When the two
had time for each other again, Colonel Fred Funston's name had been
written round the world in the annals of military achievement, the
resourceful, courageous, beloved leader of a band of fighters from the
Kansas prairies who were never defeated, never driven back, never daunted
by circumstances. Great were the pen of that historian that could
fittingly set forth all the deeds of daring and acts of humanity of every
company under every brave captain, for they "all made history, and left
records of unfading glory."

The regiment had reached the Rio Grande, leaving no unconquered post
behind it. Under fire, it had forded the Tulijan, shoulder-deep to the
shorter men. Under fire, it had forged a way through Guiguinto and
Malolos. Under fire, it had swam the Marilao and the Bagbag. And now,
beyond Calumpit, the flower of Aguinaldo's army was massed under General
Luna, north of the Rio Grande. A network of strong fortifications lay
between it and the river, and it commanded all the wide water-front.

As the soldiers waited orders on the south side of the river, Doctor
Horace Carey left his work and sought out Thaine's company, impelled by
the same instinct that once turned him from the old Sunflower Trail to
find Virginia Aydelot lost on the solitary snow-covered prairie beyond
Little Wolf Creek.

"What's before you now?" the doctor asked, as he and Thaine sat on the
ground together.

"The Rio Grande now. We must be nearly to the end if we rout General Luna
here," Thaine replied.

"You've stood it well. I guess you don't need me after all," Carey
remarked.

"I always need you, Doctor Carey," Thaine said earnestly. "Never more than
now. When I saw Captain Clarke wounded and carried away on the other side
of the Tulijan, and could only say 'Captain, my captain,' I needed you.
When Captain Elliot was killed, I needed you; and when Captain William
Watson was shot and wouldn't stay dead because we need him so, and when
Metcalf, Bishop, Agnew, Glasgow, Ramsey, and Martin, and all the other
big-brained fellows do big things, I need you again. Life is a great game;
I'm glad I'm in it."

Horace Carey had never before seen Thaine's bright face so alert with
manly power and beauty and thoughtfulness. War had hardened him. Danger
had tried him. Human needs, larger than battle lines alone can know, had
strengthened him. Vision of large purposes had uplifted him. As he stood
before the white-haired physician whom he