
whether watching war in the large or in the small, I have found the same
basic human qualities in the white heat of conflict working out the same
illusions, heroisms, tragedies, and comedies.

The fellowship of campaigning made the cause of the force that I