"Nonsense!" exclaimed the other. "I thought we finally had settled that question away back in Montana. But here we are, and for the next few days you'll have enough to do to knock all thoughts of gratitude out of your head, for I am going to appoint you my A. D. C. Perhaps you don't know what that is, so I'll tell you. An A. D. C. is a chap who, in active service like the present, has to work twenty-five hours out of the twenty-four, and gets no thanks for anything he does. Do you want the job?"
"Yes," replied Rob, happily, "and I'd take it if it were twice as hard."
So our lad joined the army, and for the next two days, from early morning until late at night, he was about as busy as a boy well could be--helping the captain pack, writing his letters, running hither and thither with orders, and doing whatever was given him to do, with a cheerful promptness that won for him the good-will of all hands.
At the end of that time he found himself in company with a number of officers occupying the rear car of a long troop-train on which was loaded Battery Z--men, horses, guns, and all--headed southward, up the broad Willamette Valley, and starting on their thirty-six-hour run towards the city of the Golden Gate. On the following day they skirted for hours the base of grand old Shasta, one of the mightiest and most beautiful of American mountains. Then they ran down the exquisite valley of the Sacramento, which they first saw as a brook and at last crossed as a mighty river pouring a turbid flood into San Pablo Bay. A little later came San Francisco, with the bustle and anxious excitement of debarking, marching through the city, and re-embarking, this time on the great, white transport that was to bear them away in the track of the setting sun, across seven thousand miles of Pacific waters.
In all this time Rob, while fully intending to write to Hatton concerning his adventures and change of plans, had not found a minute when it seemed possible to do so. Not until the _Logan_, with her crowded passenger-list, including civil officials, military officers, troops, government school-teachers and other employés, and her vast miscellaneous cargo of live-stock, guns, ammunition, machinery, and stores of every description, had got so far out to sea that the Farallones were only a blur on the horizon behind her did it occur to him that he had neglected his last opportunity for sending back a message until he should reach the distant Hawaiian Islands. Then he sat down and wrote a long letter that he was able to mail eight days later at Honolulu, but which did not reach Hatton until a full month from the date of his departure. In the mean time Mr. Hinckley had cabled to China that Rob would sail by the _Oriental_ from Tacoma on a certain date, and when finally he learned of his nephew's changed plans, it did not seem worth while to cable again, as the lad was already due to arrive at Hong-Kong, and so could tell his own story.