The light rain soon gave way to a steady downpour, which threatened to become a deluge before nightfall; and in many spots the soldiers had to leave the road and take to the paddy fields, the thin crust of ground and growth of the one being preferable to the oozy, sticky mud of the other. The caribao carts, piled high with the camping outfit, lumbered along with difficulty; and at every quarter of a mile one or another got stuck, and had to be helped out of its difficulty. “This is hardly a march to victory, lieutenant,” observed Captain Banner, as he ranged alongside of his second in command. “I don’t believe any of us will want a bath for a month after this rain stops,” returned Gilbert grimly, “at least, not from the knees up.” “It is well you qualified your first remark,” said the captain, who was a West Point graduate, a well-read officer, and a first-rate fellow. “From my knees down I feel as if I had been wandering around in an ocean of filthy pitch. It seems to me the natives ought to be able to make bricks of this sticky mud without half trying.” “We are going to have some fun when we reach the river a mile below here,” put in Major Morris, who had also come up. “Captain Anderson came over last night, and he said it was running at a fearful rate then.” “And what about that new bridge we worked so hard to put up?” asked the young lieutenant. “It’s completely swept away. The captain thought the storm had done it, but I think the guerillas helped matters along. They hate us worse than they hate poison.” “I suppose they reckon we have kept them from a good deal of booty,” said Gilbert. “Well, we have, for a fact.” The storm now became so violent that conversation could be carried on only with difficulty, and presently the party relapsed into silence. The route step had been ordered at the very start; and all of the regulars were marching to suit themselves, although keeping something of a semblance to a column of fours. At last the river was gained, and a halt was ordered,--an unnecessary command, since none of the troops could go forward. The stream was running two feet deep over its ordinary banks, and swirling along with the rapidity of a mill-race. It was fully sixty feet wide, and just deep enough in the middle to be dangerous. As the bridge was gone, it was determined to look for a suitable fording-place, and Gilbert was placed in command of a detachment to ascend the river-bank for that purpose. The course of the soldiers, six in number, lay over a series of rough rocks, and then through a small jungle opening upon an abandoned rice field. “If the guerillas destroyed that bridge, we want to keep our eyes open,” was Gilbert’s comment to his men, as they scrambled over the rocks, in Indian file. “They don’t travel far in the rain, and they may be close at hand.”