Page:At the Fall of Port Arthur.djvu/260

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242
AT THE FALL OF PORT ARTHUR

freely for the Czar and the country they loved. The hand-to-hand conflicts became bloody in the extreme, thousands upon thousands being slaughtered between the rising and the setting of the sun.

From the seacoast the command to which Gilbert was attached moved to a small place called Fugi Klan. Here they went into camp for several weeks and while there were joined by a number of other commands, including that containing those old soldiers of fortune, Dan Casey and Carl Stummer, who had served with Gilbert and Ben in Cuba and in the Philippines.

"Py chiminy, of it ton't done mine heart goot to see you, cabtain!" exclaimed Carl Stummer, rushing up and giving Gilbert a handshake. "How you peen, annavay?"

"First rate, Stummer. And how are you, Casey?"

"Sure an' it's meself is as foine as a fiddle," answered the Irishman, with a broad grin on his freckled face. "It's a great war, ain't it now? Both soides is fightin' like a pair o' Kilkenny cats, so they are! An' where is me ould friend, Captain Russell?"

"He was captured by Chunchuses."

"No!" came from both Stummer and Casey, and then they poured in a volley of questions which were