CHAPTER X.

LIEUTENANT ELLIS IS CONCERNED

By the time Hemming and O'Rourke reached Tampa, about thirty thousand men had gone under canvas in the surrounding pine groves and low-lying waste places. There were Westerners and Easterners, regulars and volunteers, and at Port Tampa a regiment of coloured cavalry. Troops were arriving every day. Colonel Wood and Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt, with their splendid command of mounted infantry, had just pitched their shelter-tents in a place of scrub palmetto, behind the big hotel. Taken altogether, it was an army that made Hemming stare.

The friends went to a quiet hotel with wide verandas, cool rooms, open fireplaces, and what proved equally attractive, reasonable rates. They inquired of the clerk about Mr. Hudson. He remembered the gentleman well, though he had spent only two days in the place. "He had a daughter with him," the man informed them, and, turning to the front of the register, looked up the name. "There's the signature, sir, and you're welcome to it," he said. The correspondents examined it intently for some time.

"We know that _that_ means Hudson," remarked O'Rourke, at last, "and I should guess _John_ for the other sprawl."

"Sprawl is good," said Hemming, straightening his monocle, "but any one can see that _Robert_ is the name."

"I've put a lot of study on it," said the clerk, "and so has the boss, and we've about agreed to call it _Harold_."

"Take your choice," said O'Rourke, "but tell me what you make of the address."

"Boston," cried the clerk.

They stared at him. "You were all ready," said Hemming.

"Yes, sir," he replied, "for I've been thinking it over for some time."

"Why the devil didn't you ask him?" inquired O'Rourke, fretfully.

"Lookee here, colonel," said the hotel man, "if you know Mr. Hudson, you know darn well why I didn't ask him where he came from."

"High and haughty?" queried O'Rourke.

The clerk nodded.

"You had better reconsider your course, old chap," laughed the Englishman.

His friend did not reply. He was again intent on the register.

"I make seven letters in it," he said, "and I'll swear to that for an N."

"N nothing," remarked the clerk; "that's a B."

"Yes, it is a B, I think, and to me the word looks like--well, like Balloon," said Hemming.

O'Rourke sighed. "Of course it is New York; see the break in the middle, and a man is more likely to come from there than from a balloon," he said.

"Some men go away in balloons, sir," suggested the clerk.

Just then the proprietor of the hotel entered and approached the desk. He Was an imposing figure of a man, tall and deep, and suitably dressed in the roomiest of light tweeds. His face was round and clever. He shook hands with the new arrivals.

"Military men, I believe," he said.

"Not just now," replied Hemming.

"Do you know where Mr. Hudson is at present?" asked O'Rourke, in casual tones.

"Mr. Hudson, of Philadelphia? Why, no, sir, I can't say that I do," answered the big man.

"How do you know he's of Philadelphia?" asked the Englishman.

"He wrote it in the register; look for yourself," was the reply.

"No," said O'Rourke, mournfully, "but it is a very dry evening, and if you will honour us with your company as far as the bar, Mr.--"

"Stillman,--delighted, sir," hastily replied the proprietor.

The three straightway sought that cool retreat, leaving the clerk to brood, with wrinkled brow, above the puzzle so unconsciously donated to him by a respectable one-time guest.

The weary delay in that town of sand and disorder at last came to an end, and Hemming and O'Rourke, with their passports countersigned by General Shafter, went aboard the _Olivette_. Most of the newspaper men were passengers on the same boat. During the rather slow trip, they made many friends and a few enemies. One of the friends was a youth with a camera, sent to take pictures for the same weekly paper which O'Rourke represented. The landing in Cuba of a part of the invading forces and the correspondents was made at Baiquiri, on the southern coast. The woful mismanagement of this landing has been written about often enough. O'Rourke and Hemming, unable to procure horses, set off toward Siboney on foot, and on foot they went through to Santiago with the ragged, hungry, wonderful army. They did their work well enough, and were thankful when it was over. Hemming admired the American army--up to a certain grade. Part of the time they had a merry Toronto journalist for messmate, a peaceful family man, who wore a round straw hat and low shoes throughout the campaign. During the marching (but not the fighting), O'Rourke happened upon several members of his old command. One of the meetings took place at midnight, when the Cuban warrior was in the act of carrying away Hemming's field-glasses and the Toronto man's blanket.

