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86 better than the old tar had expected. He asked immediately for details, and though he drank in every word his manner showed that his thoughts were far away.

"I wish I had been along," he said bitterly. "If he wasn't killed, the Filipinos must have carried him off a pretty good distance. I wonder if General Lawton tried to find out anything under a flag of truce."

"Everything that could be done was done—I have Captain Gaston's word on that," answered Jack Biddle. Captain Gaston and Ben were well known to each other.

Ben sank down on a bench, and for several minutes said not a word, but the tears stood in his eyes, tears which he hastily dried that nobody might see them. Then Gilbert Pennington came in, to tell him that the regiment was ordered to move within the hour.

"It's too bad!" declared the young Southerner. "But brace up, Ben, 'While there is life there is hope,' and it's a pretty sure thing that he wasn't killed." And with this ray of comfort Ben had to be content.

During the days that General Lawton had been