Tien-Tsin along the sandy plains, led on by one
purpose, to reach the old city of Peking and save the lives of the foreign
citizens shut up inside their compound--whether massacred, or living,
starved, and tortured, this allied army then could not know.

The August day was intensely hot, with its hours made grievous by a heavy,
humid air, and the sand and thick dust ground and flung up in clouds by
sixteen thousand troops, with all the cavalry hoofs and artillery wheels.
It was only a type of the ten days that followed, wherein heat and dust
and humid air, and thirst--burning, maddening thirst--joined together
against the brave soldiery fighting not for fortune, nor glory, nor
patriotism, but for humanity.

As they tramped away in military order, Thaine Aydelot said to his nearest
comrade:

"Goodrich, I saw a familiar German face up in the line."

"Friend of yours the Emperor sent out to keep you company?" Goodrich
inquired with a smile.

"No, a Kansas joint-keeper named Hans Wyker. What do you suppose put him
against the Boxers?"

"Oh, the army is the last resort for some men. It's society's clearing
house," Goodrich replied.

The speaker was a Harvard man, a cultured gentleman, in civil life a
University Professor. The same high purpose was in his service that
controlled Thaine Aydelot now.

"I don't like being at the tail-end of this procession," a big German from
the Pennsylvania foundries declared, as he trudged sturdily along under
the blazing sun. The courage in his determined face and his huge strength
would warrant him a place in the front line anywhere.

"Nor I, Schwoebel," Thaine declared. "I came out with Funston's 'Fighting
Twentieth.' I'm used to being called back, not tolled along after the
rear."

"Rock Chalk! Jay Hawk! K U!" roared Schwoebel in a tremendous bellow.

"Rock Chalk! Jay Hawk! K U!" a Pennsylvania University man named McLearn
followed Schwoebel.

"Rock Chalk! Jay Hawk! K U!" went down the whole line of infantry.

The old Kansas University yell, taken to the Philippines by college men,
became the battle cry of the Twentieth Kansas Volunteers, who when they
returned to civil life, left it there for the American, army--and "Rock
Chalk! Jay Hawk! K U!" became the American watchword and cry of all that
"far flung battle line" marching on through dust and heat to rescue the
imperiled Christians in a beleagured fortress inside the impregnable city
of Peking.

"You needn't worry a