They did not guess, at least Cairns did not, that the low music brought tears that night—­because they were in dreadful need of it, because they were filled with inner agony for something beautiful, because they had been spiritually starved.  And all the riding hard, shooting true and dying game—­those poor ethics of the open—­had not brought a crumb, not a crumb, of the real bread of life.  Nor could mountains of mere energy nor icebergs of sheer nerve!  In needing the bread of life—­they were different from the others, and so they lingered, unable to speak, while a poor little Tagal—­“one of the niggers”—­all unconsciously played.  “Surely,” they thought, “his soul is no dead, dark thing when he can play like that.”

* * * * *

...  So often, Bedient watched admiringly while Cairns wrote.  The correspondent didn’t know it, but he was bringing a good temporal fame to Thirteen and himself in these nights.  He had a boy’s energy and sentiment; also a story to tell for every ride and wound and shot in the dark.  The States were attuned to boyish things, as a country always is in war, and a boy was better than a man for the work....  Often Bedient would bring him a cup of coffee and arrange a blanket to keep the wind from the sputtering candles.  The two bunks were invariably spread together; and Bedient was ever ready for a talk in the dark, when Cairns’ brain dulled and refused to be driven to further work, even under the whip of bitter-black coffee....  They were never to forget these passionate nights—­the mules, the mountains, nor the changing moon.  Cairns was tampering with a drug that is hard to give up, in absorbing the odor and color of the oriental tropics.  It filled his blood, and though, at the time, its magic was lost somewhat in the great loneliness for the States, and his mother and sisters—­still, he was destined to know the craving when back on consecrated ground once more, and the carnal spirit of it all, died from his veins.

The most important lesson for Cairns to grasp was one that Andrew Bedient seemed to know from the beginning.  It was this:  To make what men call a good soldier means the breaking down for all time of that which is thrillingly brave and tender in man.

Healy is a type—­a gamester, a fiend, a catapult.  With a yell of “Hellsfire!” like a bursting shell, he would rowel his saddle-mule and lead the Train through flood or flame.  His was a curse and a blow.  He seemed a devil, condemned ever to pound miles behind him—­bloody miles.  Sometimes, there was a sullen baleful gleam in the black eye, shaded by a campaign hat, but more often it was wide-open and reckless like a man half-drunk.  Rousingly picturesque in action, a boy would exclaim, “Oh, to be a man like that!” but a man would look at him pityingly and murmur, “God forbid!"...  No other had the racy oaths of this boss-packer.  Here was his art.  Out of all his memories of Healy and the Train, one line stands out in the mind of Cairns, bringing the picture of pictures: