s." Ruggles makes a charge. What was found
in Lieutenant Overton's holster. "It's a cowardly lie!" Hal
faces disgrace.

CHAPTER XXI--UNDER A DARK CLOUD 221

Hal's face turns ghastly. "Do you believe me guilty, sir?"
Detained in camp on parole. "I'll fight every inch of the
way." Word that the Mexicans are rising. American women in
peril. Lieutenant Overton's bitter disappointment.

CHAPTER XXII--THE SERGEANT WHO REMEMBERED 232

"Ye lop-sided shadow of a rookie!" Sorry he didn't throw the
scoundrel overboard. Hal Overton is vindicated. Permission
to join the rescue party. "Sound the recall." Stirring times
ahead.

CHAPTER XXIII--IN THE THICK OF THE RIOT 238

Troops ordered to Holmesville. Up the river at racing speed.
"Sweethearts in peril." Flames in the sky. A lightning-like
landing. "Forward on double quick!" "Charge!" shouts
Lieutenant Overton.

CHAPTER XXIV--"THE SOLDIERS ARE COMING!" 247

A path hewn with swords. A sharp, ugly clash. A woman's
scream guides the three young officers. Just in time.
Enraged Texans held in check. A double service wedding.
Ready for the great war.

Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants

CHAPTER I

THE LETTER FROM THE WAR DEPARTMENT

"Whew, but it's hot here!" grumbled Sergeant Noll Terry, of the United
States Army.

"That's an odd complaint to hear from a young man who served so actively
for two years in the tropics," laughed Mrs. Overton, a short, plump,
middle-aged matron.

"Well, Mother, it is a hot day," put in Sergeant Hal Overton quietly.

"Yes, it is," agreed Hal's mother, "though you two, who came from the
Philippines the very picture of health can't feel the weather to-day
much. New Jersey isn't in the tropics."

Hal's mother said that with an air of finality. Her son and his chum had
been through the most strenuous forms of active army service in Uncle
Sam's colonial possessions, the Philippine Islands. If they could endure
the heat in that tropical belt, even that day's broiling weather at home
must seem cool by comparison.

"I suppose you have an idea, Mother, that the nearer you go to the
equator the hotter the weather gets."

"Well, isn't it so?" challenged Mrs. Overton.

"It may be, as far as actual degrees of heat are marked off on the
thermometer," ex