fe and thought in China; every occidental
invention, every progressive method of society, every scientific discovery
for the betterment of humanity. And especially did it aim to put to death
every native Chinese Christian, to massacre every missionary of the
Christ, and to drive out or destroy every foreign citizen in China. Its
resources were abundant, its equipment was ample, its methods unspeakably
atrocious. Month after month the published record of this rebellion was
sickening--its unwritten history beyond human imagining. Impenetrable were
its walled cities, countless in numbers, unknown the scenes of its vast
plains and rivers and barren fields and mountain fastnesses. Fifteen
thousand native Christians and hundreds of foreigners were brutally
massacred. At last it centered its strength about the great city of
Peking. And a faint, smothered wail for deliverance came from the Foreign
Legation shut in behind beleaguered walls inside that city to starve or
perish at the hands of the bloody Boxers.

Very patiently the World Powers waited and warned the Chinese leaders of a
day of retribution. Fanatics are fanatics because they cannot learn. The
conditions only whetted the Boxers to greater barbarity. They believed
themselves invincible and they laughed to scorn all thought of foreign
interference. Then came the sword of the Lord and of Gideon to the battle
lines at Tien-Tsin on the Peiho River, as it came once long ago to the
valley of Jezreel.

In the mid-afternoon of an August day Thaine Aydelot heard the bugle note
calling the troops to marching order. Thaine was fond of the bugler, a
little fifteen-year-old Kansas boy named Kemper, because he remembered
that Asher Aydelot had been a drummer boy once when he was no older than
"Little Kemper," as the regiment called him.

"I wish you were where my father is now, Kemper," Thaine said as the boy
skipped by him.

"Where's that? It can't be hell or he'd be with us," Little Kemper
replied.

"No, he's in Kansas," Thaine said.

"Oh, that's right next door to heaven, but I can't go just yet. There's
too much doing here," the little bugler declared as he hurried away.

Young as he was, Little Kemper was the busiest member of the regiment.
Life with him was a continual "doing" and he did it joyously and well.

"There's something doing here." Thaine hardly had time to think it as the
armies came into their places. It was the third day after the regiment had
reached T