turbans, though
disgracefully unclean, were silk. Their coats were fastened by brass
military buttons, and their sashes, green and red, with a long fringe,
were tied around their waists; their trousers, like a pair of riding
breeches, buttoned up the side.

While spending the first evening at the club, I had seen mingling
with the young lieutenants, immaculate in their new olive uniforms,
bronzed, mud-bespattered officers in the blue army shirt and khaki,
with the Colt's six-shooter hanging from an ammunition belt. These
were the strangers from the town of white tents on the border of the
woods. At midnight possibly, or even later, they would mount their
horses and go riding through the night to the encampment on the
hill. The very next day one of the immaculate lieutenants, laying
off the olive uniform, might have to don the old campaign hat and
the flannel shirt, and follow his unshaven comrades up the road.

We stretched our army cots that night in the roulette room (this
is not a country of hotels), and to the rattle of the balls and the
monotonous drone of the croupier, "'teen and the red wins," dropped off
to sleep. On the day following the _Dr. Hans_ dropped in with Generals
Wade and Sumner, and the jingle of the cavalry was heard as they rode
out with mounted escort to inspect the operations of the road. After
a dance and a reception at the residence of the commanding officer in
honor of the visitors, "guard mount," the social feature of the day,
was viewed from the pavilion in the little plaza where the exercise
takes place. Its dignity was sadly marred that evening when a Moro
datto, self-important in an absurd, overwhelming hat, accompanied
by an obedient old wife on a moth-eaten Filipino pony, and a dog,
ignoring everybody, jogged along the street and through the lines.

I walked out to the camp next morning with Lieutenant Harris. Even for
this short stretch the road was not considered altogether safe. We
forded the small river just beyond the cavalry corral, where an old
Spanish blockhouse stands, and where a few old-fashioned Spanish
cannon still lie rusting in the grass. A Moro fishing village--now a
few deserted shacks around the more pretentious dwelling of the former
datto--may be met near where the roadway joins the beach. Pack-trains
of army mules, with their armed escorts, passed us; then an ambulance,
an escort wagon, and a mounted officer.

Two companies of the Tenth infantry were camped in a