Hike was glad to let him take the levers. Creeping back to the freight-platform, and covering himself with a fold of the tarpaulin against the piercing night-wind, he shivered off to sleep; worrying a little over the wounded men; hoping they were not killed; picturing the glorious excitement of a game on the athletic field at Santa Benicia, where they fought their best, but did not try to kill each other, to leave each other a mass of dead flesh on the field. For the first time, Hike really understood that war is a horrible thing, to be prevented as far as possible. He remembered a friend of his father’s, a brave, high-ranking officer and a good commander, who had often said that war was a crime, which the Army ought to prevent, instead of trying to bring it on. He was glad, as he lay there thinking, that he was with a man like Lieutenant Adeler, who also hated war, and who was coming down here not to make war, but to prevent the treacherous fighting of Welch. Welch was the sort of man who liked to bring about war. He hoped that the tetrahedral, as used by the Army, would be so terrible a thing that it would prevent other nations from making war. With the picture of the poor greasers, and a couple of Americans, writhing on the ground, mowed down by the machine-gun, bloody and in agonized pain, Hike prayed, simply and sincerely, for the end of all war. He was not afraid. He was ready for the struggle about the ranch at Aguas Grandes. But he hoped that that struggle would end the warring of Welch. He understood now something that Jack Adeler had said: that some day, before long, he hoped that the whole Army would be busy with great engineering, with building Panama canals, and stringing wires, and setting up wireless-stations, and making great forests, instead of preparing for fighting. That, too, was what Hike wanted to do. He hoped, some day before long, to be an engineer, in good, stout laced leather boots and a sombrero, building a fine big steel bridge across some dangerous pass in the High Sierras, with the good open air and the deep woods about him. He planned to know wireless and aeroplanes and steel—and he hoped that every new thing he did, every fine bridge or aeroplane that he built, would be one step toward making a more civilized world, which would not want war; which would prefer happiness and peace and the good brave mountain woods to fighting like clay-grimed savages. It was the first time that Hike really knew how serious he could be. He didn’t feel much like a gay Santa Benicia boy, just then. At last, exhausted, he fell asleep. He was awakened by the stopping of the motor, and, in the gray light of early dawn, saw that they were circling over a group of adobe buildings, with cattle corrals about, while a bunch of men were shouting, “He’s here! Adeler’s here!” They were at Aguas Grandes. CHAPTER XXIV A SKIRMISH AT AGUAS GRANDES