en bound for the battle-front.

At 2.30 o'clock that afternoon the baseball-players had the
parade-ground to themselves, and no one was in sight on the street in
front of the home of the post commander of marines but a small boy in
rompers, playing with a fox-terrier. A few seconds later the head of a
column of soldiers of the sea, clad in khaki, and in heavy marching
order, swung into that brick-paved street. The major-general commandant
and a group of officers from headquarters took up posts on the turf of
the parkway beside the curb. A sergeant of marines, in khaki, came
running across the parade-ground, set up a motion-picture camera, and
began to crank. Another sergeant was snapping "stills" as the column
came to a halt and faced about toward the group of officers.

The company officers of the battalion stepped out in front of
Major-General Barnett and saluted. Then the general spoke for a few
minutes in an every-day, conversational tone. He told the men that he
trusted them, that he knew they would uphold the honor and high
traditions of the corps when fighting in France under General Pershing.
The officers saluted and stepped back to their places. The battalion
stood at rigid attention for a moment. Then with a snap, rifles jumped
to shoulders, squads swung into column formation, and the line passed
swiftly down the street to the gate of the navy-yard.

No cheering crowd greeted the marines as they emerged from the gateway,
and only a few persons saw them board a train of day-coaches for a
near-by port. The sun-browned fighting men, all veterans of campaigning
in Hayti and Santo Domingo, waved their campaign hats from the windows
and the train moved away.

Half an hour later another battalion marched briskly down the same
street from the end of a tree-lined vista, and formed on the
parade-ground. The bluejacket nine was still at baseball practice, but
the marines were at the far end of the field, too distant to attract
particular attention. A third battalion formed and stacked arms in front
of the barracks. Presently, without so much as a bugle-note for warning,
the two battalions formed, picked up their arms, and defiled out of
sight, back of a screen of shade-trees.

A quarter of an hour later a rumor came to the bluejacket ball-players
that the marines were boarding ship. The jacky beside the home plate
dropped his bat and ran toward the street, his team-mates close behind
him. They were too late to catch