Hour after hour they clattered and bumped along the fearful road-bed. Forward! Bump, stop! Bump, ahead! Stop! Little by little, mile after mile, they progressed. Here the rails were slippery, and with shovel in hand the men jumped off the cars and covered them with dirt so that the wheezy engine could once more proceed. At a town named Quezalgaque, just as darkness fell, the engine ran out of water. A bucket line was formed down the steep river embankment at this spot and under the glare of flaming torches the men worked filling the boiler till the Navy Machinist in charge of the engine stated the gauge was "full up." Then forward once more with the cheers of the detachment of Uncle Sam’s sailors, stationed here to guard the bridge, ringing in their ears. The night was so black that it was difficult to see one’s hand before one’s face and when, after about five miles more of bumping and thumping had been covered, the train again halted, word passed from the head of the train for no one under any circumstances to leave the cars. There seemed to be a mysterious something in the air, as of a dense crowd of humanity pressing in from all sides, yet there was no sound, other than the puffing of the wood-burner at the head of the train. "Wonder what makes this place so spooky like?" whispered Dick to Dorlan, who sat beside him filling his old corn-cob pipe preparatory to lighting up; "I have a feeling that if I put my hand out I’d touch some human being; and yet I can’t see a thing in this blackness." Dorlan did not reply, but the light from his match made a small glare in the surrounding night. Small as it was the men in his immediate vicinity were startled at what it disclosed. A sea of faces, a forest of armed men, crowded up to the very edge of the track on all sides. "Whew! Did you see them?" whispered a man near Dick. "Every beggar in sight has a gun, and here we are right in the middle of ’em, and we didn’t know it." There was a restless movement on the part of the marines. Those who had been drowsing awakened, to grip more firmly the rifle which, since darkness, no longer held the knife-like bayonet. One man quietly opened the bolt of his rifle and nervously fingered a clip of cartridges in his belt. "Easy, men!" came the caution down the length of the train, and the slight flutter of nerves calmed to steadiness. But the tension was there, and only the excellent discipline held them in check, for these rebels were too close for comfort. Then followed the slow ringing of the locomotive’s bell, brakes were released and the train moved on, crossed a high trestle bridge, and again halted. "Pile out, everybody! Throw our company stores off the cars at once and stow them alongside the track. Get some lanterns working, men. On the jump, now!" and Captain Henderson strode along the embankment shining his flash-light and encouraging his men to do good work.