er the smooth surface. There
was just one word in the soldier's vocabulary that would disturb him,
but this word never failed to bring on a typhoon. This innocent yet
magic word was "carabao," the name of the water buffalo, the beast
of burden that formed the American "cracker line" in the Philippines
before the introduction of the ever-faithful mule. This is how it
came to have such a terror for poor Timmons:

His regiment was undergoing its training on the "firing-line," and
his company furnished twelve men daily for the "lunette," a kind of
detached bastion about 800 yards in front of the line in the direction
of the enemy. This was a lonesome detail. Just twelve men to man an
isolated little fort, the enemy known to be in great numbers not more
than four or five miles away. It came Timmons' turn to go on this duty
for, the first time. The detail, in command of a sergeant, marched
out at sundown and relieved the men who had been on the previous
twenty-four hours. The old guard turned over its orders and at the
same time reported having seen some armed "gugus" in the direction
of the Mariquina River, which ran in front of the "lunette" about a
thousand yards away, the intervening space being an open rice-field.

The old guard marched off and the new one on, throwing off their
blanket-rolls and making themselves as comfortable for the night
as possible. But two men at a time were required to remain awake
and vigilant.

Night came on as black as the enemy they were fighting, and with it
all the breath-stopping and hair-raising noises that the myriads of
flying and crawling animals of that war-ridden country produces. There
was the "vantriloquest" bird, gifted with a voice that is the essence
of all that is frightful and hideous in sounds--forty demons running
amuck and coming your direction.

In painful harmony was the low, deep tones the "chuck me," whose
vocal cords are tuned after the left end of the key-board of the
pipe organ. Then there were slimy lizards, chameleons, tree-frogs,
scorpions, and wonderful bugs, all with voices peculiar to their
families. There were lightning-bugs as big as jack-o'-lanterns,
and tarantulas with round and velvety bodies, and a spread of legs
that would cover a frying-pan. All this and the known presence of
a sneaking enemy was enough to test the nerves of veterans, so its
effect on recruits can easily be imagined.

Timmons' time to remain awake and go on post duty arrived. Jone