Declared! The first gun has been fired. The call for volunteers has come
from Washington, and the Governor has said he will make Fred Funston
Colonel of the first regiment of Kansas volunteers, and he sent out his
appeal for loyal Kansas men to offer themselves. I tell you again, Leigh
Shirley, I'll not be the one hundred and twenty-five thousandth man in the
line. I'm going to be right close up to little Fred Funston, our Kansas
boy, who is to be our Colonel. I have a notion that University students
will make the right kind of soldiers. There will be plenty of ignorance
and disloyalty and drafting into line on the Spanish side. America must
send an intelligent private if the war is to be fought out quickly. I'm
that intelligent gentleman."

"But why must we fight at all, Thaine? Spain has her islands in every sea.
We are almost an inland country. Spain is a naval power. Who ever heard of
the United States being a naval power? I don't understand what is back of
all this fuss." Leigh asked the questions eagerly.

"We fight because we remember the Maine," Thaine said a little boastfully.
"We are keeping in mind the two hundred and sixty-six American sailors
who perished when our good ship was sunk in the harbor at Havana last
February. If we aren't a naval power now we may develop some sinews of
strength before we are through. Your Uncle Sam is a nervy citizen, and it
was a sorry day for proud old Spain when she lighted the fuse to blow up
our good warship. It was a fool's trick that we'll make Spain pay dearly
for yet."

"So it's just for revenge, then, for the Maine horror. Thaine, think how
many times worse than that this war might be. Isn't there any way to
punish Spain except by sending more Americans to be killed by her fuses
and her guns?" Leigh insisted.

"There is more than the _Maine_ affair," Thaine assured her. "You know,
just off our coast, almost in sight of our guns, Spain has held Cuba for
all these centuries in a bondage of degradation and ignorance and cruel
oppression. You know there has been an awful warfare going on there for
three years between the Spanish government and the rebels against it. And
that for a year and a half the atrocities of Weyler, the Captain General
of the Spanish forces, make an unprintable record. The United States has
declared war, not to retaliate for the loss of the _Maine_ alone, awful as
it was, but to right wrongs too long neglected, to put a twentieth century
civilizat