The old horse plodded slowly and sometimes the girl slipped down and walked alongside. Clem had little conversation after he had told how "porely" the step-mother was. "He reckoned hit all come about from gittin' dew-pizened." But, as they made the trip, the girl recited to him the news from the far-away islands.
The man listened stolidly, and at the end inquired:
"Did I onderstand ye rightly, M'nervy? War Henry Falkins ther feller he saved?"
When the information was confirmed, he ejaculated in wonderment:
"Well, doggone my ornery skin! Hit seems like jest yestiddy thet Newty lit out acrost these-hyar hills, hell-bent on lay-wayin' Henry Falkins fer a-penitensheryin' him."
Then Minerva remembered the lad's face when she had told of Henry Falkins awarding her medal, and for the first time she understood.
Back in the town with the church the months went by with routine of garrison duty and periods of fevered activity.
The energetic Rosario had for a time lain dormant after the paralyzing blow which had obliterated so large a portion of his command, but as the natives began to evince a growing confidence in the protecting hand of the American government, the general bestirred himself, and once more tidings of his atrocities drifted into headquarters. During these months there passed between Sergeant Newton Spooner and his major no reference to the morning in the jungle when the last echo of the old threat had found expression.
It was as though, on this subject, the lips of each were sealed by oath, but Sergeant Spooner went about his work with a smart and soldierly alacrity that kept the men of his company always on their toes. When there was trying work to do the commanding officer found himself instinctively turning to that company, and since the company responded to its top-sergeant like a muscle to a nerve, that meant that he turned to Newton Spooner.
Villages with _Americanista presidentes_ went up in smoke. Haciendas of loyal Spaniards and Ilacanos were raided, and their people put to the bolo. With the wild stories of Rosario's activity that drifted in, there came persistently the fame of a white man who stood at the Filipino's right hand, giving him counsel. The rumor added that this man was a deserter from the American army. The truth or falsity of that allegation did not particularly interest the 26th Volunteer Infantry. The 26th from its Shirt-tailed beginnings had been stainless of the reproach of desertion. If other commands had been less fortunate it was not their affair. But it was very much their affair that, when they ran down a band of guerillas and closed with them, they encountered more numerous casualties, because someone had been teaching the brown men how to fight and shoot as they had never in their lives fought and shot before.