all."

This idea gave Crittenden a start, and made him on the sudden very
thoughtful.

"Can you get me in as a private at the last minute?" he asked presently.

"Yes," said Rivers, quickly, "and I'll telegraph you in plenty of time,
so that you can get back."

Crittenden smiled, for Rivers's plan was plain, but he was thinking of a
plan of his own.

Meanwhile, he drilled as a private each day. He was ignorant of the
Krag-Jorgensen, and at Chickamauga he had made such a laughable
exhibition of himself that the old Sergeant took him off alone one day,
and when they came back the Sergeant was observed to be smiling broadly.
At the first target practice thereafter, Crittenden stood among the
first men of the company, and the captain took mental note of him as a
sharpshooter to be remembered when they got to Cuba. With the drill he
had little trouble--being a natural-born horseman--so one day, when a
trooper was ill, he was allowed to take the sick soldier's place and
drill with the regiment. That day his trouble with Reynolds came. All
the soldiers were free and easy of speech and rather reckless with
epithets, and, knowing how little was meant, Crittenden merely
remonstrated with the bully and smilingly asked him to desist.

"Suppose I don't?"

Crittenden smiled again and answered nothing, and Reynolds mistook his