nd dropped on his face in the
dusty way as a whirl of bullets split the air above his head.

As he sprang back to his place beside his comrade, other sentinels joined
them, and behind them loomed the tall form of Captain Clarke.

"What's around there, Aydelot?" Clarke asked.

"Didn't you hear?"

Thaine's reply was lost in a roar of rifles, followed by increased firing
along the entire line, massing to the north before the Twentieth's front.

"There are ten more men on the way up here. We'll hold this place until
reinforcements come," Captain Clarke declared.

It was such a strategic point as sometimes turns the history of war. But
the odds are heavy for sixteen men to stand against swarms of insurgents
armed with Mausers and Remingtons. In the thrill of that moment, Thaine
Aydelot would have died by inches had this tall, cool-headed captain of
his demanded it. Clarke arranged his men on either side of the way, and
the return fire began. Suddenly up the road a lantern gleamed. An instant
later a cannon shot plowed the dust between the two lines of men.

"They've turned a cannon loose. Watch out," Clarke called through the
darkness.

A second time and a third the lantern glowed, and each time a cannon ball
crashed through a nipa hut beside the little company, or threw a shower of
dust about the place.

"They have to load that gun by the light of a lantern. Let's fix the
lantern," Thaine cried, as the dust cloud settled down.

"Good! Watch your aim, boys," Captain Clarke replied.

The bullets were falling thick about them. They whizzed through the
bushes, they cut into the thatched huts, they flung swirls of dust on the
little line of brave soldiers, they poured like stinging sweeps of hail,
volley after volley, along the Tondo road. When the lantern flashed again,
sixteen bullets riddled it, and without its help the big gun was
useless.

"Poor lantern! It fell on the firing line, brave to the last," Thaine
declared as the smoke lifted.

But the loss of the cannon only doubled the insurgents' efforts, and they
threshed at the invincible little band with smoking lead. On the one side
was a host of Filipino rebels, believing by the incessant firing of the
Kansans that it was facing an equal host. On the other side were sixteen
men who, knowing the odds against them, dared the game of war to the
limit.

"How many rounds have you left?" Captain Clarke asked.

"Only one," came the answer.

"Give it to them w