After the surrender of Santiago, Hemming received word to cover Porto Rico. He started at the first opportunity in a gunboat that had once been a harbour tug. O'Rourke, who was anxious to continue his still hunt for the lady who had nursed him, returned to Florida, and from thence to New York.

In Porto Rico Hemming had an easy and pleasant time. He struck up an acquaintance that soon warmed to intimacy with a young volunteer lieutenant of infantry, by name Ellis. Ellis was a quiet, well-informed youth; in civil life a gentleman-at-large with a reputation as a golfer. With his command of sixteen men he was stationed just outside of Ponce, and under the improvised canvas awning before his door he and Hemming exchanged views and confidences. One evening, while the red eyes of their green cigars glowed and dimmed in the darkness, Hemming told of his first meeting with O'Rourke. He described the little boat tossing toward them from the vast beyond, the poncho bellied with the wind, and the lean, undismayed adventurer smoking at the tiller. Ellis sat very quiet, staring toward the white tents of his men.

"Is that the same O'Rourke who was once wounded in Cuba, and later nearly died of fever in Tampa?" he asked, when Hemming was through.

"Yes, the same man," said Hemming, "and as decent a chap as ever put foot in stirrup. Do you know him?"

"No, but I have heard a deal about him," replied the lieutenant. It did not surprise Hemming that a man should hear about O'Rourke. Surely the good old chap had worked hard enough (in his own daring, vagrant way) for his reputation. He brushed a mosquito away from his neck, and smoked on in silence.

"I have heard a--a romance connected with your friend O'Rourke," said Ellis, presently, in a voice that faltered. Hemming pricked up his ears at that.

"So have I. Tell me what you have heard," he said.

"It is not so much what I've heard, as who I heard it from," began the lieutenant, "and it's rather a personal yarn. I met a girl, not long ago, and we seemed to take to each other from the start. I saw her frequently, and I got broken up on her. Then I found out that, though she liked me better than any other fellow in sight, she did not love me one little bit. She admired my form at golf, and considered my conversation edifying, but when it came to love, why, there was some one else. Then she told me about O'Rourke. She had nursed him in Tampa for several months, just before the time old Hudson had recaptured his fortune."

"O'Rourke told me something about it," said Hemming. "He thought, at the time, that he was an invalid for life, so he did not let her know how he felt about her. Afterward the doctors told him he was sound as a bell, and ever since--barring this last Cuban business--he has been looking for her."

"But he does not know that she loves him?" queried Ellis.

"I really couldn't say," replied Hemming.

Ellis shifted his position, and with deft fingers rerolled the leaf of his moist cigar. In a dim sort of way he wondered if he could give up the girl. In time, perhaps, she would love him--if he could keep O'Rourke out of sight. A man in the little encampment began to sing a sentimental negro melody. The clear, sympathetic tenor rang, like a bugle-call, across the stagnant air. A banjo, with its wilful pathos, tinkled and strummed.

"Listen! that is Bolls, my sergeant. He is a member of the Harvard Glee Club," said the lieutenant.

Hemming listened, and the sweet voice awoke the bitter memories. Presently he asked: "What is Miss Hudson's address?"

"She is now in Europe, with her father," replied his companion. "Their home is in Marlow, New York State."

"May I let O'Rourke know?" asked Hemming.

"Certainly," replied Ellis, scarce above a whisper. He wondered what nasty, unsuspected devil had sprung to power within him, keeping him from telling that the home in Marlow was by this time in the hands of strangers, and that the Hudsons intended living in New York after their return from Europe.

O'Rourke had asked Hemming to write to him now and then, to the Army and Navy Club at Washington, where the letters would be sure to find him sooner or later; so Hemming wrote him the glad information from Porto Rico.