He was a bright, cheery, brave-eyed lad of twenty who six months earlier was stumbling through the sciences at the great university on the heights beyond the glorious bay, never dreaming of deadlier battle than that in which his pet eleven grappled with the striped team of a rival college. All on a sudden, to the amaze of the elders of the great republic, the tenets and traditions of the past were thrown to the winds and the "Hermit Nation" leaped the seas and flew at the strongholds of the Spanish colonies. Volunteers sprang up by the hundred thousand and a reluctant Congress accorded a meagre addition to the regular army. Many a college athlete joined the ranks, while a limited few, gifted with relatives who had both push and "pull," were permitted to pass a not very exacting examination and join the permanent establishment as second lieutenants forthwith. Counting those commissioned in the regular artillery and infantry, there must have been a dozen in the thronging camps back of the great city, and of these dozen, Billy Gray--"Belligerent Billy," as a tutor dubbed him when the war and Billy broke out together--the latter to the extent of a four-day's absence from all collegiate duty--was easily the gem of the lot. One of the "brightest minds" in his class, he was one of the laziest; one of the quickest and most agile when aroused, he was one of the torpids as a rule: One of the kind who should have "gone in for honors," as the faculty said, he came nearer going out for devilment. The only son of a retired colonel of the army who had made California his home, Billy had spent years in camp and field and saddle and knew the West as he could never hope to know Haswell. The only natural soldier of his class when, sorely against the will of most, they entered the student battalion, he promptly won the highest chevrons that could be given in the sophomore year, and, almost as promptly, lost them for "lates" and absences. When the 'Varsity was challenged by a neighboring institute to a competitive drill the "scouts" of the former reported that the crack company of the San Pedros had the snappiest captain they ever saw, and that, with far better material to choose from, and more of it, the 'Varsity wouldn't stand a ghost of a show in the eyes of the professional judges unless Billy would "brace up" and "take hold." Billy was willing as Barkis, but the faculty said it would put a premium on laxity to make Billy a 'Varsity captain even though the present incumbents were ready, any of them, to resign in his favor. "Prex" said No in no uncertain terms; the challenge was declined, whereat the institute crowed lustily and the thing got into the rival papers. As a result a select company of student volunteers was formed: its members agreed to drill an hour daily in addition to the prescribed work, provided Billy would "take hold" in earnest, and this was the company that, under his command, swept the