lding
it in the wrong place. When I awoke I was so stiff with rheumatism
that I had to be helped up from under the fence, and they put me in
an ambulance with a soldier who had his jaw shot off. He was not good
company, because I had to do all the talking. And in that way we moved
towards the enemy.

CHAPTER XII.

I am Instructed to Capture and Search a Female Smuggler--
I Protest in Vain--The Terrible Ordeal--Beauty Behind the
Pulpit--Pills, Plasters, Quinine--The Pathetic Letter--
We Meet Under Happier Stars.

It was at this time that the hardest duty that it was my lot to perform
during my service, fell to me, and the only wonder to me is that I am
alive today to tell of it. If I ever get a pension it will be on
account of night sweats, caused by the terrible and trying work that was
assigned to me. One day the colonel sent for me, and I knew at once that
there was something unusual in the wind. After seating myself in his
tent he opened the subject by asking me if I wasn't something of a hand
to be agreeable to the ladies. I told him, with many blushes, that
if there was one thing on this earth that I thought was nicer than
everything else, it was a lady, and that a good woman was the noblest
work of God. He said he was on to all of that, but it wasn't a good
woman that he was after. That startled me a little. I had heard the
officers had a habit of fooling around a good deal with certain females,
and I told the colonel that any duty that I was assigned to I would
perform to the best of my poor ability, but I could not go around with
the girls as officers did, because I couldn't afford it, and it was
against my principles, anyway. He showed me a picture of a beautiful
woman, and asked me if I would know her if I saw her again. I told him I
could pick her out of a thousand. He said she was a smuggler. She had a
pass from a general, who seemed to be under her influence to a certain
extent, for some reason, and went in and out of the lines freely. The
general didn't want to order her arrest, because she would squeal on
him, but he wanted her arrested all the same, and the idea was to have
some corporal in charge of a picket post take the responsibility of
arresting her without orders, refuse to recognize her pass, take the
quinine and other medicines, and money away from her, and then be
arrested himself for exceeding his authority. He said they wanted a
corporal who had every appearance o