One morning, after several fatiguing days on reconnaissance duty waist-deep in mud and water, Company E, of the --th Regiment of Infantry, like a lot of rollicking school-boys on a holiday, were indulging in numerous sports outside their huts in the street. The spirit of the soldiers was contagious--even the native venders seemed to feel the reaction. Their voices, usually so harsh and unpleasant, had a more cheerful ring as they cried their wares; and the customary stoical expression of their black faces had actually given place to a bearable smile, by this atmosphere of good humor and fine spirits. The always-busy commander of Company E, Captain Sever, was engaged with delayed papers and reports, and was writing with an energy seldom seen in that enervating country, when he was interrupted by a bold native at his elbow crying: "Huevos, leche, mangoes, lucatan. Quiere, Capitan?" ("Eggs, milk, mangoes, bananas. Do you wish, Captain?") The Captain turned abruptly, and was about to reply with usual American brusqueness, but was halted by the broad smile and unusual intelligent look of the invader of his privacy. As he studied the face trying to recollect where he had seen it before, the expression changed for one of disappointment. Then did he recognize in the strong and athletic figure before him the shrunken and emaciated one he had seen borne off the field of carnage, but four short weeks before. "Hello, Benito! where did you come from?" he began, and offered a friendly hand to the native; continuing, "You don't look much like the chap I found in the cogonales, trying to hide from me a short time back, beyond the north line. I thought you'd moved from this land of strife, lizards, and mosquitos, and staked out a claim in the celestial regions. Did not know you at first. You must have seen some pretty tough times before I found you if this is how you look after undergoing a month of American cruelty." He ran on in this train, not giving the dusky soldier-merchant a chance to answer, but all the time studying the face and taking in every line of the splendid specimen of a Tagalo before him. Benito was taller than the average of his tribe. His muscular limbs showed a strength and athletic training that would be the envy of any Yale man or West Pointer. His back was as straight as the proverbial ramrod and as supple as the leaf of the cocoanut palm. His eyes were brown, and fairly danced with good nature and intelligence. They were frank, too, an unusual thing with a native. All in all, he was a perfect model of the physical man in bronze. He placed his tray, laden with the luxuries he had cried, on a box near by, and seated himself in such a natural and easy manner, making himself so perfectly at home, that Sever's feeling of surprise at the action, soon changed into one of amusement over the unusual familiarity of a Tagalo toward a hated "Yankee." But he was to find out that this compatriot of Aguinaldo was unusual in many ways.