ke a lot of trouble, even if we won all the big
battles?"

"Yes. The Boers couldn't stand up to the British very long in their
fight, but they kept under arms and made the English armies work mighty
hard to bring about peace."

"Well, I hope we never do have a war, Jack. This is only a game, of
course, but it gives you an idea of what the real thing would be like,
and it must be dreadful. It makes me realize, somehow, what it might
have been like in the Civil War, when we were killing one another.
Somehow reading about those battles doesn't give you as much of an idea
of how it must have been as even a single morning of this sham war."

They were moving along fast as they talked, and they were in the
outskirts of Hardport now. The town was full of soldiers. General Bean's
brigade had been reinforced by the arrival of nearly ten thousand more
men, and there were, altogether, about sixteen thousand troops there.
General Harkness, thanks to Jack Danby and the quick wit of General
Bean, who had understood the necessity of altering his plans for the
capture of the place when he got Jack's report, had made good his boast
that he would make the place his divisional headquarters for the night.

The place was all astir. Small automobiles, painted red, carried
bustling officers from place to place, delivering orders, preparing for
the next step in the defense of the State capital. General Harkness,
Jack found, after making several fruitless inquiries of officers who
seemed to be too busy to bother with a small boy, who, had they known
it, was a far more important factor in the campaign than they were at
all likely to be, had established his headquarters at the Hardport
House, the leading hotel of the town, and there Jack went.

He was kept waiting for some time, after he had stated his name, and
that he was under orders to report to the commanding general, but when
he reached General Harkness he found him a pleasant, courteous man, and
very much pleased with the work that he and Tom Binns had done.

"Now," said the General, "I've got some more and very important work for
you to do. I've got to find out as soon as I can what the enemy's plans
are. I don't expect you to do all of that, but you can play a part."

He walked over to a great wall map of the whole field of the operations,
and pointed out a road on it.

"That road is the key to the situation this afternoon," he said.
"General Bean is pressing forward to reach it