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a guard besides the officer, who, armed with a revolver, acted as the overseer. The work was very telling on the men, and often out of a whole company not more than twenty-eight reported. Some grew as strong as oxen under this unusual routine; others had to take advantage of the sick report. The soldiers were required to work five hours a day, and double time after a day of rain. Considerable Moro labor was employed on the last sections of the road. A unique feature of the work was the erection of small bridges made of solid logs from the material at hand, and bolted down by long steel bars. The "elbow" bridge which makes a bend along the hillside near the first camp is a triumph in the engineering line. The camps were moved on as the work progressed, and the advance guard ran considerable risk. The Moros had an unexpected way of visiting the scene of operation, and admiring it from certain hiding-places in the woods. As they could hike their thirty or forty miles a day along the trails, they often came much nearer to the troops than was suspected. Sentry duty was especially a risky one, as frequently at night the Moros used to fire into the camp. Only about one hundred yards along the trail a soldier, who had gone into the woods for a "short cut," received one from a Moro who was waiting for him in the shadow of a tree. The camp at night, illuminated by the blue light of the stars, the forest casting inky shadows on the ground, seemed like some strange, mysterious domain. The officers around the tent of the commanding officer were singing songs, accompanied by the guitar and mandolin. The soldiers also from a distant tent--it was their own song, and the tune "The Girl I Left Behind Me"--practicing close harmony, began: "O, we're camped in the sand in a foreign land Near the mighty Agus River, With the brush at our toes, the skeeters at our nose, The jimjams and the fever. We're going up to Lake Lanao, To the town they call Marahui; When the road is built and the Moros killed, We'll none of us be sorry. We're blasting stumps and grading bumps; Our arms and backs are sore, O! We work all day just a dreamin' of our pay, And d----n the husky Moro! When taps sounded, we turned in beneath two blankets in a wall-tent lighted by a feeble lantern. All night long the restless jungle sounds, the whisper
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