“It’s a perfect shame,” O’Neil exclaimed disgustedly, “to see these fellows throw away their ammunition. Why, a squad of sailors could have picked off twenty of those blackened faced natives across there in the last ten minutes.” He picked up the rifle that had been idly lying beside him in the trench and adjusted the sight to two hundred yards. “Watch me lay out the next fellow who gets funny and jumps on top of his fort and shakes his fist at us.” The midshipmen watched him interestedly, for O’Neil was a dead shot. Suddenly a fine looking warrior leaped upon the trench, brandishing his gun and head knife, using the forceful but picturesque Kapuan tongue in boasts and taunts, hurling them upon all those of his enemies across the river. O’Neil calmly raised his gun, but he did not fire. He dropped it into the hollow of his arm. “It’s too much like murder,” he said, and both midshipmen breathed a sigh of relief. “This isn’t war,” Phil complained bitterly. “We are fighting children. I’d as soon shoot a schoolboy showing himself in bravado from the top of his snow fort as to shoot at those joyful warriors. To them fighting is fun. They do not realize that they are uselessly destroying human life.” “Look!” Sydney exclaimed in admiration, as a Kataafa warrior was seen to rush into the river a few hundred yards above them and endeavor to reach the body of a native whom he had slain. A rain of bullets fell all around him, and as he reached the side of his victim, his head axe raised, he fell dead. So excited had both sides become that no thought of personal safety was given. Both sides stood upon the top of their trenches and uttered their savage cries of defiance. The Kataafa men who had cheered on their hero, exulting in the prospect of a trophy, saw themselves suddenly exposed to a disgrace. “We ought to stop it,” Sydney exclaimed. “Look at our men exposing themselves needlessly.” “You might as well try damming Niagara first,” Phil returned. “It would be an easier job.” “There’s the real thing for you,” O’Neil cried, bringing his rifle up to his shoulder as a lithe Kataafa native darted across the intervening water scarcely half waist deep, swung the dead body of his friend upon his back and returned to his trenches unscathed. “If they don’t stop this foolishness,” the sailor said, “I’m going to teach ’em a lesson.” He lowered his rifle from his shoulder. “I could have dropped him a half a dozen times,” he complained, “and yet these wild savages have wasted a barrel of lead shooting at him, and not a single hit.” The excitement along the Fuisa River began to die down after this last piece of bravado. O’Neil and the midshipmen had sent word to the chiefs in their vicinity to save their ammunition. About three o’clock those at the Fuisa River were much concerned over heavy musketry fire behind them and on the right flank of the allied position. A woman came along the road from Ukula, carrying fruit for her relatives in the trenches.