through rain and mud;
camping in marshes; digging in trenches, using the bayonet for a
pick and the meat-ration can for a shovel; wading rivers by day and
sleeping exposed to the elements by night, are all sandwiched with
numerous mirthful incidents. Soldiers, above all people, have an eye
for the ridiculous, and are ever ready to make merry and laugh over
the most trivial matter. Even the horrors of battle are unable to
quench the spark of gaiety ever present in the make-up of a "Yankee
Doodle" soldier.

There are even times when comrades are lying about dead and dying,
and the missives of death yet speeding by, searching for new victims,
or to penetrate the quivering form of the already wounded, that
something occurs to bring forth peals of laughter.

THE "SKY PILOT" AND THE "DUTCH" CORPORAL.

During the mobilization of the Army at Tampa, Fla., at the outbreak of
the Spanish-American War, an orthodox minister enlisted as a private in
one of the infantry regiments. On the 6th of June came orders to break
camp and prepare to go aboard transports for the invasion of Cuba.

The railroad facilities from Tampa to Port Tampa, where the transports
were waiting, were not equal to the emergency. Traffic became more
or less clogged, and it was early the next morning when the regiment
to which the preacher belonged was entrained. During the early part
of the night the men were gathered in groups, some playing "shuffle
the brogan," others busy at "nosey poker," while the greater part of
them were smoking their pipes and telling yarns, or stretching their
weary limbs on rolls of canvas, or on the bare ground asleep.

The orthodox minister appeared worried. He was walking to and fro in an
aimless manner like a headless chicken. After having paced backward
and forward past a pile of mess-chests several times, each time
sizing it up, he suddenly began to mount it, planted himself on the
very pinnacle, and with a fog-horn voice began a patriotic harangue.

Long, hair-raising, and Spanish-scalping sentences rolled from his
lips like crude petroleum from a five-inch pipe. Each inflammatory
oratorical flight was dramatically climaxed with the words, "For it
is sweet to die for one's country."

The sleeping ones restlessly turned over, rubbed their eyes, and opened
their ears to this wonderful address. The entire regiment, officers
included, soon became his audience, and all were inspired with the
oft-repeated words, "For