might be carried back to the soil of the homeland. As the
sunset deepened to richer coloring and the battlefield grew still and
still, far along the lines the bands of the English Royal Artillery and
the Welsh Fusiliers, with the bagpipes of the Scottish Highlanders,
mingled their music with the music of the splendid band of the Fourteenth
American Infantry in the sweet and sacred strains of the beloved old
hymn:

Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee.
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me.
Still all my song shall be
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee.

And Thaine Aydelot knew that his last and biggest lesson was learned.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE END OF THE WILDERNESS

Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre?
Have I kept one single nugget (barring samples)? No, not I.
Because my price was paid me ten times over by my Maker.
But you wouldn't understand it. You go up and occupy.
--The Explorer.

The victory at Yang-Tsun had come with a tremendous loss of life. To go on
now promised the cutting to pieces of the entire army. To stay here and
await reinforcements would mean the slaughter of all the foreigners in
Peking. In a council of war the next day English and Indian, Russian,
German, Japanese, Italian, and French, general after general declared for
the wisdom of waiting at Yang-Tsun for reinforcements.

Up spoke then General Chaffee of the American command:

"I will not wait while the Boxers massacre the helpless Christians. Stay
here or go back to your own countries, as you please. My army will go on
to Peking, if it must go alone."

And his will prevailed.

Followed then a memorable march, with the Stars and Stripes ever leading
the line. The strength of the force was thirteen thousand now and one
thousand of these fell by the way before the end of the journey.

After Yang-Tsun, for the only time in this ten days' campaign, the
soldiers undressed and bathed themselves like Christians in the
unchristian Peiho, and on the next day, which was the Sabbath, they
listened to the military chapel service. Six days they forged onward with
the same cruel heat, and scalding air, and alkali dust, and poison water,
over dreary plains, through