Page:On to Pekin.djvu/23

Rh get them. He will want Uncle Sam's boys to look as well as the soldiers of any other nation."

"Are any of the Volunteers going?"

"Not for the present. But there is no telling how many of the troops will have to go before the trouble in China is over," concluded Major Morris, as he walked on, to spread the news among his other brother officers.

Gilbert Pennington was a young man of Southern blood who had drifted into the army more because of his intense patriotism than for any desire to become a fighter of men. He was from Richmond, Virginia; and, upon the death of his parents and several near relatives, he had wandered around from one place to another, made a trip to the West Indies, and then gone to New York to settle down in business as a book-keeper.

While in New York, the War with Spain broke out; and along with his intimate friend, Ben Russell, Gilbert joined the volunteer service, and served in Cuba as one of Roosevelt's Rough Riders, as related in one of my previous books, entitled "A Young Volunteer in Cuba."

Shortly after his return from Cuba the troubles in