Just now I finds Mr. Robert pumpin' him for some of the details of his experience over there, and after I lugs in an atlas they sent me out for, so Skid can point out something on the map, I just naturally hangs around with my ear stretched. "Ah, that's the place," says Skid, puttin' his finger on a dot, "Mustapha! Well, it was about six miles east from there that we had our worst job. Talk about messes! Those Turks may not know how to build a decent railroad, but believe me they're stars at wrecking a line thoroughly! At Mustapha they'd ripped up the rails, burned the ties, and blown great holes in the roadbed with dynamite. But I soon had a dozen grading gangs at work on that stretch, and new bridges started, and then I pushed on alone to see what was next. "That was when I got nearest to the big noise. Off across the hills the Turks were pounding away with their heavy guns, and I was anxious for a look. I kept going and going; but couldn't find any of our people. Night was shutting in too, and the first thing I knew I wasn't anywhere in particular, with nothing in sight but an old sheep pen. I tried bunking there; but it wasn't restful, and before daylight I went wandering on again. I wanted to locate our advance and get a cup of coffee. "I must have gone a couple of miles farther, and it was getting light, when a most infernal racket broke loose not one hundred yards ahead. Really, you know, I thought I'd blundered into the midst of a battle. Then in a minute the noise let up, and the smoke blew away, and there, squatting behind a machine gun up on the side of a hill, was one lone Greek soldier. Not another soul in sight, mind you; just this absurd, dirty, smoke-stained person, calmly feeding another belt of cartridges into his gun! "'Hello!' says I. 'What the deuce are you doing here?'--'Holding the hill, Sir,' says he, in good United States. 'Not all alone?' says I. He shrugs his shoulders at that. 'The others were killed or hurt,' says he. 'The Red Cross people took them all away last night,--Lieutenant, Sergeant, everyone. But our battery must keep the hill.' 'Where's the rest of the advance, though?' says I. 'I don't know,' says he. 'And you mean to say,' says I, 'you've been here all night with the Turkish artillery hammering away at you?' 'They are bad shots, those Turks, very bad,' says he. 'Also they send infantry to drive me away, many times. See! There come some more. Down there! Ah-r-r-r! You will, will you?' And with that he turns loose his big pepperbox on a squad that had just started to dash out of a ravine and rush him. They were coming our way on the jump. Scared? Say, if there'd been anything to have crawled into, I'd have been in it! As there wasn't, I just flattened myself on the ground and waited until it was all over.