the marines do more than
fight. After all, men cannot be handling rifle and bayonet every waking
minute--they would become abnormal creatures if they did, of use only in
war time; and it would be a terrible world if war were our end and aim.
The marines get aviation, search-light, wireless, telegraphic, heliograph,
and other signal drill. They plant mines, put up telegraph and telephone
lines in the field, tear down or build up bridges, sling from a ship and
set up or land guns as big as 5-inch for their advance base work.

It is a belief with marines that the corps can do anything. Right in New
York City is a marine printing plant with a battery of linotypes and a
row of presses. They set their own type, write their own stuff (even to
the poetry), draw their own sketches, do their own photography, their
own color work--everything. Every man in that plant is a marine, enlisted
or commissioned. Every one has seen service somewhere outside his
country.

One was in a tropic country one time after an all-night march to a river
where the ferry was a water-soaked bamboo raft. They had to wait until
some native might happen along with a bull--or it might be a cow--to tow
the raft across. After crossing the river twice in that day, the young
marine commander halted on the bank and said: "That's sure not crossing
in a hurry if we had to. Might's well go to it and build a bridge right
now."

They cut down trees, got a portable pile-driver from their transport,
rigged it up and set to work. They hoisted the hammer--a good heavy
one--and let it drop. Bam! she struck, and into the mud for about two
feet went the pile. Fine! They hoisted the hammer again--four men
hauling on pulley blocks did the hoisting--and let her go again. This
time instead of a fine bam! the hammer went a fine splasho! into the
river. The great heat and dampness of the place had warped the runways;
almost every other time they let that hammer drop, it jumped the runways
and into the river.

But that was all right. They could fish her out and hoist her up by man
power again. It was when they left the solid bank and had to put out
into the river that their troubles began. A pile-driver ought to have a
pretty solid foundation. Ought to have! They took two dugout canoes,
lashed them together, put a bamboo deck across, set their pile-driver on
the deck and turned to again. It made a kind of a wabbly base; besides
hauling the hammer out every time it jumped into